Within the framework of the World Week of Consumer Rights, savings plans lead the ranking of claims. According to data from ACARA in Argentina, almost 4 out of 10 new vehicles are purchased financed; and in 55% of these cases it is with savings plans, and most of the consumers who enter these plans do so with great enthusiasm, but then they find different irregularities on the part of the administrator and the dealership.
In this sense, from my law firm we make different types of claims related to the purchase of this type of plan. The main conflicts -generally- revolve around the lack of information received by the subscriber when buying the plan, the increase in the value of the car, which is reflected in the excessive increase in fees, to the delay that the administrator has to return the funds once the plan ends, to the lack of delivery of the unit on time, which today is increased by import restrictions, and precisely related to this , I thought it appropriate to report this breaking news referring to the fact that Plan Ovalo will return the money to savers who were paying for an ecoesport, motivated by the fact that in July 2022, its production at the plant in India ended, with which they no longer have stock to meet the customers.
This is how Plan Ovalo informed it by means of an official letter sent to almost 2000 Ford Argentina clients who are included in this plan with this model: the last act of adjudication of the plan will be carried out at the end of March and the last 0km units of that model will be delivered over the course of the following 60 days and those clients who are excluded will be returned the money the installments paid, at the updated value of the vehicle at the time of liquidating that amount. It is important to say that the return of the money will take place in the month of May, and that it will not include the taxes paid by the savers for administrative expenses.
Likewise, although the Plan Ovalo circular does not inform it, some dealers are informing these savers that those who have run out of their EcoSport and need a vehicle, could choose to transfer their plan to another model that Ford Argentina sells through the oval plan However, they clarify that these models have a much more expensive quota. As reported by the specialized media Motor1 Argentina.
The truth is that currently most savings plans suffer from delays in delivery. Given this, the companies, in order to evade responsibilities, are making the new buyers sign, upon entering the plan, a document stating that they understand that eventual “limitations on imports may prevent, delay or hinder the delivery”. Despite signing this document, the consumer should know that he or she can also file a claim for the delivery and for the economic fine corresponding to the failure to deliver the unit on time, since the norms of protection of consumers and users constitute a non-derogable minimum legal status, below which any provision, legal or conventional, because it finds the maximum protection of “public order” (art. 65, Law 24,240) and that in turn, by rule of Art. 2 of the LDC and Art. 1093 CCCN The administrator and the concessionaire are jointly and severally liable for intervening in the “marketing chain” either as a manufacturer or intermediaries (dealers and agents) for professionally and onerously carrying out a complex activity, consisting of the commercialization of an external savings management system (provision of a service) for the sale of automobiles that are “consumer goods ” intended for “consumers” who purchase them with “final or own destination” and/or for the benefit of their “family or social group” (cf. articles 1 and 2 of the LDC and 1092 of the CCCN).
Finally, consumers should be aware that, with the approval of the 2023 budget law, the maximum amount applicable to the civil fine (punitive damages) provided for in the consumer defense law was updated, which goes from a fixed amount at a value equivalent to 2,100 basic baskets, thus going from 5 million pesos at a current value of more than 300 million.
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by CEDOC
