The purpose of this policy is to provide a clear statement of intent with regards to the assessment, handling and investigation of all complaints. European Vehicle Contracts Limited (EVC) complaint handling policy and procedure has been created to meet general standards and requirements and complies with standard complaint handling procedures, including the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) and FCA regulations such as CONC and DISP.

EVC is committed to delivering a fair, open and clear process for complaints and ensure a satisfactory outcome for all customers who raise a complaint. We provide thorough staff training in our internal complaint handling procedures and support our staff in how to handle complaint situations in a face-to-face, written and/or telephone environment.

The policy relates to all staff (meaning permanent, fixed term, and temporary staff, any third-party representatives or sub- contractors, agency workers, volunteers, interns and agents engaged with EVC within the organisation and has been created to ensure that staff deal with the area that this policy relates to in accordance with legal, regulatory, contractual and business expectations and requirements.

As per FCA material, they define a complaint as the following –

‘Any oral or written expression of dissatisfaction, whether justified or not, from, or on behalf of, a person about the provision of, or failure to provide, a financial service, claims management service or a redress determination, which alleges that the complainant has suffered (or may suffer) financial loss, material distress or material inconvenience.’

‘Our aim is always to provide an exceptionally high level of service to all of our customers. Where customers are unsatisfied, it’s important to us that this is dealt with objectively, fairly and as quickly as we are able to.

The following procedure explains how we deal with complaints, our commitments to you and what action to take if you think your complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction.

If you have a complaint about any aspect of our service, then we would like to hear from you. Please use the below details to let us know –

E: compliance@eurodrivefinance.co.uk T: 0191 2502855

P: Eurodrive Motor Finance, European House 9 Apex Business Village, Annitsford. Newcastle upon Tyne NE23 7BF

We kindly ask, so we can look into your complaint as quickly as possible, you include as much detail as you can, however if we are missing anything we will be in touch. We will aim to come back to you within 48 working hours of receiving your complaint.

If we are able to investigate and resolve your complaint within 3 days, you will receive a summary resolution response from ourselves, which will detail our outcome and findings.

In the event our investigations take longer than 3 days, we will issue you a Final Response within the 8-week timescale. Whilst we try to close any complaint before this 8-week time frame, we do need to make you aware we do have this time. Our final response will include detailed information of your complaint, our investigation and the resolution we have come to. If you are not satisfied with our Final Response or the handling of your complaint within the 8-week time frame, you can contact the Financial Ombudsman service using the details below. You must do this within six months of our final response.

W: www.financial-ombudsman.org.ukT: 0800 023 4567

P: Exchange Tower, Harbour Exchange, London, E14 9SR

Complaints regarding commission and agreements pre-28th January 2021 

Please note, Eurodrive is a broker and therefore, we would advise that any complaint regarding discretionary commissions should, in the first instance, be made directly to your lender. Should your complaint be regarding a car finance agreement or commission on an agreement taken out with us before 28th January 2021, we need to make you aware that the current 8 week deadline to respond to your complaint is currently paused. This is due to the investigation and review the FCA are carrying out within the Motor Finance Industry regarding the handling of such complaints. Please note we will still work hard to resolve your complaint in the background and keep you updated throughout the process; however we need to make you aware that we will not have to respond to your complaint until after 25th September 2024 at the earliest.  

We also need to make you aware that if you are unhappy with your response, the FCA have extended the deadline in which you can refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (for these types of complaints only) from 6 months to 15 months if you are sent a final response between 12th July 2023 and 20th November 2024. You can find further information on the work the FCA is carrying out via this link- https://www.fca.org.uk/carfinance. 

a. To ensure that we handle our complaints efficiently and effectively, any correspondence or notes from phone communication will be documented on our AutoConvert system.

b. This will allow the complaints handler to review the whole complaint and refer back to any point in the investigation if they are required to do so.

c. Any documentation received regarding the complaint will also be uploaded to the application.

d. All records of complaints will be kept as per our retention periods, only employees that require access to customer complaint notes will be granted this information.

a. Staff will receive complaints training within their initial induction and at least once a year.

b. Training will ensure our team understands the processes that we have in place and the regulatory importance of following these processes.

c. At any time, staff have the opportunity to request further training on any aspect of our business.

d. Letter and Email templates are provided to staff as a resource to help them when managing complaints.

e. Further visual resources have been created to assist staff in maintaining and handling complaints in a timely manner.

a. As a company, we ensure that we follow all regulatory guidelines, including treating customers fairly.

b. When it comes to complaints, we guarantee that our customers will not face any post sale barriers.

c. Our staff are aware that they need to assist customers as much as possible when they wish to make a complaint, and they should not receive a different service to any other customer.

d. Customers will have their expectations managed, and staff will explain the complaints process so a customer can understand the next steps.

e. If a customer makes a complaint about a specific member of the team, that employee will not have any involvement in handling the customers complaint.

f. We will ensure that our complaints procedure is in a clear location so our consumers can access it with ease.

a. Complaints and MQ’s will currently be handled by Raj Sadhra.

b. We will request an email or detailed description over the phone to handle the complaint further.

c. She will then liaise with the customer and lender/dealer as required and issue a final response letter or summary resolution.

d. We are committed to ensuring that we are in control with all complaints and complete them as soon as possible. With this in mind, communication will be completed with all parties at every step of the way with Raj communicating with each party about the complaint once a week.