Credit machine not working trying to buy car

Giggidy

My partner is at a dealer right now miles away, in the middle of trying to buy a car, but their card machine is not working. He wanted to pay a small sum by credit card to get protection and so he has offered to pay the rest via bank transfer today and a £50 balance by cc when their machine is working again. They insist that they he pays £5 by cc, which to me makes no sense as they most likely wont bother calling him back for a fiver. They say he wont bother paying the £50 even though he told them he needs the protection from the credit card to cover him for his whole purchase. They wont budge and he doesnt want to lose the car and his deposit. Is there any way round this?

[Deleted User]

Just do as they say. Once he pays the £5, he'll have the protection.

They won't let him drive away without the vast majority being paid.

Giggidy

But there is no guarantee nor incentive for them to call him back for a fiver, its probably in their best interest for him not to have section 75 protection. So essentially he could just pay and hope they call him back but have no come-back if they dont and then regret it if things do happen to go majorly wrong with the car

BoGoF

If he wants the car then that is the risk he is going to have to take.

[Deleted User]

Why would they not want him to have section 75?

Are you suggesting that they are keen to be the only ones he can go after? Do they enjoy attending court cases or something?

Why would they not want to receive another £5 to split some responsibility?

jonesMUFCforever

I would exercise caution!
The fact that the card machine is not working could mean the business is in financial difficulty with the bank withdrawing the facility.
IMO Walk away until the machine is ''fixed''.

bris

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

I would exercise caution!
The fact that the card machine is not working could mean the business is in financial difficulty with the bank withdrawing the facility.
IMO Walk away until the machine is ''fixed''.

They just don't want a CC payment as it brings the CC into play and if anything does go wrong the CC will chase the dealer for the whole amount.


The machine not working is an excuse.

daveyjp

They don't want him to have CC protection.

eco_warrior

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

I would exercise caution!
The fact that the card machine is not working could mean the business is in financial difficulty with the bank withdrawing the facility.
IMO Walk away until the machine is ''fixed''.

Quite a big leap

bris wrote: »

They just don't want a CC payment as it brings the CC into play and if anything does go wrong the CC will chase the dealer for the whole amount..

Not if he only pays £50.

daveyjp wrote: »

They don't want him to have CC protection.

You could be right but it’s just guesswork/opinion. The card machine could be on the blink, it’s not unheard of.

As Zx81 has said, sharing liability could be viewed as a benefit to a merchant. S75 is about giving the consumer some protection where it’s applicable.

born_again

bris wrote: »

They just don't want a CC payment as it brings the CC into play and if anything does go wrong the CC will chase the dealer for the whole amount.


The machine not working is an excuse.

Not a chance. It is simply not worth their time to chase a retailer under S75,

OP has not stated what the actual purchase price is. Hope it's under £30k

Terry_Towelling

In practice, it makes very little difference to the retailer whether you get S75 protection or not. If the retailer is in breach of contract for any reason, you have a claim against him regardless.

All S75 protection does is allow you to direct any claim for breach-of-contract by the retailer against the card company - that is no skin off the retailer's nose at all because your card company would pay you out without you having to go to court in the first place and they would then be very unlikely to chase the retailer for recompense on anything other than a potential Chargeback of the credit card payment (or £5 in this case).

In theory, your card company could get you to assign your rights over the debt to them, so that they could then sue the retailer, or, if you did take your card company to court, they could then rope the retailer into proceedings. In practice, it won't come to that - although we don't actually know the cost of the purchase at this point.