Interest free credit

[SteveCliff]

Just out of interest, I recommended Scan to a friend who wanted to place an order for around £1000 worth of hardware. He decided to take the interest free offer and went through all the various pages of sign-up to do this, including the initial 10% deposit on his credit card, but it wasn't until a few pages after that when it suddenly stated that there would be a £25 admin fee. It certainly wasn't easily spotted on the site that this fee would be charged (at least not that I could see!) which is pretty bad - this information should be shown *before* someone goes and gives there credit card details for the deposit. He then stopped placing the order by trying to go back as far as he could but it eventually came up with a 'page needs to be refreshed' type error and he had to quit.

Am I cracking up and just not spotting the £25 fee information or is it really not shown? If it's not, the site should really be changed to inform the user that this is a hidden charge!!!!!

Edit: Just had another look and yes, it does tell you about the charge if you go in to the general info page about the interest free credit but if you are placing an order and decide to take the offer then, you get lots of info about the credit terms but nothing about the £25 charge until after you have placed the deposit ...

[Chris P]

SteveCliff

This charge certainly is not hidden, and is shown for you to read through the Finance on our home page, which can be read before an is placed .... listed here:-

Finance

here

FAQ's

Here before the agreement can be entered



So as you can see this charge is certainly not hidden...and is show before CC details are taken

If you would like to cancel the finance and choose an alternative payment method, this is fine as the % 10 deposit will not have been taken. The 10 % deposit is only taken once the Agreement has been completed and V12 have received the signed documents through the post. If the forms are not received by V12 then the finance order will not be processed and no payment will be taken.

If you wish to proceed with an alternative payment method, please PM me your real name and Post code so I can track the order for you.

Best Regards

[SteveCliff]

Thanks for the quick reply Chris and I'll let the guy know that the 10% deposit shouldn't be taken from his account (as he cancelled before the completion of the agreement).

I edit'd my 1st post so I'm not sure if you spotted it before replying but I did find the detail of the first two links you provided and as you say, the £25 charge *is* detailed quite clearly which is good. However, a customer only gets to see that *if* they check up on the details of the offer first. I know you should always do that but this time the guy didn't - he placed everything in to his shopping basket and went to pay, then noticed the offer of "interest free" which said that he had to pay 10% down and then pay the rest in 10 months time (errr, or 9 months, can't quite remember!). Nothing is actually mentioned about a £25 fee until the screen that you've shown in your third link, which I believe is *after* the initial credit card details are taken for the 10% deposit.

Thankfully, as the 10% deposit is only taken when everything is completed then it shouldn't cause him any problems, but it does mean that a customer simply going through the add-to-basket and then buy route does *not* see anything about the £25 deposit until later. That's what I meant by the charge being hidden.

The suggestion I have is to show the paragraph from your first link somewhere in the order process before you take any credit card details?

NB. I've just phoned him and let him know your comments anyway so he's going to ring Scan on Monday morning to make sure everything is ok as he's now placed the order again but normally via his credit card and obviously wants to make sure he doesn't get two lots of PC bits coming through

[IAmATeaf]

Doesn't it stand to reason that you should always check the finance agreement T&Cs before signing to read all of the small print?

[SteveCliff]

Doesn't it stand to reason that you should always check the finance agreement T&Cs before signing to read all of the small print?

Yes, it does ... but in defence of the guy in question, human nature kicked in when he saw the option on the payment details and he suddenly decided to go that route

[Lucio]

Personally I'd have been looking for a fee from the start, as interest free means they've got to make their money elsewhere!

Still, all said and done, £25 is a bonus compared to paying a 19.9% APR (or higher!!!)

[DavidM]

The details can also be found on the Finance FAQ - which is on the left side of the screen.

Those details are also linked to in many products on the site - so basically it's linked to in hundreds of places.

[IAmATeaf]

Yes, it does ... but in defence of the guy in question, human nature kicked in when he saw the option on the payment details and he suddenly decided to go that route

Not having a go or anything but to me personally this looks like your friends fault, all finance options always have terms, some more stringent then others including things like fees for late payements etc.... Maybe you wise up your friend to the cut throat finance market and maybe also making him familiar with the terms 'there's no such thing as a free lunch'

[Chris P]

Also to note the £ 25 charge is taken by V12 the finance company only if the agreement is accepted and the signed documents signed and returned to V12, this £25 charge is not charged by SCAN.

[SteveCliff]

In summary:

1) My initial post was worded quite harshly because at that point I believed that the information on the admin charge was not readily available due to my friends comments.

2) About 10 minutes later, after checking the site myself, I edited the post to confirm that the info *was* available but if someone simply went in and bought without checking first then no comment was made about the admin fee until *after* credit card details were taken.

3) ChrisP made a very quick response (thnx!) and confirmed what I'd already found out, although his statement about the third link (I.E. it being before c/c details were input) I think is incorrect? Chris, if I'm wrong in this I apologise, but I'm fairly sure that I've remembered the order process correctly as I was watching over my friend as he did it.

4) Yes, my friend is stupid. And because I was watching over him I feel stupid too as it obviously makes sense to check all the T&C's out first. Feel free to call me "thicko" if you ever see me Oh well, live and learn I guess ...

5) The main point of this thread (from my point anyway!) was to point out that if a user didn't check the T&C's and FAQ first then the order process didn't show anythign about the £25 admin fee until *after* the credit card details were taken for the 10% deposit. I suggested that one of the pages in the order process contain the small paragraph from the FAQ so that there is no way someone can inadvertantly go through the process without knowing about the fee. To my mind, this seems a sensible change?

6) Re-iterate point 4) .... yes, I know we were daft not checking!