Some advice please re buying a car on ebay?

Saffronsmum

pinkshoes wrote: »

Why would an HPI check be wrong? Particularly saying it had MORE owners when it had less... (as surely it would be more likely to overlook an owner and mark down as LESS rather than more!?!?)

Phone HPI people and chat to them, to see if an error is likely. I would be much more tempted to listen to what they have to say then someone selling a second hand car!

OH will be phoning the people that did the HPI check, apparently sometimes they do get it wrong, looking at all the MOT's it has had the millage (that the seller states) adds up and is correct, it even states where the MOTs had taken place and what work was done on the car. All the MOT's were done in the same area which would indicate 1 owner. The seller has actually been very nice about it all (so far).

SourChocolate

Hello,
It's good you did not loose £2k!

Saffronsmum wrote: »

ok, a bit of an update, OH decided to pay for a full check on the car (including MOT history, registration history), the car was registered last year (may 2008) as doing 58,000 miles and then registered 2 weeks ago at 45,000 miles.

Can you advise where did you get this information from? Was it HPI or something else?

austin

Saffronsmum wrote: »

A bit of an update. My oh has phoned the seller up, his story is ; he bought the car 2 weeks ago but has since lots his license for drinking and driving, he also lost his job and now needs to sell the car as he can't drive it and needs the cash, he says he's selling the car at a loss as he needs the money. Oh has told me to pay the 100.00 deposit (which i have) and we will go and check the car out tomorrow, if its dodgy we will walk away and loose our deposit (i would rather loose 100.00 rather than 2000).

hmmm.. there's a rat away here... being stopped for drink driving, getting a court date, being convicted, losing your licence, losing your job... normally takes a lot longer than two weeks :think:

SourChocolate

Again - I would strongly recommend staying away from this car and this person. As I said earlier - too many things just do not work.
You can say "item not as described" - 3 owners instead of 1. That's it.

austin

SourChocolate wrote: »

Again - I would strongly recommend staying away from this car and this person. As I said earlier - too many things just do not work.
You can say "item not as described" - 3 owners instead of 1. That's it.

i agree. avoid like the plague.

as for the mileage thing, when i bought my car off ebay, it was a cat C with no s/h, MOT, nothing and was advertised as a 1 previous keeper, 2001 with 21,000 miles. i did the necessary checks and was happy the mileage was correct. i checked the MOT records on the direct gov site and they all tied in ok bar one which stated 90,000 miles, but should have been 19,000 miles. so typos can happen, but they are few and far between. just exercise a lot of caution in these cases and do your homework!!

piratefairy

Claim your deposit back from Paypal, you are covered as the item is not as described.

deanos

Surely he would have known about the court case , sowhy buy a car shortly before, i agree sounds dodgy

Whats the sellers ID ?