Service History faked?

markr999

Hi all,

I recently purchased a used car from a private dealership in London. The advert stated FSH, but when I asked for the service book, they said it had been lost but that they had an email from the main dealers with the mileage and dates of services. Unfortunately for me, I only asked to see the FSH after I'd paid. Rookie mistake.

Once I got home, I contacted the main dealers and they only had records of the first 2 services. I now suspect that the 3rd service listed was made up and copied and pasted into the email.

What should I do now? I paid for a small percentage of the car on credit card, and the rest cash. I haven't confronted the dealer yet as I just found out, but I paid the price of a car with FSH, and could have got cheaper ones without FSH, so I feel I'm owed some money here. Can I cancel the CC payment?

Aside from this, the Satnav they advertised isn't working, and when I asked about it, they said they'd given the disk away to someone else and were ordering me a new CD from the manufacturers. I suspect I'm going to receive a copied disk after all this, which I'm not happy about either.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Silk

markr999 wrote: »

I recently purchased a used car from a private dealership in London. The advert stated FSH, but when I asked for the service book, they said it had been lost but that they had an email from the main dealers with the mileage and dates of services. Unfortunately for me, I only asked to see the FSH after I'd paid. Rookie mistake.

You first of all need to get a copy of the email.
Ask them to forward a copy to you without raising suspicion that you are going to contest it.

To be honest I think the Satnav issue is just down to them having to make it work. Providing they don't break any copyright laws of course.

headpin

markr999 wrote: »

Hi all,

I recently purchased a used car from a private dealership in London. The advert stated FSH, but when I asked for the service book, they said it had been lost but that they had an email from the main dealers with the mileage and dates of services. Unfortunately for me, I only asked to see the FSH after I'd paid. Rookie mistake.

Once I got home, I contacted the main dealers and they only had records of the first 2 services. I now suspect that the 3rd service listed was made up and copied and pasted into the email.

What should I do now? I paid for a small percentage of the car on credit card, and the rest cash. I haven't confronted the dealer yet as I just found out, but I paid the price of a car with FSH, and could have got cheaper ones without FSH, so I feel I'm owed some money here. Can I cancel the CC payment?

Aside from this, the Satnav they advertised isn't working, and when I asked about it, they said they'd given the disk away to someone else and were ordering me a new CD from the manufacturers. I suspect I'm going to receive a copied disk after all this, which I'm not happy about either.

Any advice would be appreciated.

The Satnav comment could be correct and if true you may well get a more upto date version of the maps. However, depending on Make of car these discs are not cheap, so you may have to push. A "copy" is a fraction of the price!!

On the FSH, where did you first see it advertised? Have you a copy? If so see what materialises from your request to see it or dealer confirmation and if still not happy then Trading Standards is your route.

markr999

Thanks for your comments.

I've emailed Mercedes to see if they can provide me with the original email they sent the garage to see if the details have been modified.

The car was advertised on Autotrader as having FSH and 1 previous owner. My wife just called me and said the V5 states 2 previous owners. It's getting further and further from the advertisement by the second.

I have a printed copy (that the garage gave me when I purchased the car) of the email from the Mercedes garage with 3 services listed on it. I now have an email from Mercedes head office with 2 services on it (the details match the email from the garage aside from the ficticious 3rd service). What worries me is that the service indicator on the onboard computer has obviously been reset to make it look like it was serviced, so I worry that they may have done other things not easily apparent.

I've read a report that the fake CD's can cause damage to the optical readers. If you google "comand fake and copied discs mercedes" you'll find an article with details as to why (I can't post links on here yet as I'm a new forum user).

fivetide

Aside from the FSH you should make sure that the CD is the very latest one if they are ordering a new one.

They might have swiped the one in it to update another system/one of their own cars.

You could also try www.mbclub.co.uk to see if anyone has advice about where to escalate the complaint if they don't sort things out.

Justicia

markr999 wrote: »

I've read a report that the fake CD's can cause damage to the optical readers. If you google "comand fake and copied discs mercedes" you'll find an article with details as to why (I can't post links on here yet as I'm a new forum user).

http://www.comand.co.uk/index.php/fake-and-copied-disks

Chrishazle

A fake disc in an MB Comand system can easily lock the Comand into update mode and effectivly make the comand system an expensive useless box. Be very careful about this, especially if it's Comand with a hard drive rather than the older nav system that requires the maps CD to be in the CD drive. There's a link from comand.co.uk to comandonline.co.uk who are the acknowledged experts on all things MB Comand.

Regarding service invoices - now you know who did the first 2 services, phone that MB dealership and request copies of the service invoices. they may say that "data protection" means they can't - so tell them to print them and cut the name/address details off before sending them to you! I had hell about this with MB Brentford when I bought my first MB (privately), and this is what they eventually did. My second one, from MB Ashford, the salesman there gave me prints of the invoices without hassle - but then they supplied the car new, serviced it, took it in PX, and it was a 1 owner car so the owners details were on the V5.

markr999

Thanks for posting the link Justicia.

So I called the MB dealership where the 2 services were done, and they were routine fluids & filters (and disks and pads for the more recent one). The one that looks to have been faked is the gearbox service at 37,500 miles. The car now has 45,000 (hopefully genuine mileage)

I've just had confirmation from MB that the service history they sent the dealer is different from the one they "printed out" for me. They've modified it to add the most recent service. Surely this is fraud?

UsernameAlreadyExists

Why don't you use your evidence (service hist, and V5C stating 2 prev owners), and challenge them comparing it to their original advertisement/details ... and suggest a suitable partial refund before threatening to get all legal on their asses?!

I assume that you still want the car?

They're car salesmen, they lie.

Sgt_Pepper_2

Did the dealer you purchased it from not do the last service?

Was it advertised as one keeper or one previous keeper?

Silk

markr999 wrote: »

Thanks for posting the link Justicia.

So I called the MB dealership where the 2 services were done, and they were routine fluids & filters (and disks and pads for the more recent one). The one that looks to have been faked is the gearbox service at 37,500 miles. The car now has 45,000 (hopefully genuine mileage)

I've just had confirmation from MB that the service history they sent the dealer is different from the one they "printed out" for me. They've modified it to add the most recent service. Surely this is fraud?

You could try to contact the previous owner to ask whether it was 2 or 3 services just to finalise the facts.
I think you need to decide what you want as a resolution here before you jump in as it does seem you will have the upper hand ????