In Focus Consumer Credit


Left-right: David Lynch; Jinmi Macaulay; Simon Bayley; Stewart Whyte >>


consumer, because the consumer believes that they are dealing with the


broker, but the broker passes it off saying they supplied the car and it is the wrong colour because the retailer ordered the wrong colour and so the customer would have to deal with them. The consumer never gets a straight answer from anyone, they just tend to get passed from pillar to post. It can be frustrating to us because we


have obligations to our lenders that the goods should arrive as described, so we can be left holding the responsibility when, in fact, we are the least likely party in the whole transaction.


AA: Our customers are introduced to us by dealers from customer contact both face-to- face in the dealership and electronic, and we have just accepted that it is part of business that if a dealership supplies the wrong car, then we expect them to take it back and unwind the whole thing. We mainly fund used cars and most of our


agreements have come through the on-site dealer network but even the traditional dealerships now do sell on what used to be called ‘distance sale’. Our HP documents can be e-signed online at the dealership or on the customer’s PC and the whole deal can be done electronically. There is a risk that less-reputable dealers


may drop the car off and push the keys through the letterbox. The customer comes back and says ‘this is not what I ordered’. Or even when a vehicle is delivered by appointment it may not be what the customer thought they were getting if it had not been seen prior to delivery. There is a lot of precedent on that anyway:


the consumer has their rights under the Consumer Credit Act if the goods are bought electronically or through ‘distance sale’ and


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We use body-worn cameras so that, when an attendance to repossess is being made, if there is a complaint then we can go back and look at that thoroughly


the year before last the Advertising Standards Authority took action against a major company for misleading advertising. So it has just become our practice that if


the customer has not test-driven the vehicle and the vehicle is not what they ordered or what was advertised then we will expect the deal to be unwound. It is the best outcome for all parties involved.


DL: As a supplier to companies like the ones around this table, we do not have the luxury to not make an attendance. We have all the technologies that are being talked about for in-bound communications, but we have to make an attendance. So what we use technology to do is, in effect to increase the transparency out in the field. We audio-record all our vulnerability


visits so we can evidence through calibration what has happened. We use body-worn cameras so that, when an attendance to repossess is being made, if there is a complaint then we can go back and look at that thoroughly. We track agents to make sure that they are where they should be and, ultimately, they are doing the job that they should be. And then, finally – and this is the newest


piece to Marston, through an acquisition – is the proactivity so that we can use ANPR


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to ping vehicles as they are driving around the country, and locate them. Before all this, our processes were probably very traditional: if you did not pay in full for your asset, then we would come and collect your asset. Now we have used to technology to inspire


increased levels of confidence amongst clients, so that when we see their risk appetite change, we can help them with someone doing the right thing on the door. We want to be exactly what they would expect as an extension to their business.


AD: It comes back to where we started on reputational risk – it is not worth anyone’s while to take up the customer’s time doing something that is not in their interests.


DL: As we sit here today, we have 120 vehicles driving around the country which are contracted to drive through at least 1.8 million postcodes at least twice a year, constantly pinging vehicle registration plates. All we need from people is a list of vehicles that we should be looking for and we can feed that information back, including GPS coordinates. We are then able to repossess the vehicle


or we pass the information back to the customer and they can use it however they need. We see the repossession element as being extremely reactive – it is the end- game – so we are trying to give clients a better opportunity to be on the front-foot and actually identify where some of these really hard-to-find vehicles are, once you have been through a process of understanding whether that person is in a short, medium, or long-term financially or socially vulnerable position, to make sure that it is absolutely fair and the right thing to do to remove a vehicle from them. CCR


June 2019


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