Is it safe to lease a car (or van) online? When you sit back and reflect on this, it is utterly amazing that thousands of customers have placed their faith in our business to deliver the second biggest financial decision they will make, after their house/mortgage.
As a family business with over 50 years’ experience, Car Lease UK also found the move to an online platform very surreal when this started to happen a few years ago.
In contrast to now, almost all of our business was conducted face-to-face with local customers who transacted with us based on reputation, newspapers adverts or just those who were passing by.
Fast forward a few years and almost of all of our customers will never meet the team here and will find us by virtue of a well-placed advert online… eBay, AutoTrader, Facebook all now sell cars, but leasing is a much more credit focused application vs. car finance…
So what steps should I take to ensure a safe online experience?
What customers quickly forget is that they need to do some basic due diligence before making a firm decision; price is not everything. Instagram is a pretty horrific example of how customers soon disregard all safety as they hunt for the best car for the best price.
Indeed many of the adverts witnessed on there are not clear or accurate financial promotions, they advertise “no deposit/no credit” options without any explanation as to how this is operating and they indicate that this is a lease product being offered when it clearly isn’t.
Car Lease UK personally receive up to five enquiries every day asking for a bad-credit/no deposit contract solution – to answer this quickly, and in a somewhat damming fashion, this doesn’t exist nor will it ever. If you have bad credit, focus on correcting this via good financial decisions i.e. pay down any loans or credit cards, try to obtain a mortgage and register on the electoral register.
In the modern era of financial responsibility, lenders are not going to tolerate customers who demonstrate an inability to afford the vehicle or manage their credit responsibly.
In terms of practical steps for the customer to take:
· Check the company number of the leasing broker – this should be displayed on the website and email and can be reviewed at https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/
· Check the company on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) website at https://register.fca.org.uk/
· Check the company on the Information Commissioner’s Officer website at https://ico.org.uk/
· Check the company at the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association https://www.bvrla.co.uk/
All of the above are very quick and easy to do. These are fundamentally important to us, as all leasing brokers must account to all of the above. Should you encounter a poor experience or something arises which doesn’t seem correct, you can get in touch with any of these bodies for assistance.
If the broker cannot clearly display or support being part of any of the above, you SHOULD not deal with them.
Do consider you may have to transfer money and key personal details about you or your business which could lead to significant financial fraud and abuse if managed inappropriately. If it seems too good to be true, it often is.
