Motor home rip off

I may have missed something in this post but have you done a hpi check to check if finance is outstanding .
Also if there is more than one person that has purchased one of this companies vans .
There is criminal case to answer for .fraud .? Police should involved .?
 
There are a load of Chausoon owners with the same problem. Is it an x Unbeatable Hire
Penny13 said:
There are a load of Chausoon owners with the same problem. Is it an x Unbeatable Hire.
Click to expand...
on the Chausoon Owners Group on face book a lady called Erica Mason has set up a messenger group about this hoping lots of heads together and strength in numbers will help. Trying to get a email from her now for you ...
 
Yes - As I understand it investors would lend Unbeatable c£35k with which they would buy a motorhome.
The lender was given a chattel mortgage transferring title to them.
Unbeatable then paid £300 pcm to the lender in interest 'forever'
At some time in the future Unbeatable could redeem the mortgage (for the full sum) and take title to the motorhome.
Presumably the rental of these 3rd owned motorhomes was presumably unexpected to be so lucrative that it would support 10٪ interest and enough money to pay off the mortgage.
On suspects that redemption was a bit unlikely as why would Unbeatable want to pay original purchase price for a secondhand motorhome several years down the track.

When (almost inevitably) Unbearable folded owners should have been able to recover their vans from the administrators.
I expect that was a bit fraught but if they did they would have possession of an asset they already owned and would be free to sell it.

It's possible that Unbelievable in the run up to going bust tried to raise money to continue paying interest by selling some of the motorhomes that they were borrowing without first paying off the mortgage.
By all account the mortgages were registered by chassis number so an HPI check on reg no wouldn't flag a problem.
Legal owners may well have still been getting monthly interest so didn't realise their van had gone until Unspeakable went into liquidation and they tried to get it back
 
Yes Basically chaos with unregulated finance deals. Thus IMO the OP should not be liable for the "corruption of others" ???
 
I've got to agree in principle however I suspect that the legal owners who never saw a penny of their capital back don't and I fear the law may be on their side rather than the current keeper.
I expect the Ebay deal offered very good value and many were tempted and despite reasonable checks the fraud wasn't detected.
 
Last edited:
Yes but "the fraud" being undetected and indeed un detectable may be nough to give them some respite !
With a compromise deal..Who knows certainly not me..but the more who can work together may help.
Without maligning solicitors .. as a single case I expect the op would be advised to"pay up"
 
I guess that most of the original owners are individuals - maybe they've clubbed together to chase the administrator and having had no joy there moved onto the current keepers?
I fear the worst as Unscrupulous didn't enter into a HP deal there may be no protection for those who bought from them.

Whilst the deal offered to investors was probably a bit too good to believe (10% p.a. guaranteed) many of them are well out of pocket having spent £35k on a van and only had a few years earnings back.

I expect some twigged to what was happening when they didn't get their van for the 3 week holiday period that was part of the deal.

So some sympathy for them as their deal whilst not guaranteed to have capital repaid (and if they thought about it properly they'd have realised it never would) did have the surety of a physical asset to fall back on.
 
Markd said:
I guess that most of the original owners are individuals - maybe they've clubbed together to chase the administrator and having had no joy there moved onto the current keepers?
I fear the worst as Unscrupulous didn't enter into a HP deal there may be no protection for those who bought from them.

Whilst the deal offered to investors was probably a bit too good to believe (10% p.a. guaranteed) many of them are well out of pocket having spent £35k on a van and only had a few years earnings back.

I expect some twigged to what was happening when they didn't get their van for the 3 week holiday period that was part of the deal.

So some sympathy for them as their deal whilst not guaranteed to have capital repaid (and if they thought about it properly they'd have realised it never would) did have the surety of a physical asset to fall back on.
Click to expand...
I like the Freudian slip there .... "Unscrupolous" instead of "Unbeatable". very apt by the sound of it. (along with the other alternates earlier ;) )
 
Glad you liked that - and the others in my earlier post as well.
The first was actually spellchecker and I decided to run with it.
The guy running the firm seems to have scammed (allegedly) both ways which is pretty good going!
I imagine both groups thought the deal was excellent and I fear that the maxim of being too good to be true was borne out.
 
OK - here's the retrospective due diligence 😀

UnbeatableHire has 810 registered charges more than half aren't satisfied.

UNBEATABLEHIRE LIMITED charges - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

UNBEATABLEHIRE LIMITED - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity
find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk

So with hindsight checks could have been made - although a fair bit of legwork would be needed to wade through the pdfs to find a particular vehicle.

Some companies are more open and show the Vehicle reg and motorhome type in the charge listing.
 
I wonder if the administrator have paid the ones that are satisfied on the basis of a partial settlement? Averaged the value of the assets against the charges and if someone accepts that, they get at least some money and charge is closed. Otherwise it is open while they argue for more money (which will come from where?).
Dunno. Just summising.
 
Its all very complicated!
The Companies House records show full satisfaction in most cases - i expect that amounts to return of the vehicle listed in the Chattell Mortgage as there's no money available in the business!!

I've read the Administrators statement of proposal and if you've the time and inclination it's interesting.
Unbeatable bought vans with the investors money but retained ownership and the right to sell without notice to investor but agreed to substitute like vehicle as security. So that's different to what I initially thought and wrote. This also gave rise to problems matching vans to lenders.
Apparently the loan terms were for 3 years but a lot of people happy with the interest rolled them over rather than taking cash or Van.

Unbeatable had some bad luck with 50 Transit based vans that had some sort of manufacturing defect that caused repair costs and rental down time.
They also had two storage fires destroying a large number of vans - apparently caused by the fridges being incorrectly installed [not enough clearance] but they had large excesses and a maximum annual payout policy so didn't recover as much money as they needed.
They also had a merchanting organisation on their back [that company is down a lot of money as well].
Because Unbeatable routinely didn't return deposits they got hit with a lot of Charebacks and because of fees to challange these rolled over and paid back - this went against Merchanting [big money here]

They had problems with their financing model and when they tried to get a bigger loan from a bank failed and that didn't help with replacing vans.
Administrators called in Dec 2019 and Xmas/New year rentals were suspended.

In the Spring this year the Administrators sold everything fo £1 to Mr Alfie Best who undertook to return vans wherever possible and try to rent what he could with the much reduced fleet. Vans were sold en masse because Administrators felt that market would be flooded and prices reduced.

Unbeatable did own a few vans of their own and rather than sell these were transferred to help business generate cash for the lenders.
Some vans were at garages being repaired but had accrued costs - the nominal owners had to negotiate the release themselves as the administartors felt that paying would having been to the detriment of other creditors,

All in all quite a mix up!!

But it is possible that vans sold last year might have been replaced by others in the Chatel Mortgage or should have been?
Certainly not clear cut but worth the OP checking rather tan rolling over.

Apparently some new Registered Keepers have been asked for back interest as well!!


Sounds like Chausson owners ought to check whether they have fire risk models.
 
Me359 said:
Bought my motor home in March 2019 though eBay have now received letter from lawyers saying there was a charge on vehicle.The company I bought of have gone burst and the guy has done a runner with the money has anyone else had this experience
Click to expand...
Hi, I am really sorry to hear of this happening to you. With both of your vehicle or household insurances you may have LEGAL ADVICE COVER. IN WHICH CASE CONTACT THEM ASAP. when you say the seller has done a runner it may be worth asking the legal advice people is it worth your getting a court order against him? Try suggesting this to the Finance company as they have possibly got legal experts who would help you as there is a joint interest in tracking him down. Tell the finance people that you will work with them and ask what help they might offer you.
 
Ok got a contact number for the said lady. She has QC looking into it with a view to doing a class action. There are hundreds of innocent buyers involved. On Monday there is a interview on radio 4 between 12.18 -1pm. They will be asking everyone affected to email. I will pm you the telephone number.
 
There's a load of investors whose mortgaged vans were destroyed with either no or highly reduced [£25k excess] insurance payout.
I didn't realise that hundreds of vans were sold on without amended mortgages
 
Markd said:
I didn't realise that hundreds of vans were sold on without amended mortgages
Click to expand...
Nor me, it's frightening isn't it?

Regards,
Del
 
Markd said:
Its all very complicated!
The Companies House records show full satisfaction in most cases - i expect that amounts to return of the vehicle listed in the Chattell Mortgage as there's no money available in the business!!

I've read the Administrators statement of proposal and if you've the time and inclination it's interesting.
Unbeatable bought vans with the investors money but retained ownership and the right to sell without notice to investor but agreed to substitute like vehicle as security. So that's different to what I initially thought and wrote. This also gave rise to problems matching vans to lenders.
Apparently the loan terms were for 3 years but a lot of people happy with the interest rolled them over rather than taking cash or Van.

Unbeatable had some bad luck with 50 Transit based vans that had some sort of manufacturing defect that caused repair costs and rental down time.
They also had two storage fires destroying a large number of vans - apparently caused by the fridges being incorrectly installed [not enough clearance] but they had large excesses and a maximum annual payout policy so didn't recover as much money as they needed.
They also had a merchanting organisation on their back [that company is down a lot of money as well].
Because Unbeatable routinely didn't return deposits they got hit with a lot of Charebacks and because of fees to challange these rolled over and paid back - this went against Merchanting [big money here]

They had problems with their financing model and when they tried to get a bigger loan from a bank failed and that didn't help with replacing vans.
Administrators called in Dec 2019 and Xmas/New year rentals were suspended.

In the Spring this year the Administrators sold everything fo £1 to Mr Alfie Best who undertook to return vans wherever possible and try to rent what he could with the much reduced fleet. Vans were sold en masse because Administrators felt that market would be flooded and prices reduced.

Unbeatable did own a few vans of their own and rather than sell these were transferred to help business generate cash for the lenders.
Some vans were at garages being repaired but had accrued costs - the nominal owners had to negotiate the release themselves as the administartors felt that paying would having been to the detriment of other creditors,

All in all quite a mix up!!

But it is possible that vans sold last year might have been replaced by others in the Chatel Mortgage or should have been?
Certainly not clear cut but worth the OP checking rather tan rolling over.

Apparently some new Registered Keepers have been asked for back interest as well!!


Sounds like Chausson owners ought to check whether they have fire risk models.
Click to expand...
Thank you that is very inter
 
I've read some stuff where investors thought the actually had title to to the vans and didn't realise that the director and sole employee (Andrew Hughes) could do as he wanted with them without telling them.
He was supposed to either redeem the mortgage or provide alternative security - neither of which seems to have happened.
I guess they were only too happy with the Unrealistic rate of interest (10%) they were getting.
I'm amazed they rolled over their investment after 3 year rather than asking for either the capital or the can back - surely they realised that vans depreciate?
First year depreciation is horrifying because new vans have VAT and second hand don't so a £60k van is only worth £50k as soon as it hits the road!

Anyway the Administrators have taken legal advice on the current validity of the Chattel Mortgages on the vehicles that were sold and the opinion is that they were properly constructed in the first place and very probably are still enforceable.
The Administrators are standing back from any action but have provided purchaser details to lenders when they have asked.
It would seem that there were 350 vehicles on the fleet compared to the 470 unsatisfied charges.
So it rather looks like the maximum number of sold vehicles is c120.

It doesn't look good for current keepers as the company doesn't have any where enough money to reimburse them and you can bet your life that the director doesn't.
The lenders have no call on the company so those whose vehicles have been sold are going to go for current keepers.
Some keepers may have twigged what was happening and sold on again quickly but doing so now would probably wouldn't get away with it.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who viewed this discussion (Total:0)

Back
Top