My car was purchased on a three-year lease. I paid monthly, and after three years could choose to hand the car back or pay a final lump sum to keep it. I decided to pay the lump sum then sell, but messed up the timings. As a result, thousands of pounds were taken out of a bank account containing little more than £700, and I have no overdraft. This was bounced twice as I didn’t notice for a couple of days. The bank charged me £30 for each ‘reversal’, which was fair enough. I transferred the appropriate money and the payment finally went through last week.

This morning I received a letter telling me that due to late payment I owed ‘administration costs and interest payments’ of £350. £350! This was annoying, and I’d have to severely curtail my holiday plans to pay it. Then, unbeknownst to me, Dad phoned the finance company to query the breakdown of the charge, as it seemed a little high. He was on the phone for perhaps 45 seconds, during which time they said ‘ok, we’ll cancel it’. Just like that! Bastards. They said that the account is fully closed and paid off, so there’s no need to worry.

I’d suggest they didn’t really have to charge that amount, and were just trying their luck. As Mum said, the silly thing is that if they’d just asked for �100 I probably would have paid it without the query. Such is businesswank. The company in question was Renault Financial Services, btw.