This week a car finance lender called Blue Motor Finance went into administration. Around 120,000 customers. The FCA says people owed compensation are unlikely to get everything due. There is no FSCS safety net for consumer credit lenders.
I have been living the other side of this story.
Like millions of people, I am covered by the FCA’s £9.1bn motor finance redress scheme. I did what the regulator suggests. I went back through my paperwork, found every car finance deal I have held, and contacted each lender directly. Free, straightforward, no middleman.
So far, one lender has replied, to tell me my agreement does not qualify. From the rest, silence.
Here is the uncomfortable part. That silence is allowed. Under the scheme timetable, lenders have until late this year to confirm redress on older agreements, and until 2027 for newer ones. Some payments will not arrive until 2028.
And I will be honest about what that silence does. I chose not to use a claims management company, and I would make the same choice again. But months of nothing makes their pitch for them. When the system goes quiet, paying someone who has skin in the game to fight your corner starts to look like a rational decision, not a rip-off. That is not a recommendation. It is a warning about what delay does to people’s choices.
Because the timetable assumes every lender is still standing when the music stops. Blue Motor Finance was not. Its customers followed the rules, waited their turn, and are now unsecured creditors at the back of the queue.
This is bigger than car finance. Every collapse, and every silent month, teaches consumers the same lesson: that doing the right thing and waiting patiently is for mugs. Once people believe that about one corner of financial services, they carry it into every other product they buy. Trust is the product. Lose it and the whole market pays for years.
Redress delayed is not always redress denied. But as this week showed, sometimes it is.
If you had car finance between 2007 and 2024, dig out your agreements and contact your lenders. Going direct is free. And if the silence goes on, do not judge anyone who decides they want someone in their corner.