PWH Motors Ltd t/a Arrowhire.com

[SUETON]

Hi I hope someone can help me, in September last year my husband took out a three year lease hire agreement with these people. He paid £1668.50 in advance which was three months payment and a vehicle holding fee, and was to pay £351.32 a month thereafter. This was done without any problems until Monday 23rd March when at 6pm a bailiff came knocking at the door to repossess the vehicle on behalf of Alliance and Leicester we tried to get him to leave the vehicle with us till next day but in the end he took it. On contacting the A&L we were told that the above company had failed to make the payments on the vehicle since December even though they had taken the money from us. It has since transpired that they have opened a new company HCS and have obtained more finance from somewhere else to fund these new vehicles. We have requested our initial payment back from them as they have breached the agreement not us. Also they are trading the new company without the relevant CCL. They have told us that PWH Motors ltd is now insolvent but can't tell us who the official receivers are and they are still listed on companies house as trading. They are also using all the same staff and Directors as before and the same trading address. By the way we have contacted all relevant authorities such as Trading standards, police, BVRLA, Financial ombudsman etc but no-one can tell us anything at the minute. Where do we stand in getting this money back please help any advice will be great.

[Witch consumer]

It's a bit difficult once the car has been taken, without a court order they have no right to do so, bit late for that now tho (sorry)

Just a thought, and I could be wrong here but surely A&L should be sorting this out with PWH Motors Ltd, do you have any contract with A&L? do they have any legal right to that car, given that you have made all the necessary payments?

Have you contacted the OFT? or Watchdog?, strikes me you need to publicise this as widely as possible before more customers fall for them!!

[SUETON]

Hi, our contract was with PWH Motors Ltd t/a Arrowhire.com to lease hire the vehicle and they had finance on it from the A&L. At no point were we aware that we were a third party in this agreement until Peak collections turned up to take the car. We called the police out and they said we had no choice but to hand over the keys to the bailiffs even though they didn't have an actual court order with them. The A&L are taking PWH Motors to court for non payment and we asked them if we could continue the deal with them but they said that they were not dealing with car finance now. We have registered complaints with the financial ombudsman and the BVRLA and I have contacted watchdog but not had a reply yet. We have also contacted trading standards in Cardiff who went round to the offices but said they are now closed and have moved to their new business HCS in Western Supermare. Here's the best bit to add insult to injury the cheeky b******s sent us an invoice yesterday for the next payment and said that if payment was late they would charge us an extra £25. We sent them a recorded letter requesting the return of our original payment but they haven't replied to that yet. We are just so angry that they should be allowed to get away with this. Sorry it's so long winded and thanks for your assistance in this matter.

[florida]

Hi

I was wondering if you had resolved your problem and found out any more information regarding this company.

In December 2007 I purchased a car from them and a couple of months ago I tried to sell the car and to my horror found that there was outstanding finance still on the car from a previous owner. PWH Motors had sold the car without doing the required HP checks. I did not think at the time that buying from a company would create problems in the future.

When I contacted them in Cardiff in February they told me they had been taken over by HCS Contract Hire in Western Super Mare and they would have to sort it out. Well they did infact pay the £4k balance owing to the finance company.

However I had lost a good part exchange deal and decided to sue them for compensation for all the upset caused and the deal I was going to do falling through. We have reached the small claims court and HCS say in their defence it is nothing to do with them and I should contact PWH Motors.

It is all getting a bit complicated and I am not sure if I should still sue HCS as they are the new owners and presumably purchased the assets and liabilities of PWH Motors but on the other hand have HCS just reformed from PWH Motors going bust.

Anyway you now know there is someone else on your side to find out what is going on!

[Ratae]

I too am owed money by PWH as Arrowhire for work carried out on a vehicle they supplied. Fortunately only a very small amount which TBH is not worth the effort & cost of pursuing as I can write it off through the business.
I am also aware of others in the trade who they owe money too. Letters sent to them are simply ignored.

I would suggest that anyone looking for a vehicle would be well advised to give this company in any of their guises a very wide berth.

[fritzspa]

Hi,
I had the misfortune to deal with PWH a couple of years ago & they were a real bunch of cowboys. They also operated the web addresses

simplecontracthire.co.uk
nonstatuscontracthire.com
exfleetsales.co.uk

Their new company is operated from the following address as

Ex Fleet Sales Limited
The Fleet Handling Centre, Penarth Road,
Cardiff, Glamorgan
CF11 8UQ

Contact number is
02920 021 500

Hope this helps someone.

[Bemused]

I too have been strung up by this company. I am in the final year of a 3 year lease originally with Arrow Hire then PWH. I paid 6 payments up front and only realised something was wrong last Friday when I noticed my tax disk had expired at the end of May. I had only received an invoice from them that morning acknowledging my most recent payment which is of course prepay so should last me till the end of June. I tried calling but the line was dead and so visited the website which gave a different number which happens to be the HCS company that other people have mentioned on this forum. I was told by them that PWH have gone into liquidation and that someone will be in touch with me to arrange collection of the car. I was then sent a list by HCS who have an email address of hiracar.co.uk showing what cars are available to lease with them on a 5 year lease and more up front payments. As of yet I have had no contact concerning the car collection but does anyone know where we all stand with this situation. We would be legally bound to pay the full term of the lease if we defaulted so what about the money we have paid out especially the initial 3 or 6 months you have to pay at the beginning are we entitled to claim for this money back does anybody know ?

[fritzspa]

Originally Posted by Bemused

I too have been strung up by this company. I am in the final year of a 3 year lease originally with Arrow Hire then PWH. I paid 6 payments up front and only realised something was wrong last Friday when I noticed my tax disk had expired at the end of May. I had only received an invoice from them that morning acknowledging my most recent payment which is of course prepay so should last me till the end of June. I tried calling but the line was dead and so visited the website which gave a different number which happens to be the HCS company that other people have mentioned on this forum. I was told by them that PWH have gone into liquidation and that someone will be in touch with me to arrange collection of the car. I was then sent a list by HCS who have an email address of hiracar.co.uk showing what cars are available to lease with them on a 5 year lease and more up front payments. As of yet I have had no contact concerning the car collection but does anyone know where we all stand with this situation. We would be legally bound to pay the full term of the lease if we defaulted so what about the money we have paid out especially the initial 3 or 6 months you have to pay at the beginning are we entitled to claim for this money back does anybody know ?

Hi Bemused,

How have they been taking your payments?

This company ceased trading & failed to notify you.
Their bank accounts should have been ceased as soon as they became insolvent & if they have failed to do this they are in a lot of trouble. If they have been taking your payments by credit card then you should contact your credit card supplier & explain that these payments should have stopped back in Jan/Feb & demand that they refund the money. If it transpires ( as I expect it will) that the new company has been taking your money then you have them over a barrel.

If on the other hand you have been paying by direct debit then you are covered by the direct debit guarantee scheme & your bank must refund this money which should not have been taken from your bank by a defunct company.

Should anyone attempt to repo the car then inform them that you have a contract to keep the vehicle & they will have to go to court to get it returned (it will put you in a good position to try & get your money back. As long as you have the car - if they get it back you have no chance). If they do show up I would suggest you stick the car in a garage somewhere as Arrowhire always kept a spare key so they could snatch cars back when they wanted to (not legal but they did it anyway).

If you had a purchase option on the lease it would probably be worth your while to make a very low offer to purchase the car (if you want to) as the primary finance company (Probably the Alliance & Leicester) wont really want the car back or the hassle of dealing with you.

Hope this helps

[Bemused]

Thanks for the advice, I have been paying by standing order which I have just cancelled on discovery of the companies problems. Unfortunatly I dont have a garage and yes you are right they only supplied with with one set of keys maybe i will park the car a couple of roads down instead.

[recovery]

Having had a few dealings with arrowhire myself I know they used their own trackers on cars , which they can use to locate the car from their own computers , but I dont think they fitted them to every car. A good place to look is either around the glovebox area or somewhere behind the paneling in the boot , keep an eye out for a long thin wire as this is an ariel for the tracker unit. Any person sent to collect or reposses the car would first look around the local area to locate the car. I understand the situation is that they got into a lot of debt with Hire a car and after being messed around too much Hire a car eventually took over PWH motors.