Martin Lewis has urged drivers with car finance to check if they could be owed thousands of pounds. The MoneySavingExpert has launched a free tool to help people check whether or not they were mis-sold finance agreements when signing their contracts.
In addition to streamlining the process, the money guru also urged people to steer clear from targeted ads trying to push no win, no fee options on unsuspecting clients.
“Yet do that and, if you’re due a payout, you’ll lose up to 50 percent of it. Pointless,” he said. The tool which has gone live on the MSE website has been shown to lawyers who have given it the seal of approval, he added.
“Already 2.3m complaints have been submitted through it, such as Catherine’s – she emailed us after: “Your online tool is brilliant. I have submitted 6 ‘claims’, yes 6 – and I did it only because of how easy, clear and simple you made it.”
The hidden Discretionary Commission Arrangements (DCAs) could have been detailed in some people’s policies, which effectively allows finance firms to bump up interest rates without customers realising. Where this has happened, some companies are “bunged” extra commission.
MoneySavingExpert has previously warned motorists who purchased a vehicle on finance between April 2007 and January 2021 could be impacted by the investigation.
It is estimated that around 95 percent of car finance deals had a commission model in place with around 40 percent featuring the ‘discretionary commission arrangements’ being looked into.
However, road users will have to wait a bit longer to find out if their clams have been successful. The FCA was set to finalise its investigation into the issue on September 25, 2024 but this has now been pushed back to next year.
The findings will now be reported in May 2025 with the delay set to allow investigators to “analyse the data collected from firms”. However, back in July Martin admitted that the chance of drivers getting paid out was now “more likely”.
Posting on social media site X, Martin wrote: “Clearly the delay is disappointing for those awaiting a decision, including the 2m who’ve submitted complaints via the free MSE tool.
“Yet it does signal its still looking favourably on ruling it is mis-selling and a payout is due – even though the insurance firms have been pushing back hard both publicly and through the courts.
“Most important thing people can do is log their complaint asap, so that if there is a time bar, hopefully there’s less chance of it being ruled out of time.”
