Ok thank you, you are probably right, since this has happened (2nd December) the only written correspondance we have had was a 10 day late termination letter. They don't seem very hot on keeping you informed of the process or your rights.....the more I think about it the more shady it seems! That certainly is a long post, I will make sure to read it tomorrow when I don't have to prop my eye lids open with matchsticks.....damn pregnancy!! LOL

That hadn't even occured to me, could they actually do that? I will get onto it tomorrow as the loan will be in place by Thursday and I was hoping to pick it up by Monday. You seem very informed by the way, may I ask what legislation that refers too? I am somewhat of a novice

Hiya, well had a letter through the post yesterday acknowledging my complaint and stating a reply would be made within 4 weeks....this would obviously be a useless response if I was still hoping to get the car back from them without having to pay it all. So not too happy about that. Secondly I have just realised that a very personal possession of mine (silver bracelet loaded with charms collected and given over the years) was in the drinks holder in the front and im worried sick that it might not be there when we go to pick it up. What would I do if it isn't there? I've got no way of proving it Any help again please...

Absolutely!! Its quite unbelievable really!! Wonder what I did wrong?? Maybe because I had no PPI? Who knows....

Ok you think I should maybe hold off the request until after its all come back? On another note I am absolutely astonished how differently we have been treated to Becka who has just posted. It seems outrageous!! How can the same company act so differently?

I know that this isn't helpful at all, but seriously count yourself lucky that they havent just sent a collections agent straight away without warning which is exactly what they did to me last week and i'm not even in financial diffciulty! I have had to pay the entire finance off to get my vehicle back and I had no clue they would be repossessing as it was absolutely un-necessary. Do you own more than a third of the car? If so they will have to get a court order before they can actually take the car, which with the christmas period approaching may be delayed somewhat. You could also advise them that you will be employed in the new year and see if that helps, but they may well take on the heard it before approach. In the mean time, I would make sure that you park your car off the road so it doesn't just disappear and if a collections agent turns up do not give them the keys because you won't see it again!!

Just another update with todays events, we are very lucky in that a family member is going to help us to pay off the finance and after informing Santander of this, they are like our new best friends! They haven't stopped ringing all day, they will be holding the car at a compound in Mansfield (65 miles from us - not very local as advised by the collections agent) for us to get the money in place until the 20th December and they have also admitted that there is in fact some possessions still left in the car, which yesterday was a shady subject. I will not be dropping this however as I still believe its thoroughly wrong what they have put us through and I don't believe its been carried out in a legal or professional way at all. If its so easy for them to ring numerous times in a day today why did they not do this to inform us of the continuing arrears or the repossession to start with. I'm sending the request for information tomorrow, so I wonder what it will come back with!! Thanks for everybodies help up to know, i'll keep you informed. Michelle

Thanks, i'll give it a shot, if theres a chance. Really all I want is for it to go away and for them to accpet my payment and allow us to have it back, I can't understand the logic behind it all.

Well to the best of my knowledge and research it seems as we did not own a third of the vehicle they are perfectly entitled to repossess without a court order HOWEVER they are claiming to have sent us numerous letters stating this was going to happen yet we had not received any, which is mainly why I'm so bloody annoyed as I would have sorted it out. I am not in any abnormal financial difficulties, we would have paid if we had known they hadnt received the cheque and direct debit as we had discussed with them previously. I want to know where the notices have disappeared too? How do i know if this is all legal if I havent got them? The actual Santander customer service agent stated the default notice they acted upon was dated 3rd of November, at this point (according to the new direct debit mandates we received on numerous occasions) we owed them £204 which doesn't even amount to two payments. The next payment was due 23rd November and they terminated the contract on 24th! How can they issue a default notice with the above date upon grounds of two missed payments if we didn't even owe them arrears of two months according to dicuments printed at a later date? Another point is that really this guy was just a collections agent, he probably had no clue whether it was likely we would get the car back after the arrears were paid, he was just saying that in order to do his job, and unluckily for us we gave him the keys so technically he didnt steal it. We did it on good faith that what he was telling us was accurate. At 7am in the morning after being woken 2 minutes prior my brain wasnt working properly.

The bloke who came was from Anglia UK Ltd, he wouldnt tell us specifically where it was taken too, he said Santander would tell us after we paid the arrears but it would be a local lock up facility. This is who I spoke to yesterday they are based up north somewhere. As yet we havent been in contact with Santander, when my other half got home the office was already closed so I don;t know whether they will provide the info either yet. Is there a legal requirement for them to tell us where it is and where it will be auctioned? Realistically where will informing the police get me?

Well its been 24 hours and we have had no response. Anyone know how likely it is that this bloke will make anything change? I rang the repossession people to discuss belongings that were left in the car and they are saying there was nothing noted, I know for a fact there was even if it was just small items! I also enquired about the auction date which she also had no idea of. She referred us back to Santander for both issues. Does anyone on here have any experience of buying cars back through auction? Is it likely we will be able too and how long does it take before they will put it out for sale? Any help appreciated. Thanks

Hiya sorry to keep posting but I was under the impression that they did not have to get a court order if we owned less than a third of the car, which unfortunately is the case. If you can advise otherwise I would be very interested. Also if the guy was not a bailiff then what exactly was he? not to sound dense but he certainly looked like the sterotypical bailiff, he did not show us any legal documentation at all. In hindsight I beginning to feel more and more stupid by just allowing him to take it away. Another amendment to my original posting also, what I thought was a default notice was actually a default sum notice making us aware of late payment charges. I have no problem with this but i do however have a problem with where the actual notice has disappeared too!!!

Well good luck with that because from what i've seen so far they don't give two sh*ts about their customers, whether you owe £79.99 or £5000. I have emailed the CEO anyway so I wonder what will happen, probably nothing; I won't be holding my breath anyway as to be honest at 8 months pregnant I am feeling utterly defeated!!

Another update for you before I am about to write this email...... We never received the follow up call from a manager as promised, not really surprised about that one. We received a letter on Saturday morning (4th December) It was a notice of termination as of the 24th November. The actual letter itself is not dated and neither is the envelope so I have no clue when it was sent. Obviously this letter has turned up very late considering its importancy but it still doesnt answer the question as to where the rest have disappeared too......if they were sent at all of course. Lastly....and to add insult to injury, I picked up our house phone messages an hour ago and we had a call from a local santander branch to invite us to discuss our finances. They said they have noticed our numerous accounts e.g. mortgage and current account and would like to discuss special rates on overdrafts amongst other things...but the icing on the cake was "you have also been approved for a credit card which can be discussed in branch immeadiately" I know its probably not all that relevant as they are a huge company but I mean that is ridiculous!!! I don't want your effing credit card I want to pay for my car!!!!

It was on the drive blocked in by my other halfs van, so there was no way he could have taken it without permission. I am kicking myself now, as I didnt realise I didnt have to hand it over. Never experienced anything like this before!

To be honest at 7am I didnt know what to do!! If I had been expecting i'd have had time to research my rights. The guy left me under the impression we could get it back so in the confusion we handed the keys over Charges meaning as in late payment charges? Most probably as we missed a couple of payments when we moved and changed bank accounts. The last time we contacted Santander to ask for DD form we paid £180 and our usual payment is £136? We took out no PPI, only gap insurance. I pulled the original agreement out last night and it was taken at the end of May 2009 so we werent all that far into it really.

Hiya, just to update, my other half was on the phone to santander for most of the day yesterday, they are point blank refusing to allow us to pay for the 2 months we owe, we have even offered to pay more than we owe but they won't even have that. We have requested a manager to ring today as apparently there were no supervisory staff in the office at the time, but as yet have heard nothing! Today i have dug through all the letters etc i have had in the last couple of months and there is no default notice at all. I have had the same direct debit form about 6 times, but no other correspondance yet they claim to have been sending letters out to us, informing us what was going to happen. I have also checked my other halfs credit report and is showing that we have missed two payments but there are no other entries to indicate repossession or a default notice. I don't really understand experian too well so do these two missed payments indicate a default notice or has it not been updated yet or what? Can somebody please please help me?

Hi, I have done as much research this morning as I can on this subject, and also tried to contact citizens advice but low and behold they are not open in my area today and I am really at my wits end. I was wondering whether anyone on here could give me some advice. Basically my partner took out a finance agreement with Santander in May 2009 for our car, we have always made regular payments and we also have our mortgage with them which is has always been paid since Jan 2007. We moved house in September and consequently changed our bank details and in amongst the confusion of all this as well as having to deal with a toddler and being pregnant with no 2 i missed two payments ( i deal with all finances). Some of the letters went to our old address hence why it wasn't sorted quickly but eventually we rang at the end of October and made a payment of £180 which left approx £204 in arrears, the lady on the phone told us that as we have a joint account we would both need to sign a new direct debit form and that we could also enclose a cheque for the remaining balance. All was left fine.... On around the 5th November I had a demand letter which I just dismissed as having made the arrangement the previous week assumed that all was in hand, the following day we received the direct debit form which was signed and returned to include the cheque as requested. This was sent back within a few days. In the mean time since then we have had the exact same direct debit form through the post once a week, another payment had also become due in the mean time but I also again assumed that a direct debit would be taken and the cheque would be banked, atleast within the month. We have received no correspondance apart from these direct debit forms, no phone calls or nothing. Then at 10 to 7 this morning (2nd December not even a month after) in the dark and snow, a man turned up saying he had been sent from santander to take the car, he had ID and insisted we owed £490, wouldnt let me reason that everything was in hand and if we owed them money, payment could be made immediately. Obviously I couldn't ring at that time of the morning because the office doesnt open until 9am. He then re-assured that it would be taken to a local compound and could be picked up when the debt was settled. We then had to empty the car of all our possessions and he towed it away. We waited until 9am when the office opened and rang immeadiately to be told that they had not received the cheque or form and that it was the customers responsibility to make sure that the previous arrangement was followed through as agreed and that they didnt need to contact us further. Also that our finance agreement had been terminated and to get the car back we would have to pay the finance in full £5700 approx. To be honest I am absolutely flabbergasted that they can do this, I know it is probably partly my fault for not realising the cheque hadnt been banked but I have been extremely busy preparing for new baby and christmas. Distraught is not the word to explain how I feel as it is my day to day car and we have no other vehicle that can accomodate our growing family. We tried to reason on the phone and tell them we could pay but they don't want to know and I really feel like we are being wronged!! I can't afford to pay the finance off or even buy another vehicle. Surely they should have let us know this would be happening as it would have been stopped immeadiately, i love my car Can anybody please advise what we should do next? I have contacted a solictor who said our best bet is to negotiate with Santander, but at present they are insisting they have done the right thing and provided the best advice. It just all seems ridiculous to me.....