“Your first contact with us (although you may not notice it) is usually after you have submitted your application for a loan to one of our approved car sales partners and they have in turn asked us on your behalf to approve you for a car loan. All of our approved car sales partners are licensed credit brokers and their car sales depots are located throughout the UK to make buying a car more convenient for you.”
We will keep the information on our website up to date and we will make changes where it is found that it does not accurately reflect our business practices or where it does not comply with advertising rules.
In most cases we will make a decision within an hour. This may be longer if you are self employed or an agency worker and we need to see your bank statements in order to prove your regular income. You will be informed of our credit decision by the approved car sales partner with whom you made your application.
You take delivery of the car when you sign the loan agreement until then you are under no obligation whatsoever to buy a car using the loan that we have agreed for you. This means that if you do not see a car that you like then you do not have to buy and if you tell us we will cancel your application.
Certainly, we encourage questions because buying a car is an important decision and we want you to be fully informed. You will find that our approved car sales partner’s employees are very knowledgeable and will answer all your questions but you can also contact us directly on Tel: 0161 379 0300 and we will be glad to help.
We will communicate the decision to our approved car sales partner and they will in turn notify you by email and or SMS. You are entitled to know which credit reference agency we use. If you want to know this information call us we will be glad to let you know Tel: 0161 379 0300.
Our approved car sales partner will contact you with the good news and invite you to visit them to view and select a car. If you find a car that you like you can sign the loan paperwork and drive the car away the same day.
“Our approved car sales partners are open 6 day a week (Monday through Saturday) so you can visit them at a time that is convenient for yourself. Remember that all of their cars are ready to drive away on the day.”
Our approved car sales partner will show you cars that are at or close to your budget, so it’s a good idea to think about how much you might want to spend on your new car before you visit them. Pick a figure that you can comfortably afford each week or month and if you see a nice car at that price then that should be the first car that you test drive.
The Depot Manager will be there to greet you. His first job is to check the documentation needed for you to be able to take out the loan (proof of Identity, Income & Residence). Once the documentation has been checked and the depot manager has confirmed that you can drive a car away today he will then ask you a few questions to find out:
Yes you do. Our approved car sales partner having asked you how much you want to spend on your new car will be able to show you cars that are at or close to your budget. However, if you see another car that you prefer then you should advise them and they will let you test drive that car. If the car you have chosen is more expensive than your budget they will let you know how much extra per week/month it will cost you to buy that car and if you are restricted by a credit limit then they will let you know if you need to put any extra cash deposit into the deal.
This happens from time to time. At the end of the day our approved car sales partner will not be able to sell you a car if you don’t want to buy one. If this happens they will let us know and we will cancel your loan application.
We will provide you with the credit to buy the car using a Hire Purchase agreement. Under a Hire Purchase agreement you can become the owner of the car once you have repaid all of the money that you owe to us under the agreement. Until then your interest in the car is that of a hirer.
The Sales Manager of our approved car sales partner will agree the monthly/weekly payments with you taking into consideration the price of the car, duration of the loan, value of your part exchange and your cash deposit. They will also tell you about the MOT renewal date and the mechanical breakdown warranty.
Now that you have chosen your new car and agreed the payments with the sales manager, they will assist you to complete a budget form so that you and us can determine that you can afford the repayments.
Following this you will be asked if you would like to view the loan documentation. The documentation is sent electronically to your smart phone, from where you can take your time to read through all of the documents. The first document that you will see is the pre-contractual explanations form, this contains the important features of the agreement. You may then read all of the other documentation. You will notice that also included in the document package sent to your smart phone is a short slide-show. The slide-show provides you with extra time to consider the most important features of the agreement before you are asked to sign the agreement. If you have any questions, you should ask the sales manager for an explanation before signing the agreement.
As well as the features of the agreement the documentation package sent to your smart phone will also explain:
After you have electronically signed the Hire Purchase agreement a copy of all of the documentation will be sent immediately to your nominated email address.
You may already have motor insurance and can swap the cover from your old car to your new car with a quick telephone call to your insurer. Or, you can buy five days of cover with Aviva Insurance online at a cost of £15.00 (subject to acceptance at the discretion of Aviva). Alternatively our approved car sales partner will if requested let you use one of their office computers if you wish to apply on line with another insurer.
Since October 2014 road tax can be bought online and paid for monthly by direct debit. Alternatively you can still buy your road tax at the post office nearest to the location of our approved car sales partner’s depot. If you would like to buy your road tax on line our approved car sales partner will be happy to let you use their office computer to do so.
We don’t forget about you after you have bought a car from us because we have an obligation to repair any mechanical or electrical fault that may be on the car at the point of sale. In order to fulfil this obligation we have arranged with our approved car sales partners for them to provide you with a free mechanical breakdown warranty (MBW), which guarantees to repair any mechanical or electrical fault apparent at the point of sale or which becomes apparent during the period of the MBW cover (terms and conditions apply). All of the cars that our approved car sales partners sell are pre-owned, which means that the components all bear a degree of wear and tear from previous use. For this reason we cannot guarantee that the cars they sell are without fault at the point of sale. If you do not accept this fact then we would suggest that rather than buying a pre-owned car you may instead consider only buying a new car.
Your fault repair will be conducted strictly in accordance with the terms of the Mechanical Breakdown Warranty (MBW) cover that was provided to you free of charge. If you are not prepared to conduct your claim in accordance with the terms of the MBW you may ask us to cancel your application to buy a car or alternatively you may still buy a car from the approved car sales partner but choose to arrange your own MBW cover at your own expense. MBW Cover is generally available online from a range of suppliers.
The repairing garage guarantees its work, which means that you may rely upon that guarantee as if you had yourself paid for the repair in the first instance. In which case if the same fault re-occurs during the period of the garages guarantee then you would return the car to the repairing garage where they would attend to the fault at no extra cost to you.
The MBW product provides you with assurance that any mechanical or electrical fault on the car at the date of sale or which occurs during the period of cover will be repaired at the cost of our approved car sales partner. The MBW will not pay for the repair of faults that occur outside the period of cover. If a fault does occur outside the period of cover then you will be responsible at your own expense for that repair.
Yes you can and you can arrange for it to start on the day that the MBW provided by our approved car sales partner ends. This way you can have continuous cover. The product is known as an extended mechanical breakdown warranty and you can buy it on the internet from a range of suppliers and pay for it by one instalment or by monthly direct debit. You should shop around for the best cover and price.
We would like to help you again in the future and in fact a lot of our customers use our loans so that they can buy cars on numerous occasions. The best advice we can give you is to keep your car loan payments fully up to date, that way it will make it easier for us to say yes when you next ask us for a loan. If you have already repaid your loan then buying another car from us is quite simple, just submit your application online to our nearest approved car sales partner and they will get your application underway. If you are still paying for your current car under a loan then we suggest that you leave it until you have repaid about three quarters of the loan before applying, that way you should be able to change your car without having to put too much cash into the deal.
If you wish to make a complaint you may do so by email to info@clsfinance.co.uk, by letter to Unit 2 Alexandra Street, Hyde SK14 1DX or by using the link on the contact us page of this website. Complaints should be addressed for the attention of the Managing Director.
Your complaint will be handled by a manager with the appropriate level of authority to make a decision about the complaint. We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 72 hours. Unless your complaint is particularly complicated we will issue our final written response to you within 14 days.
We will handle your complaint reasonably and objectively taking into consideration all of the relevant evidence and information available to us. Where we agree with your complaint we will suggest an appropriate course of action to resolve the dispute. In the event that we reject your complaint we will inform you of the basis of our decision in the response that we send to you.
We will always try our best to respond to your complaint as quickly as possible and we’ll send you our final response no later than 8 weeks from when you first complained. If you’re unhappy with the progress of your complaint or are not happy with our final response, at this point, you can refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service. The Financial Ombudsman Service will only deal with your complaint if you have given us the opportunity to put matters right, so please contact us first and we will do all we can to help you.
The FOS will arbitrate on any unresolved dispute between you and us. You must have first given us the opportunity to resolve the dispute before contacting the FOS. You can contact the FOS by writing to them at Exchange Tower, London E14 9SR or by telephone on 0800 023 4567. Details are also available on their website, www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.
For information about how we will deal with you after you have taken a loan out with us please read the page on this website called “TCF – Borrowing From Us”.