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Consumers have submitted a record number of complaints about car loans with the British financial citizens’ representative, which increases the pressure on the supervisory authorities before a decisive legal proceedings in the next month.
The Financial Ombudsman Service announced on Tuesday that it had received new cases about car loans in the three months to December and overtaking credit cards as a product that was subject to the unresolved symptoms in the British Financial sector.
The fast growth shows how car loans quickly become the largest British consumer financing scandal, since the banks paid 50 billion GBP for repayment via payment insurance.
The controversy has added to one Feeling of turbulence At the FOS, after his managing director unexpectedly terminated last month, days before the chairman of the historically reserved corporation called for a “radical” fill in his rules and announced the plans for departure.
The executives of City of London criticized the Ombudsman – an independent position that is available to the rules of the Financial Conduct Authority, because they would quickly award remuneration to customers, which the bosses say that foreign investors are held from the sector.
The government reacted by demanding it an evaluation of the recovery system.
The figures for the last quarter of 2024 show that the cases of car financing from the previous quarter have risen by a third and has tripled more than a year earlier to achieve their highest record.
The data includes both rental purchase and conditional sales agreements for the sale of cars.
Cases on car financing have continued to piling up in the Ombudsman, although the FCA has the complaint procedures in this area, while the supervisory authorities are waiting for the result of crucial legal proceedings.
The Supreme Court can be heard next month An appeal From car loan providers who questioned a judgment of the Court of Appeal last year, which shocked the banks by agreed with consumers in their symptoms about “secret” commissions for car loans.
The judgment that it was illegal for banks to pay a commission without the consent of the customer prompted HSBC analysts to estimate that the total cost of compensation for banks could reach 44 billion GBP.
This was followed by a decision by the Supreme Court in December, in which Barclays referred a contestation of Barclays against a FOS decision appealing Against this decision.
Until these cases are fully solved and the FCA ends its break for the complaint procedure, the civic representative cannot make any decisions on car loan claims.
“We continue to see high amounts of cases of the Motorfinanzkommission and would encourage companies to check whether the complaints are treated by the regulations of the FCA complaint,” said James Dipple-Johnstone, interim chief Ombudsman.
In order to avoid a protocol of cases, the citizens’ representative carries out preliminary investigations into car finance cases that, according to Dispull-Johnstone, “make sure that we can resolve them as soon as possible if we have the clarity that we need”.
Despite higher car loan, the total number of symptoms in the ombudsman rose to 68,430 in the last quarter of 2024, which corresponds to a decrease of 7 percent compared to the previous quarter.
Almost 80 percent of car loans in the three months to December were submitted by professional representatives, such as:
The ombudsman who decided to start Charging processes for claims management companies In order to bring cases from the next month, such organizations made up for 47 percent of all complaints between April and December last year, compared to 21 percent in the same period in the previous year.
The FOS said that 36 percent of the cases submitted directly by consumers were confirmed, while only 26 percent of the complaints confirmed by professional representatives.
