Mr & Mrs W (a Financial Ombudsman Service Matter)

Mr & Mrs W bought a brand new Volkswagen Tiguan R-Line 4motion 2.0 Tdi 190ps DSG from a VW Main dealer in March 2017 by way of a regulated consumer HP agreement.

On delivery, Mr & Mrs W became concerned about a strange and unusual “grating” noise from the gearbox which they reported to the VW dealer who inspected the vehicle.

Having agreed that other similar vehicles did not demonstrate the same noise, the dealership took the matter up with Volkswagen Technical, who dismissed the noise as a characteristic of the vehicle.

Mr & Mrs W commissioned an expert report which concluded that the gearbox noise rendered the vehicle not of satisfactory quality, causing them to escalate the complaint to both the dealer and Volkswagen Financial Services.

Both rejected the complaint, with the dealer offering Mr & Mrs W the opportunity to escalate the complaint to the Motor Ombudsman Service and VWFS the offering the opportunity to escalate it to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which Mr & Mrs W did.

Both the Motor Ombudsman Service and the Financial Ombudsman Service accepted the complaint although subsequently, the Financial Ombudsman Service informed Mr & Mrs W that they could not have two concurrent complaints with different Ombudsman services.

As a result, Mr & Mrs W discontinued the complaint with the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Unbeknown to Mr & Mrs W, the Motor Ombudsman Service does not have a mandate to decide cases like theirs for two reasons. Firstly, it was VWFS that sold the car to Mr & Mrs W, not the dealer, and secondly, it is the Financial Ombudsman Service which has exclusive authority to adjudicate complaints involving finance and/or companies.

Consequently, although the Motor Ombudsman upheld Mr & Mrs W’s complaint, the decision was worthless as it could not be enforced against the dealer or the finance company.

If this were not bad enough, complaints can only be escalated to the Financial Ombudsman Service within 6 months of receiving the final decision from the finance company, meaning Mr & Mrs W were technically out of time, leaving Mr & Mrs W no choice but to litigate.

After paying the finance payments for almost 2 1/2 years since the purchase of the VW Tiguan R-Line and without having used it since raising the complained, they contacted Stormcatcher Law.

During the initial consultation, it became apparent to Mr & Mrs W that they had been ill-advised to pursue the complaint through the Motor Ombudsman Service, made worse by the information provided by the Financial Ombudsman Service and exacerbated by legal advice from a previous solicitor.

In short, they had wasted over two years. Nevertheless, Stormcatcher took on the case and presented the facts to the Financial Ombudsman Service, demonstrating the extenuating circumstances which resulted in Mr & Mrs W making their complaint hugely out of time.

The Ombudsman eventually accepted the submissions and the complaint for rejection of the car.

Mr & Mrs W were in many respects back to square one, but with a clean sheet. Stormcatcher re-framed their complaint, drafted what is to all intents and purposes a letter of claim and presented the relevant evidence and law to the Ombudsman.

A year later and 3 ½ years into a 48-month agreement, the Financial Ombudsman Service upheld the complaint and ordered Mr & Mrs W to reject the car, the Hire Purchase agreement to be unwound, with their deposit refunded along with all but two monthly payments.