A friend of mine has been looking for car finance, without very much luck. "Bill," he said to me one day, which was a good start since that's my name, "you know what the trouble is with car finance companies?"
I began thinking about this in preparation to serve what I would have considered to be a witty and insightful response, but he continued almost without pause, "they're too busy looking at their statements and accounts to look out of the window."
To anyone who didn't know my friend, who I will call Simon, since that's his name and it's unlikely you know him, one might consider his comment somewhat irrelevant. However, Simon often has a way of not just seeing the wood even with the trees, but often the bark, and sometimes even the dog as well, doing what dogs do in woods full of trees.
However, I had to ask him to clarify this, since car finance companies, who I am sure have had a pretty rough ride over the past couple of years, may well not be too concerned about what's outside the window, and I doubted this had much impact on Simon's ability to get car finance. I surmised that the real trouble lay not with underwriters staring out of windows, but underwriters staring at what is left of the ruin that was once Simon's credit history.
"You see," Simon went on, as Simon tends to when in mid rant, "I've had a bad couple of years. You know that."
Indeed I did know that. Two years ago he lost his job suddenly - the management managed to give him a full twenty minutes' warning. He struggled to get another job, along with half the country, and ended up racking up quite an astonishing amount of debt.
Still, the good news, as he put it, was that the immense volume of threatening letters from debt collection agencies gave him something to burn in the fireplace which helped cut down on the cost of heating.
"But I've got a good job now, and sorted things out with all the creditors, and I now have enough spare cash to be able to afford a car finance or a car loan. I need a new car fairly urgently."
This is something of an understatement. His old car is only being held together by the rust, there's more tread on the steering wheel than anywhere else, there's no exhaust pipe and I'm convinced half the engine fell out at some point. It's simply not safe for him to drive his family around, or drive to work each day along the motorway.
"So why are the car finance companies penalising me for things that happened nearly two years ago, have all been settled, and weren't even my fault in the first place? Can't they look up briefly from the paperwork to glance out of their window and see that the world, or at least my world, has changed quite a bit since then?"
I asked him whether he'd tried one of those car credit finance companies that advertise guaranteed car finance. "Hah!" he said, thumping the table in a way which suggested that the table was almost entirely responsible for the state of car finance arrangements everywhere.
"I know what they're like. They offer you a great big generous pile of cash, then drag you off to their own little private showroom where they pick a whole three cars for you to choose. They're all overpriced and under serviced, meaning that your entire budget is blown on a car you don't like, wouldn't normally pay that price for, and haven't even had a chance to properly test drive."
Now it just so happened that I was able to, very tactfully, set him straight on this. Because just like Simon, I've been down the same path myself, except that I didn't ever tend to take it out on perfectly innocent pine kitchen tables.
I explained that there are some guaranteed car finance companies that are able to offer cheap car finance, but who will not limit what you do with it. They'll understand that a credit history is only a history, and will use your existing circumstances to come to a realistic and fair decision, and then you're free to use the car finance to buy any car you like, from any dealer you like, anywhere in the UK. Despite the groans, the dismissive shrugs and the shaking of the head, the next week I got a picture message from him showing off his new car.
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