Kia’s finance errors leave buyer in limbo

Dealer used wrong car’s details to set up finance agreement

CHECKS have saved a lot of buyers from purchasing cars with money outstanding on them, but it’s not often you’ll find someone else’s finance on your vehicle.

This is what happened to Terry Davies of Merthyr Tydfill, South Wales. “I had arranged to collect a new VW Tiguan from local dealer Capitol Volkswagen on Monday 19 June,” he said. “That morning I had organised for my old vehicle, a Kia Venga, to be bought by Evans Halshaw, across the road.”

Things didn’t go to plan. Terry said that when Evans Halshaw ran final checks on his Venga, it found there was outstanding Kia Finance on the car. But he told us: “I had paid all of the finance on the car.”

Terry phoned Kia Finance. He said: “In 2014, Kia had used my car details to take out a 60-month finance agreement on another Kia.” Apparently it would take until Wednesday to correct the mistake.

But by Wednesday there was still no correction on Terry’s record, and by this point his insurance on the Venga was running out. It took him until Friday to get Kia to correct the mistake. Kia UK confirmed the wrong details had been passed by the original dealer to Kia Finance, but said the matter was now resolved.

Terry added: “Mistakes happen, but I’m disappointed that it took a week for Kia to rectify its own error, even after spotting it.”