I must be missing something!
You aren’t the only one!
Surprised by that, actually. It’s really easy to see why they do it the way they do it, and while i’m on record saying that it’d be much better if GCB (and NCP/new car payment) were paid towards the AP of the next car, i am certainly able to see why they’re not doing it. In fact, i’d probably not do it either. Just objectively go through the process. AP is due on the day of pick up. Who’s MB going to send the money to? The customer? You expect anyone to send almost £1000 to a customer who hasn’t signed the contract yet – based on.. “trust”? That would get abused/exploited so much it’s not even funny, so obviously impossible. Next option: send it to the dealership after the car has been ordered. Now you’re going to have an entire department run after the people/dealerships that got paid, but the customer cancelled (potentially multiple times) the order. You’ll also have now dealerships that will claim a cancellation fee off of that money. This could potentially work but is so hugely cost-ineffective that even i as a customer can see why nobody in their right mind would do it this way. So what’s left then? The only way how, objectively, this “pay prior to delivery” would work is if you’d have to sign a contract with Motability, get the £750 NCP as a repayable loan (0% interest), with it being waved after you signed for the delivery of the new car. Something like that. Something that makes you legally pursuable for recollection. Or, the other option could be that you pay the entirety of the AP to MB after you ordered, and they add £750 on top, holding the money until collection day. Again, needs rewriting of entire processes, needs new processes etc pp – but could be a reasonably working system. It’s nowhere near as easy as “giving people the money prior to delivery” – unless you make the order already a legally binding contract, forcing you to take the car no matter what. Which will also get abused to hell – this time by dealerships. This is all an awful lot of work (and cost), if the other option is “well we’ll pay you the day after you ordered”. As someone who dropped over £5000 on his next lease, i can certainly see it from “our” perspective as customers, but i’m objective enough to also understand that MB really doesn’t have a good option here that makes sense financially and is secure. On the topic: well we’re due our new car in spring, i certainly wouldn’t complain if they upped the monies to £750, that’s for sure.
Nope. Still don’t get it. I’m not suggesting any money is sent back to us at any stage. I’m suggesting they just reduce the AP’s in the first place! Taking more money than they need, only to refund a chunk of it still makes no sense to me.