Can they charge me?

absolutelyemma

Hi,

So I just went to http://www.scrapcar.co.uk as I am getting quotes from all the websites for scrapping my car. I filled in the form and moronically clicked i agreed to the terms and conditions. Assuming I would get a quote as with the other sites but I then get an e-mail saying the following -

"Thank you for booking your vehicle with us.

One of our friendly drivers will be calling you shortly to to arrange a mutually convenient time to pick up your car, totally free of charge.

If you experience any problems or wish to cancel your collection (see below), please notify us immediately on freephone 0800 056 3343.

Terms and Conditions

You must call us within 30 minutes of your booking should you wish to cancel this free service, failure to do so will result in a 50 pounds administration fee. Your booking is made as soon as you either submit the form or call us. This is a thirty minute cooling off period that we have been forced to implement to avoid the timely process of cancelling your collection.

We do not offer payment for scrap vehicles and infact we have found that most companies, although advertising the fact will, use this as a ploy to actually get your address without having any intention of paying money or worse still, charge you on arrival. What we can offer is a free vehicle disposal from a reliable company and above all in a legal and environmental way."

So I quickly e-mailed them and text and left and answerphone message within 30 minutes. I will ring them first thing on monday but can they charge me the £50? What if they claim no knowledge of my attempts to contact them. I'm freaking out about it. Here is their excuse for charging £50 -

"All we ask is that you call us within 30 minutes of your initial booking request if you change your mind and wish to cancel this free service. Failure to do so could result in a £50 administration fee if cancelled before arrival. If cancelled on the same day as a planned collection you will be passed on recovery callout charges. This has been implemented due to the timely process of cancelling your request. Cancelling your booking request can be done via email or voicemail if the offices are closed. All emails and voicemails are time stamped and sent to our email inbox, the cancellation cross checks our database and completes the process automatically. After the 30 minute period, if the offices are closed, the request is automated and sent to the drivers data terminal. This is when it becomes costly for us, the transfer of the data from our system to the recovery vehicle is chargeable, this is the reason why we pass on our costs should you choose to cancel outside the 30 minute calling off period."

What shall i say if they try to charge me?

Thanks

Emma

McKneff

I bet from now on and for the rest of your life you will read every term and every condition before clicking any buttong, and not a bad thing really.

Hope thing work out for you.
Any message you send either booking it or cancelling it will be timed so I wouldnt worry too much about it.

Guard your emails with your life.

Was their quote competitive then or not.

Forwandert

Before you even got to the terms and conditions did you read any of the frontpage of the website. It's written on there 2/3 times that they scrap cars for free. Did you read anything before entering your details?

mo786uk

Dodgy one

They only mention the £50 cancelaltion fee at the very last minute when you have to click to say you have read the terms - IMO it is not prominent enough o ntheir website - why dont they put it in bigger letters?

I am not sure whether businesses can hide behind terms and conditions when they are presented like that (i.e you have to tick) but they are put in in a sneaky way.



I agree that they make clear its a free service where they don't pay you.

paddyrg

Call them again when they first open.

When we scrapped a car recently they scrap yard picked it up and gave us £100 in cash for an S-Reg Citroen Xsar with a knackered engine - not sure I would take 'for free' as being such a great deal anyway!

bris

Sounds to me like a service (free or not). Under DSR you can cancel a service if it hasn't started within 7 days. This service has not started so tell them to do one.

shiprob195

My local scrap yard came and collected my car a couple of months ago.
I phoned them to find out first. They said if i drove it to them i would get £150, or .£130 if they came to me. I took anything of value out of the car before they came.
Ten minutes later, I had a wad if ten pound notes in my hand!!!