Off topic really, need some advice :)

When your friend purchased the vehicle there would have been a 3 way contract. The friend - the dealership - the finance company. The day the contract was signed your friend would or should have received a copy of the financial contract whether it was hand written or not is immaterial. In my opinion the written contract will be the one any county court in the UK will back. However, having purchasd vehicles via dealerships on finance I have never come across a hand written finance contract, its normally printed of a computer in triplicate and 3 or 4 pages with all the small print about payments, bank details etc and when the first and last payments will take place. Also a finance company forging customers signatures, would not go down to well with the financial ombudsman service which for those offering credit agreements, have to be members of.... well thats my humble opinion anyway

Two things here that should be noted. The first is the agreement between the buyer and the finance company. This needs to have both signatures to validate a civil contract. This would be signed by the dealership on behalf of the bank.

If the buyers signature is forged in any way the contract is void and a crime has been committed. Ie forgery, deception or gaining pecuniary advantage by deception?

In my view the matter should b reported to the police and the bank informed without any further delay.

As Barney says, the finance paperwork is highly unlikely to be handwritten, so something isn't right here.

Me personally, before legal threats are bounded about, I would book a meeting with the general manager of the dealership concerned (regardless if he was or wasn't there or in that role at the time), take all the paperwork, and give them a chance to explain themselves, or put the situation right.

If they prove to be unhelpful, you can then look at your legal options.

Thanks guys. I had a chat with her in details and few things cleared up. Actually it wasn't Barclays, it was toyota dealers who tricked her. The dealers said it was 0% finance but Barclays sent her a letter that time mentioning the APR. She then went back to the dealers and they assured her that it is a formality letter and advised her to ignore it saying they will honour the 0% regardless. She acted stupid by not calling Barclays and lay the matter to rest until recently she received the letter from Barclays. When she went to toyota, they sent her the contract copy which she didn't sign(forged by them!!). She alerted Barclays of possible forgery by toyota dealers and they investigated the matter and said it was not forged signature(how the hell they say that). Anyway I think she lost the hope as it will be extremely hard to prove that the signature was forged.