bmwfs.co.uk

How BMW Financial Services Treat a Bereaved Family

If I could give a lower score I would.I am the executor of my late brother in laws will. He had a vehicle contract with BMW Financial services. I contacted them to inform them of his death and after they had received all the documentation they explained that we would receive settlement options in 5 working days. It took them 11 weeks to send the information and in the meantime they continued to take monthly payments when they knew the family were in financial difficulties at that time. After complaining about the time delay in receiving the options I received a final outcome letter where they failed to address the core of the complaint, why 11 weeks instead of 5 working days. No detail in the outcome letter and no contact with the family prior to their decision. The investigator made assumptions which are wrong. They failed to include documentation about referring our complaint to the Ombudsman even though they said they had.I wrote asking for more details about the investigation and highlighting that they had not addressed the core of the complaint. After two weeks and no reply I sent a further email, after another week I sent a further email, after no reply again I phoned to ensure my emails had been received. I spoke with a nice gentleman, Raj, who tried to put me through to the Customer Escalations Executive who were dealing with my complaint, I have a name and reference numbers. They refused to speak with me and told the gentleman to tell me that the complaint had been finalised.Honestly, how embarrassing, they are dealing with a grieving family. I’ve now referred my complaint to the Ombudsman. This could have been settled very quickly with a simple apology and explanation as to what went wrong and what they had put in place to ensure it wouldn’t happen to another grieving family. If we had received the options on time we could have stopped the payments until the Estate was finalised averting additional financial hardship for the family at that time.To be transparent BMW Financial Services did offer £150.00 as a gesture of goodwill, it hasn’t been accepted.Be aware if someone dies and they have a Contract Hire with BMW Finance, BMW want the car back straight away and they want FULL payment for the entire contract once the deceased Estate is finalised. We were 6 months into a 2 year contract. You can’t transfer the contract, the only option is they take the car back and the Estate pays for the full contract. It isn’t really an option.BMW, unbelievably poor customer service and as for the Customer Escalations Executive who refused to speak to the family you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself (name know but decided not to publish).Update 17/11/25BMW Financial Services did review my complaint, they offered over £700 this time but didn’t explain how we got that and didn’t reply to my follow up emails, no surprise there. As probate has not been resolved as yet they cannot take the car back, so whilst we have to pay for it at least we can use it.At the end of October 2025 BMW sent an email to the deceased saying that they could look at different options as he approached the end of his contract. Obviously they don’t update their records as they have known since February 2025 the contract holder had died.Please, if you don’t want an awful experience avoid contract hire and definitely avoid BMW Financial Services.

Date of experience: Jun 20, 2025