As usual, when I set out to do something that by anyone elses’ standard would be fairly easy to accomplish, something bad has to happen, “expect the worst for that is what will happen” should be my motto, in fact, thats what it will be from now…
So having had the very marrow drained from my bones by HM Inland Revenue for having the nerve to obtain pecuniary advantage through the use of a large company car as part of my stipend, I returned said vehicle to the company on Monday, rang Her Majesty up and asked her to call her boys off, “You will have to find someone else to drain of currency of your realm Ma’am” I beseeched her, “for I no longer am a target for your wealth capturers” and she agreed, and she issued me with a new, more reasonable tax code.
Having previously negotiated a monetary compensation for the lack of a company car I now had the pleasant task of setting out to purchase a replacement, in my name, with the monetary compensation – so what could possibly go wrong ?
Having test driven the ever-so boring Seat Leon on Saturday I fled straight to my local Peugeot dealer to tell the salesperson of my acquaintance there that I would indeed be ordering one of his brand new 308 SR models at that very special price that we had recently discussed, and all was well with the world for on the morrow he rang me back to say that he had located one in the exact colour that I had specified, we completed the Peugeot Finance proposal form over the form and he clicked the button to submit it – “pah!” he proclaimed, “a mere formality”.
And so it was for let me explain here dear reader, over the past ten years I have used this dealership to buy most all of my company and private cars numbering probably about a dozen such cars, indeed the small yellow perambulator of a car that is currently driven by the females of this household is a Peugeot too, financed entirely by Peugeot Finance…
So it was with surprise on Tuesday morning to be told that Peugeot Finance (hereonin called “The Bastards”) had declined my proposal to use their facilities again, “I don’t understand it” said my friend the sales rep, “but there is nothing I can do, I have tried to talk to them but they will not disclose their reasons”.
I check my credit rating with Experian later, after all this has been one hell of a rocky road for us, but it is fine, there have been no irregularities over the past three years and I have a score of 982 out of 1000, I am in the top 20% of the country, financial-risk-wise, that is Experian say I am officially a “good risk”.
So I ring Peugeot Finance and am fobbed off by the data protection act, “But its me” I plead, “Its me I’m asking for the information for not someone else, the data protection act doesn’t exist to keep my information from me, you dolts”, maybe calling them dolts was a bad idea for the lady told me to put my request for more information in writing and they may consider it, so I do.
In the meantime while I wait for Peugeot to deign to reply to me at some unspecified date in the far distant future, I idly fill in a form on The Car People’s web site – The Car People sell used cars by the hundred every day, they are the Costco of the car world, they organise finance for everyone, even a homeless vagabond could get finance with The Car People, the income from selling Big Issue on a street corner would earn you a credit rating at The Car People.
The buggers decline my application.
I can’t believe that I’ve been turned down by The Car People, someone must have been whispering very bad things about me around the financial institutes recently – I bet the bloke at The Car People called a staff meeting this morning, “OK settle down car people, I know you’ve all heard the news, we’ve declined out first ever credit application, its come as a shock to all of us, but look who it is…”
And still the dozy blond bint at the VW dealership has not returned my three calls to her since last Saturday and the young lad from Seat has yet to return my calls from Monday too, my friend at Peugeot has passed my details on to a colleague at their main franchise dealer as he has access to other finance houses, but that bugger has yet to contact me despite my leaving two voicemail messages for him – do these people ever sell anything to anyone, it seems the only way to buy a car from a main dealer is to get the bus down there, hot wire one of the showroom models and drive it out through the showroom window while throwing a Gladstone bag full of cash out onto the road behind you.
In desperation I fill in a credit application form for CarCraft, dear god its come to this, CarCraft, the Netto wholesaler of the car retail world and bugger me but they accept me – but wait, they have accepted me into “the first phase of their credit procedure” and I have to wait for someone to ring me back with further details of how much they’ll let me spend and at what interest rate, presumably the “first phase of the credit procedure” means that they believe me when I tell them that I can earn up to six pounds a day flogging the Big Issue outside Primark, I await with baited breath for the phone call telling me how much they’ll let me spend, but I’m not holding my breath that the phone call will actually materialise.
In the meantime I have an extra wodge of cash to spend every month now – and nothing to spend it on – and no car.
