Car Seller Is Not The Owner

[Deleted User]

I'd walk away from that. Not worth risking £7K over.

Also Googling his phone number brings up past car sales.

fatrab

Yeah I'd walk away from that one. The guys a trader and not a very honest one by the sounds of things.

Googling his number brings up all sorts as mentioned above.

Forget it and move on would be my advice.

fatrab

Herzlos wrote: »

I suspect that he's a trader and bought the car from Scotland, drove it back to London to sell on (because cars are cheaper up there)

Do you think so? I've gone down south to buy loads of cars as I've found them more expensive up here! Funny how we perceive each other as cheaper!

missile

That is a nice car at a reasonable price. He would appear to be a dealer. It is not uncommon for traders not to register the vehicle and dodgy ones often claim to be "private seller on behalf of a friend". I did buy one of those and was very pleased with my purchase. As always buyer beware you will have no come back after purchase. Having said that a guarantee from a dealer is often worth less than paper it is written on.

Did you view the car?
Do you know what to look out for in an Audi TT?

Make sure you get HPI check. You might find out previous owners details from DVLA for a fee. Give him a phone.

efunc

Wow! What a cheek! And what a useless cover story. The 'Trader' is in London, his 'partner/friend' it turns out is from Scotland, however he now has cancer and is based in my local hospital in London, for some seemingly bizarre reason! And he bought his Audi TTS down with him!!

What was the point of that story if it falls apart on first inspection?

efunc

Yes, I viewed the car and it seems OK on test drive. However my diagnostic software (Vag-Com) did not work unfortunately. I intended to to read off the full ECU codes and logged errors. I have a TT already and know quite a lot about them. The paint work was in very poor condition, but I'm less worried about that. There are a number of things that can go wrong with these cars and they are very expensive problems to resolve. The key thing is to ensure that the car has been regularly serviced by Audi, or a specialist. In this case I can't rely on the service history because some 'local garage' has just ticked every box in the service book with nothing to back that up. The trader could have stamped all that himself. The Audi history only goes up to 2014.

shaun_from_Africa

Definitely a trader pretending otherwise.
Here's just a few adverts where the same phone number appears:
https://www.gumtree.com/p/mini/mini-1.6-cooper-s-2006-jcw-bodykit-superb-condition/1236502675

https://www.gumtree.com/p/bmw/bmw-x3-2.5-sport-bmw-service-history-lady-owner-low-miles/1262763844

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-1-SERIES-123D-M-SPORT-COUPE-Black-Manual-Diesel-2008-NEW-TIMING-CHAIN/122950992123?hash=item1ca07340fb:g:z8cAAOSwPkJad4Qm

https://picclick.co.uk/Mercedes-Benz-CLK200-18-Kompressor-Avantgarde-Convertible-AutoLow-Mileage-123016107378.html

https://picclick.co.uk/Vauxhall-Zafira-2007-18-Automatic-Petrol-66k-miles-123031101080.html

[Deleted User]

efunc wrote: »

Wow! What a cheek! And what a useless cover story. The 'Trader' is in London, his 'partner/friend' it turns out is from Scotland, however he now has cancer and is based in my local hospital in London, for some seemingly bizarre reason! And he bought his Audi TTS down with him!!

What was the point of that story if it falls apart on first inspection?

Sometimes they tell so many lies that they start to believe it themselves.

efunc

Yep, just saw those myself too and was dumbfounded! I'm left wondering if I should proceed. It is the car I'm after, at a price I'm happy about. But I can't go ahead knowing what I know without letting him know he's rumbled. He's BS'ing me telling me that he's just spoken to his friend and has accepted my offer...

efunc

He just wrote me the following in response to concerns about the ownership:

"I checked online on the government DVLA website, you can change ownership online on their website without a signature from the current owner as long as you have the reference number etc on the v5 so we can do that! Or as I said earlier, I am happy to put the logbook under my name and then transfer to you! You are also welcome to do a HPI check online!"

Is the above correct, and does it legitimise anything?