{"id":309738,"date":"2019-04-08T16:25:30","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T14:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=309738"},"modified":"2019-04-11T10:50:05","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T08:50:05","slug":"volkswagen-financial-services-ordered-to-pay-back-south-african-customers-for-added-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/309738\/volkswagen-financial-services-ordered-to-pay-back-south-african-customers-for-added-fees\/","title":{"rendered":"Volkswagen Financial Services ordered to pay back ‘added fees’ to South African customers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Consumer Tribunal has ordered Volkswagen Financial Services to stop charging customers for ‘on-the-road fees’ and pay back added fees it has already charged.<\/p>\n

This follows a 2017 judgement<\/a> <\/strong>by the National Credit Regulator (NCR) which found that the fee is not permitted to be charged on credit agreements by the National Credit Act.<\/p>\n

In the judgement on Monday, the Tribunal ordered that Volkswagen Financial Services must stop charging customers on-the-road fees on credit agreements from 10 April 2019.<\/p>\n

The company – which is a separate entity from Volkswagen South Africa\u00a0 – was also ordered to calculate the total charges of the fees (including interest) added to the on-the road-fees<\/strong>, and to refund customers.<\/p>\n

Following this, it must submit a report to the NCR to confirm that these refunds had taken place.<\/p>\n

According to comparison website Hippo<\/a><\/strong>, an on-the-road fee \u2013 also known as a ‘dealership’ fee or ‘service and delivery fee \u2013 is added for extras such as pre-delivery checks\u201a valets and admin.<\/p>\n

The cost can be anything upwards of R4,000 on cars with a price tag of under R200,000.<\/p>\n

When asked for comment, Volkswagen Financial Services said that it is currently reviewing the ruling, and obtaining legal advice on how to proceed.<\/p>\n

Understanding what is being refunded<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking to BusinessTech, legal advisor at the NCR’s investigation and enforcement unit, Ravashnie Venugopal, clarified that the refund mentioned in the judgment does not apply to the on-the-road fee itself, but rather the fees levied on the on-the-road fees<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

“Any charges, interest or additional fees which were charged on the on-the-road fees must be refunded,” she said. “Because the consumers did benefit from these fees, the Tribunal couldn’t ask for consumers to be refunded for the full amount.<\/p>\n

“Instead, Volkswagen will have to refund those additional fees on the on-the-road fees,” Venugopal said.<\/p>\n

She added that going forward Volkswagen will not be allowed to charge on-the-road fees at all.<\/p>\n

Venugopal said that it is possible for Volkswagen to appeal the judgement, in which case it would then do so through the High Court.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Cape Town to introduce new number plates from this week<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Consumer Tribunal has ordered Volkswagen Financial Services to stop charging customers for ‘on-the-road fees’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":309788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[26,6636],"class_list":["post-309738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-headline","tag-volkswagen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309738"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310514,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309738\/revisions\/310514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}