Auto Loan Fees Hidden

The Commerce Commission is fining car loan company Dolbak Finance because of car loan contracts that did not disclose all of the fees and charges. They say that they wrote up car loan contracts with people but did not tell them all of the facts of the contracts, and therefore, they were responsible for returning the money back to the consumers.

They took their case to Auckland District Court who found David Dolbel pleading guilty to 22 charges of “breaching the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act” and has been fined $49,500. Anthony Baker also pled guilty to the same charges and was fined $50,500.

They also have to pay almost $47,000 to their customers in statutory damages. This means that 100 customers will be looking at getting back 5% of their car loan, which will range from $200 to $1,000. The amount they get back will be determined by the amount of the auto loan that they took out.

The committee had warned the two men about the fees and they were told to change them. However, they failed to do so and ended up in court. They did not tell their auto loan customers how much interest they would pay, what fees were involved, how to pay off the loan early, or how the interest was even calculated.

Under law, borrowers are entitled to full and complete information when entering into an auto loan contract, according to the commission. They say that although they were given repeated warnings, the two men did not do anything about them. They say that they were also in breach of the Fair Trading Act because they had threatened to repossess nine cars when their auto loan payments had not been made.

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