No show of refund payment

frillys

Hi All,

My husband left a deposit of £100.00 on a vehicle, he left this deposit as he looked at the vehicle on a Sunday eve and the car sales were getting ready to close. The saleman said if he could leave a deposit to secure the car and it was on a subject to him wanting to go ahead after he looked at it again and a test drive.

He then decided he did not want to proceed with the sale the saleman said that he would not give him his deposit back. After a long chat! it was agreed yes they would refund ...

4 weeks on and after lots of emails and being given a load of lies that the account dept have produced a cheque we are still waiting.

Can anyone give us some advise what action we could take on this matter, as it's very clear we were miss advised and the deposit would never have been refunded.. We would never have left it if we ever thought we would lose it.

This is a multi branch car sales in the south coast! ..not sure if I was allowed to name and shame?

Many thanks

unholyangel

What method did he pay by?

The_Pedant

Assuming did not pay by card (or else they could just refund direct to the card) ... If you have the email stating they are going to give you the refund (the ones saying the accounts dept have produced the cheque?), then I would send a recorded letter to the manager of the dealership as a 'letter before action' (look up this term if you're not familiar with it). Outline that the deposit taken was stated to be subject to wishing to proceed with the sale and it has already been confirmed the amount is to be refunded to you. Give them a deadline for receipt of a refund (say 14 days), or you will take further action.

If there is no response by the due date, then file a small claims action to get the refund.

arcon5

What exactly did he leave a deposit for? Surely you'd only leave a deposit as a committment to buy?

That aside though, you should be able to get it back using a chargeback (if debit card) or section 75 claim (if credit card) More info

If cash or cheque, as above, LBA followed by MCO (will cost £35 and added to the claim). Or you could just leave it for a few years so when you file a claim you get your statutory interest added as part of your claim (8%?) and consider it to be a high interest savings account type thing . (I'm joking with this second bit btw, it's a high risk strategy, if they went under you'd loose it all )

frillys

Thanks for the info,

He paid the deposit by debit card, as I said he only left this deposit on the "subject to" him comming back to re look at the car and test drive if he so wished and him wishing to purchase ?, as the sales were due to close.

I have a sample letter so I will get onto this today.

Many thanks

Quentin

frillys wrote: »

............He paid the deposit by debit card, as I said he only left this deposit on the "subject to" him comming back to re look at the car and test drive .......

Is that "subject to" a quote from the receipt he got?

If so he is in the £ seats regarding getting his money back, and he just needs to follow Pedant's advice above #3 (on using MCOL).

(Though if this was a verbal agreement, with no witness, then things may be harder to sort out!)

unholyangel

If he paid by debit card he could try the card issuer for a chargeback. I believe these need to be filed within 120 days of the transaction taking place.