Good to know: We are a Claims Management Company (CMC). You do not need to use a CMC to make your complaint to your lender, bank or insurer. If your complaint is not successful you can refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service yourself for free if the firm is still trading. For eligible failed firms, you can refer a claim to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme for free.
If you’ve taken car finance with Advantage Finance, you may be eligible to make a claim for:
Whilst there is no right or wrong answer, many customers prefer to first ask us to investigate a hidden commission claim, as unaffordable lending claims require customers to provide bank statements, to establish unaffordability. Here at Allegiant, we can check whether you have a commission claim and pursue it. If not, we can then look at unaffordable lending. The choice is yours – you can apply to us in respect of both.
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Advantage Finance was founded in 1999. They specialise in providing car finance, offering Hire Purchase agreements up to £15,000, typically repayable over a maximum of 5 years.
As a responsible lender, Advantage Finance must check that a customer can afford their repayments. However, their affordability checks haven’t always been robust. The Ombudsman has highlighted several cases where Advantage failed to gather enough information to make a fair lending decision.
If you took out car finance through Advantage Finance, you may have been affected by hidden commission payments. This is where the dealer or broker was paid a commission for arranging your finance, but you were not told about it clearly.
This matters because if you didn’t know about the commission, you couldn’t make an informed choice. You may have been steered towards a finance deal that suited the dealer’s interest, not yours. If you’d known about the commission, you might have shopped around, compared other lenders, or secured a better interest rate elsewhere.
The Court of Appeal has confirmed that lenders must get a customer’s fully informed consent before paying a commission. It’s not enough to say a commission might exist – you had to be told clearly and understand how it worked.
If you weren’t properly informed, you could be entitled to compensation. This isn’t about technicalities, it’s about whether you paid more than you should have, without being given a fair chance to choose the right deal.
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In addition to hidden commission, you may have a claim if Advantage Finance didn’t check your ability to afford the loan properly. This is known as “unaffordable lending” or sometimes “irresponsible lending”.
Here are some examples of decisions in real life claims:-
“Advantage didn’t ask Mr F about his expenditure and haven’t provided evidence to suggest the bank statements they say they had were used for this purpose. Although Advantage did complete a credit check, this won’t have indicated what Mr F’s regular living expenses were. Without knowing what Mr F’s regular committed expenditure was, Advantage wouldn’t have got a reasonable understanding of whether the agreement was affordable or not.”
Apply Now“I’ve reviewed three months of bank statements leading up to the lending decision. These show that Ms T was paying about £2,350 towards her committed living expenditure including rent, council tax, food, and utility costs. Her income was higher than Advantage had recorded as she was in receipt of child tax credit and child benefits. In total I think Ms T’s income was about £2,550 and that left her with disposable income of £200 before this loan of £155.07 per month and any fuel and motoring expenses were taken into account. That demonstrates that Ms T didn’t have enough disposable income to afford the additional borrowing. Advantage therefore didn’t act fairly by approving the finance.”
If you think you may have overpaid, act now.
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We realise that claiming against your lender can seem daunting. We aim to make the claiming process as simple as possible. We specialise in affordability claims. Our experienced team will communicate with the lender (and where required, the Ombudsman service) on your behalf. We use bespoke technology to ensure efficient claims handling. Throughout the process, we inform you of claim progress using a “stage process”, so you can track your progress easily. Please remember though, that you do not need to use a claims management company to make your complaint to your lender, and if your complaint is not successful you can refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service yourself for free.
Pre complaint investigation and analysis
Formal unaffordable lending complaint made
Lender responds with a Final Response Letter
If appropriate resolution cannot be reached with the lender, referral to Financial Ombudsman Service.
Our success fee is due only if your lender makes a compensation payout, and is calculated on the amount of the compensation payout. We do not charge you for any part of a settlement that results in the lender reducing your outstanding balance – that is on the house!
The success fee amount is calculated using a band charging system. There are five charging bands. Each band has a maximum amount that we will charge.
Success Fee Charging Table
| Band | Compensation Payout | Percentage rate the Success Fee is calculated on (including VAT) | Maximum Success Fee in band (including VAT) |
| 1 | £1 to £1,499 | 36% | £504 |
| 2 | £1,500 to £9,999 | 33.60% | £3,000 |
| 3 | £10,000 to £24,999 | 30% | £6,000 |
| 4 | £25,000 to £49,999 | 24% | £,9000 |
| 5 | £50,000 or more | 18% | £12,000 |
Below are examples of how this would work in practice.
| Lower example | Higher example | |||
| Band | Compensation Payout | Success Fee | Compensation Payout | Success Fee |
| 1 | £100 | £36 | £1,499 | £504 |
| 2 | £1,600 | £537.60 | £9,999 | £3,000 |
| 3 | £12,000 | £3,600 | £24,999 | £6,000 |
| 4 | £30,350 | £7,284 | £49,999 | £9,000 |
| 5 | £55,000 | £9,900 | £100,000 | £12,000 |
If you want to see how much we would charge for a specific amount, please visit our online fee calculator at https://allegiant.co.uk/unaffordable-lending-claim-fees.
Please note that the examples in the tables are for illustration purposes only. They are not an estimate of the likely outcome or success fee.
You can cancel for free at any time within 14-days without giving any reason and without incurring any liability. You can communicate your cancellation by telephone, post, email or online.
You can cancel this agreement at any time after the 14-day cancellation period. However, if a complaint submitted by us is successful, the Success Fee will apply in the usual way.
You can cancel by post: Allegiant Finance Services Limited, Freepost RTYU–XUTZ–YKJC, 400 Chadwick House, Warrington Road, Birchwood Park, Warrington, WA3 6AE; (b) by email: helpdesk@allegiant-finance.co.uk; (c) by telephone: 0345 544 1563; or (d) online at https://allegiant.co.uk/compliance/cancellation.
Allegiant Finance Services is widely regarded as a pioneer in the high cost loan claims management market.
Contactable by email, phone, or post, whichever you prefer
We will only correspond with you and keep your details secure. We’ll never sell your data.
Much more than a contact form. With our full online application process you will receive an instant automated decision on whether we can take on your claim
We are proud to have recovered over £67m for unaffordable lending claims since 2013
We’ve been claiming high cost loan refunds since 2013
Good to know: We are a Claims Management Company (CMC). You do not need to use a CMC to make your complaint to your lender, bank or insurer. If your complaint is not successful you can refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service yourself for free if the firm is still trading. For eligible failed firms, you can refer a claim to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme for free.
