Car purchase gone wrong, with odd twists!

sometimes_makes_mistakes

I recently had need to purchase a car. The reason was to enable me to keep working and functioning as a productive member of society, as long as possible whilst I undergo what could be a lengthy period of hospital treatment.

I only earn a minimum wage, my partner is a mature student, so money is tight. We could not afford anything from a garage or dealer, new or nearly new. We were not willing to take credit either in these uncertain times, only a fool would have granted it us anyway, so we did not bother looking down that road.

To cut a long story short, we purchased one off eBay on the 4th Feb 2010, from what appeared to be a private seller in the Lancashire area. We did everything we thought was correct, we asked lots of questions and we purchased from the sellers home. It was advertised with full service history, and in very good condition with only 63000 miles.

The car is a Vauxhall Vectra, 2003 ‘53’ plate 2.2 automatic. After only one month and 1000 miles at the beginning of March the automatic gearbox failed resulting in a repair costing £2000 minimum. The car had been purchased for £2300, so this failure has effectively written the car off leaving us obviously in a horrible position, without our money, without transport, and with a useless car outside which we can no way afford to repair.

Anyway, a few days after the breakdown, an online friend took a look at the seller’s eBay feedback page and told me to email him and complain as he may be a trader, either full or part time. It was at this point that I began looking into the seller and his recent history very closely and some disturbing things began to emerge both about the car, and the seller.

All the seller’s auctions are private auctions; therefore you cannot see what he has sold. I have pieced together a timeline spanning from September 2009 to the present showing him selling a minimum of seven vehicles, and both selling and buying large spare parts such as gearboxes, keys and doors.

He appears to have stopped using his eBay account since I emailed him, however, he was advertising a rather expensive Nissan Navara, on the Autotrader site as recently as today, as a private seller, using Autotrader’s masking facility for his telephone number.

Using Google cache I also found he had one in January attempted to sell the car I purchased as a non-runner due to faulty gearbox on eBay. Ouch.

I also looked closer at the paperwork, the MOT in particular, the name of the tester, appeared to be the same as the seller. Further investigation proved the seller was in fact an MOT inspector for a very large main dealership group, and he had MOT’d his own vehicle, using his own name, along with using his main dealer employer to give the certificate.

He disclosed nothing about this on purchase. I even asked him what he did for a living, when I was viewing the car. He claimed he was helping his brother out on the markets, because he was out of work!!

I emailed the seller last week, and after a few polite emails stating I thought he was a trader, and some of the reasons why. He denied being a trader, but offered £1000.00, about 50% of the repair costs. I accepted this, as it meant we could scrape the money together with an advance from work, and a small loan from family, we could get the repairs done immediately, and stay mobile, and stay working. I was willing to take some responsibility, because obviously if I have found this out this information about the seller now, I could have found it out before I purchased

Two days later he withdrew his offer, by email. He claimed he had taken advice from trading standards and he was a private seller, with no liability for the vehicle, and any further contact from me would be deemed harassment.

I have emailed the large dealership group that he works for to complain that they have facilitated this sale by allowing him to conduct his own MOT, on his own vehicle, which was then promptly sold. They are not interested and have claimed they will not answer letters and emails on the matter.

I’m looking for guidance from you guys now really. I’m a bit lost. County court, Trading Standards, Police, HMRC, how should I take this from here? Do you think he classes as a trader, therefore giving me rights under SOG?
Ill add more too this thread as I find out more!

Thanks

Terri n steve

jd82

I am not an expert here but you need to proove her is a trader but even as a private sale you have rights is the car was not as described.

It probably isn't a police matter but your local trading standards may well look into this for you if you have enough evidence he is trading ilegally. I think Inland Revenue may well also bne extremely interested.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

I think whoever quoted you £2,000 for a replacement gearbox might have been taking the pee.

http://www.fedauto.co.uk/

Find a local member of that lot, and ask them.

celticsprite

Hi Terri n steve,

I'm afraid I have no advice to offer, as I don't know about these things. What a horrible thing to have happened though :eek:

The people on this board are usually very helpful (even though I've only posted on this forum a couple of times. I am pretty sure they will be able to point you in the right direction).

Are you sure the dealer that he works for knew he'd given his own car an MOT? I'd have thought that there would be some kind of paper trail if he does that regularly, and pretty sure they would not be happy about it. After all, it's their facilities and (presumably) their time that would be used for his personal gain. Again, only my opinion, but I doubt many places would be happy with an employee taking this kind of liberty.

Anyhow, over to the experts.... the guys* here know more than I do

cs x

*= I know there are females on the forum too I am one

celticsprite

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

I think whoever quoted you £2,000 for a replacement gearbox might have been taking the pee.

http://www.fedauto.co.uk/

Find a local member of that lot, and ask them.

hi

Fedauto looked good to me when I needed to look for a car gearbox.

I've found this site http://www.carpartsconnexion.com/vauxhall/searchresults.asp?f=Vauxhall&m=VECTRA-C&y=2003&cat=0&d=&p=&q=gearbox which may help you, to get a rough price for the part, so you've got some idea of basic costs.

cs x

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

The fault could be anywhere on the gearbox. It could be a lack of fluid, it could be a failed selector unit, it could be a broken band, stripped gears, anything. That's why it needs to go to a gearbox specialist, and not an ordinary garage.

£2,000 is probably the worst-case scenario. I've read of total loss gearboxes being repaired for a couple of hundred quid. Knowledge is everything.

sometimes_makes_mistakes

jd82 wrote: »

I am not an expert here but you need to proove her is a trader but even as a private sale you have rights is the car was not as described.

It probably isn't a police matter but your local trading standards may well look into this for you if you have enough evidence he is trading ilegally. I think Inland Revenue may well also bne extremely interested.

I think it was not as described, plus he knew about a pre existing fault.

II think whoever quoted you £2,000 for a replacement gearbox might have been taking the pee.


Find a local member of that lot, and ask them. am guessing he makes money off what he does, therefore a trader?

Two thousand is the minimum ive been quoted. Depends on reason for failure ( could be one of two 2 reasons). Their is a place in Preston on that site i will call up tommorrow though.

Are you sure the dealer that he works for knew he'd given his own car an MOT? I'd have thought that there would be some kind of paper trail if he does that regularly, and pretty sure they would not be happy about it.

Yeah, they know, they dont seem bothered. It seemed strange to me.

keith1950

Hi, it is a risk you take when buying items on ebay that you might not get what you expect. I do not see what the reference to the MOT is all about. The MOT is to ensure the car is road worthy and does not deal with faults that do not effect the safety. I think that he has withdrawn his offer because he has taken advice and realises that you don't have a leg to stand on so to speak. The cheapest option would be to issue an online claim (Money Claim On-Line) and hope that it shows him you are serious about him contributing towards a gearbox. This will only cost about £25 so if it does'nt convince him then your not too much out of pocket. When he receives the paperwork from Northampton Bulk Issueing Centre he may just give in.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

keith1950 wrote: »

Hi, it is a risk you take when buying items on ebay that you might not get what you expect. I do not see what the reference to the MOT is all about. The MOT is to ensure the car is road worthy and does not deal with faults that do not effect the safety. I think that he has withdrawn his offer because he has taken advice and realises that you don't have a leg to stand on so to speak. The cheapest option would be to issue an online claim (Money Claim On-Line) and hope that it shows him you are serious about him contributing towards a gearbox. This will only cost about £25 so if it does'nt convince him then your not too much out of pocket. When he receives the paperwork from Northampton Bulk Issueing Centre he may just give in.

the issue with the MOT is that it was carried out by the seller at a large company/dealership. in wich case is if he intended to "flog" the car and knew it wouldnt pass MOT (for what ever reason) who better to pass an MOT than youself through work!!!! if you have access to the facility's.

OP my advice would be to go through all the investigation stuffs you have found out about him relating to vehicles and him trying to sell as non runner with gearbox gone. when on a page press prtscr (print screen) on your keyboard then go to paint in start menu/all programs/accesories when paint is open press ctrl (control) on your keyboard and v at the same time and the picture of the screen will appear in paint of the page you were on do this for all evidence and tell trading standards you suspect he's a trader and have evidence, they may give you an e-mail addy to forward your evidence to. you never know he may have done this a few times over and been reported before. try and get as many vehicles as possible sold and for sale if he's on autotrader you may want to check pistonheads he may be spreading his vehicles on different sites.

emmell

I would try the Citizens Advice Bureau. They helped me once on a motoring issue (long time ago though).
ML.

petrolhead69

It wont help with getting you car sorted, but if I was in your shoes I would defineatly be asking vosa and the hmrc to check him out, certainly it can be assumed he isn't paying tax on these cars he's shifting, and the taxman doesn't !!!! about. Wont fix your gearbox but it feels really good to know someone who ripped you off is getting whats coming to them.

I`d second what mr lasers said, When my merc wouldn't shift out of park I feared the worst, big bucks for a 722.6 tip box, it was a £9 switch, I bought a 10 year old specced to the hilt bmw 740 worth a good few grand for £250 because the gearbox was "knackered", the mot and tax had run out, and it had a cracked windscreen and the owner had died and the family wanted rid. Turns out there was nothing wrong with the gearbox, a code scan turned up a faulty speed sensor, £80 and it shifted sweet as after.