Our cars were towed away for repair and are being held to ransom | Money

A Bidfood a delivery truck overturned into my car in front of my house in January. Bidfood uses a fleet management company, VMSto arrange repairs and provide a rental car. Since then I haven’t received any significant updates from VMS. The manager assigned to my file is not available when I ring and the promised callbacks do not materialize. In the meantime, I have received five Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) for unpaid Ulez (Ultra Low Emission Zone) taxes, indicating that my car was driven without my knowledge.
BN, Brighton

Thus begins one of the most extraordinary cases I have ever investigated. Shortly after, I received an almost identical complaint from North Carolina in Hertfordshire. His car was damaged by a truck belonging to food wholesaler Bidfood in June.

VMS, which is contracted by Bidfood to register complaints and manage repairs after such incidents, towed it and provided a rental car. Like BN, she is still waiting for news of his return and must continue to pay monthly for the purchase of a personal contract for a vehicle to which she does not have access. “I have had radio silence from VMS,” she wrote.

This is where the story gets dark. I discovered that both vehicles had been taken by VMS to its contract repair shop in Kent, called Cobra Coachworks. The repairs were duly carried out and paid for.

Since then, they have effectively been held ransom there, along with approximately 23 other vehicles, due to an unrelated commercial dispute between Cobra and VMS.

How do I know? Because both VMS and Cobra happily told me that.

Cobra Chief Executive Greg Ebeling said he refuses to release them because of money he claims VMS owes for unrelated contracts. He added that he was also retaining the other 23 vehicles brought in by VMS on behalf of other clients, including Iceland.

VMS confirmed this figure but will not tell me how many of them belonged to members of the public. Iceland declined to comment.

According to VMS, Cobra is demanding payment of £189,000 in arrears, which have nothing to do with the vehicles, but has not provided evidence of any debt.

VMS, which receives rental fees from Bidfood for the vehicles it supplies to affected owners of its fleet, appears to have been remarkably cavalier about the saga.

He instructed a lawyer to write to Cobra demanding the return of BN and NC’s cars the day after I spoke last month, and only then did he appear to have considered upping the ante. The lawyer tells me: “We emphasized that our client may be forced to seek an injunction for the release of the vehicles, and that any separate alleged monetary disputes should be handled under normal court procedure and protocols, rather than using the vehicles as an attempt to leverage.” »

Extraordinarily, Bidfood says she was only informed of NC’s case in August, a month after her car was repaired and paid for, and that she was unaware of BN’s plight until I alerted her in September.

“There were unacceptable delays on the part of VMS Global and the withholding of vehicles, following disputes with the garages they had engaged to carry out the repairs,” it says. “These issues were not reported to us as they should have been. Given the unacceptable service that members of the public and Bidfood received, we have terminated our relationship with VMS Global.”

He says he will continue to work with VMS to secure the release of the two cars and has advised owners of the vehicles to report them to police as stolen. The police told them it was a civil matter.

And what about the PCNs issued to BN for unpaid Ulez fees while his car was in Cobra’s possession?

Ebeling, who told me that all the vehicles were “securely stored”, claimed that an Ulez camera happened to be located outside the entrance to the premises where the cars are taken, and therefore triggers a fine each time they are removed for parking outside opening hours.

But how is it that the five PCNs show that BN’s car was pointed out in different areas of London: in Tooting, North Finchley and in a housing estate. Ebeling, who paid the fines, did not respond.

Ebeling promised VMS and me that both cars would be returned two weeks ago. This was not the case.

BN finally got his car back a week ago, nine months after he took it, with 46 extra miles on the odometer.

NC was promised his this week, but on the day of delivery he was informed that Cobra had lost the keys. It was returned the next afternoon.

Both drivers suspect that without press intervention, they would still be waiting.