CarCraft warning

dark^knight

I have been looking for a new(er) car as my current one needed a new gearbox and clutch recently, so want to upgrade.

Three weeks ago, after browsing the CarCraft website, I decided to go to their Rochdale showroom just to have a look around.

As soon as I entered their showroom, I was greeted by a young salesman, who sat us down and flipped through a flipchart and did his rehearsed CarCraft sales pitch.

He asked me what I was after, so I told him either a small petrol car, smaller than 1.4litre, or a larger diesel car. I also told him I wanted to pay cash and did not want to use any of their 7 finance options.


Also he took the details of my current car so they could calculate the part exchange value.

Then he took me out to the yard, and showed me a few cars which I was not really keen on. Also they were about 25% above my budget. So when I enquired about the price, he said it's your car as deposit, plus the cash amount you have, and then it's about X amount per month. I was really annoyed. Even after I'd told him I did not want to take finance, he was still trying to sell me a car above my budget and then force me to take finance.

After seeing a few cars which were not ideal for me, we started to leave. Before we'd reached the door, we were honed in on by another seasoned salesman. Now this guy was pushy. He said they'll work out a deal for me, and they can get me any car in any colour from their other showrooms if they don't have it at that one. So I explained what I was looking for, and they started searching their own website. They came back one which I was a bit interested in, although it was a 1.6 litre petrol car. It was actually at another showroom, so they said that if I paid a refundable £100 deposit, they will get the car brought over so I could test drive. He also said they would return the £100 deposit whether I decided to buy the car or not.


I paid the £100 deposit on my debit card, arranged to return in a couple of days for the test drive.

When I got home I checked the value of the car on auto trader and realised that I would be paying about £2000 more than the market price, and also it was a high mileage car (52,000 miles). I also spoke to a couple of friends who know more about cars that me and they advised me not to buy the car.

Another thing, I decided to check online about CarCraft and other people's experiences, and I was horrifed to learn about their shocking customer service and the dodgy cars.

I had made my mind up that I would not be buying the car, and I didn't care if I didnt get my deposit back.

On the day of the arranged test drive, I received a call from a CarCraft 'Business Manager' saying he's calling me because I would be taking delivery of car that day. Talk about counting your chickens before they hatch! I explained to him that I had arranged a test drive but I will not be buying the car. Then I went to the showroom, and they said that everything was ready for the test drive. I explained the test drive was probably a waste of time as I would not be buying the car. Obviously they were not happy about this, but they said that they could not refund my deposit as it had to be authorised by the manager, but he was not onsite and I would have to return the next day.

I returned the next day and spoke to the manager and I explained that I did not want to go ahead as it was not the car I wanted in the first place. He said he will refund the deposit but the person who could action that was not on-site, and took my mobile number, and promised that someone would call me that afternoon.

I went home, and no one called me. The next day I called CarCraft to speak to the manager, but apparently he was busy and they took a message. I did this four time over the next few days. About 3 days later I went into the showroom again, and went straight to the manager. He was surprised to see me, and then sent me to see a guy in finance. He promised me the money would be in my account in about 3 days. Again waited 3 days the money was not in my account. I had made a note of the finance guys name, so called CarCraft and asked to be put through to him, but again they just kept transferring me to sales people who just messages and said they would call me back.

After getting sick of phoning CarCraft, I sent an email to the finance guy. I was shocked when I got a reply back. Again he said the money is in the process of being refunded.

It was a week later that the money appeared on my account.

It had taken CarCraft 2 minutes to take the deposit from my card, and 2 weeks to refund it back.

I admit it was my decision to go there and agree to the test drive, but the whole experience was awful, and I feel really lucky to have escaped from the clutches of these clowns.

I hope that serves as a warning to others.

paulofessex

Glad you got your money back. As you have now found Carcraft are very well known for they way they deal with people. If you were to buy a car at the time of your visit you may have had to sit and wait for approx. 4-5 hours for them to complete the purchase, hence why they have the so called VIP Lounge, free coffee etc.

They can get away with treating people like they do because people are still clearly using them

vikingaero

Carcraft's business model very much relies on finance. They don't like selling cars for cash.

Most of their cars are priced high. I got fed up with the salespeople and was walking out when the guy shouted out: "I'll give you £2,000 off right now." I still walked.