Rejecting a used car within 30 days of purchase

TheMidnightSkulker

The fuel tank, BTW, is as they left it with me, minus the 3-5 or so miles involved in taking it to the garage. Do I also have a duty to have the car repaired so it will be safe for their return journey? That seems like it would complicate my position.

TheMidnightSkulker

So this brings me back to my original question of what amount of time I'm obligated to keep the car available for collection.

I need a car for all the usual reasons people need cars, in particular because of a precarious employment situation, and also because of caring for a disabled relative. I don't have use of the car I've been sold and I don't have money to get a new one until I either get a refund or complete a chargeback. I may not be able to get a permit to park a new car until the duff one is collected, because parking space is extremely restricted on my street. 

I don't wish to be unreasonable, but I don't want to patiently submit to this level of damage to my life for any longer than I have to.

TheMidnightSkulker

So an update, if anyone's still interested:

My household has a subscription to Which? Legal so I rang them up, although the information they gave me is pretty much publicly available. 

Although the bank led me to believe I could only claim for the amount paid on my credit card, and would have to apply separately to get the (bank-transferred) deposit treated as a scam, I was then unsurprisingly told it wasn't a scam. Because of course, it was substandard goods.

Which? Legal then told me to ask them to change my dispute from a chargeback to a Section 75 claim, since Section 75 makes the CC company liable for the full price of the substandard goods. I called the bank and they said every chargeback is automatically a Section 75 claim, but that I was not legally entitled to claim anything more than the amount paid by card and would just have to eat the cost of the deposit.

Back and forth I went, until on four separate phone calls the bank had told me I wasn't entitled to claim my deposit under section 75. Some "we agree with you, yes I understand, you are entitled to reclaim the full price, the only thing is that the deposit was made by bank transfer so you might have to go without it" or "no, you're not entitled, and I can put you through to a manager but they will say the same thing" or simply that there was no way to claim the full amount under their system. Finally I called Which? Legal again and they told me to cancel the dispute and start a new one. But when I called the bank again, they refused to let me cancel it, and told me to wait for a callback. I explained that it was already past the time when I was supposed to have been called back and they said "but you have to wait two working days, and you should give it a few more days". 

Long story short - under Section 75 I am entitled to reclaim the full price of the substandard car, not just the amount paid by CC; and since the bank are telling me I'm not entitled, and/or that they don't have any mechanism for doing that, I will wait until the end of the week, send an official letter of complaint, wait 8 weeks and go to the Financial Ombudsman. According to the legal advice I've received, there is no ambiguity, so I should eventually get my money back.

I also sent an official letter of complaint to the dealer. They came back with an offer to repair the car despite already having agreed to collect and refund. They then asked, at 6pm, to collect it the same day and refund me in three days' time; I said to refund me first and then collect it. They said Saturday.

Now they say they will collect it at 9am on Tuesday and refund me then. They may even turn up, but I assume they will try not to give me my money back in the process. Of course, I may be pleasantly surprised. They have the car relisted for £995 more than I paid for it. 

I was also advised to report it to Trading Standards. I did, not expecting a reply, but Trading Standards got back to me and told me to report the dodgy MOT. Unfortunately it was one month and one day since the dodgy MOT test so it was too late, as you only have a month.

Unfortunately the cost of used cars within my parameters has gone up 20% since I bought this one, and will probably have gone up even more since I assume it will be at least 10 weeks from next Friday before I can even get the Financial Ombudsman to look at it. Then when I get the money back I probably will not be able to afford a comparable make and model. In the meantime, this makes it impossible to get to my workplace to even clear my desk in time for the end of my contract, and is going to severely restrict my ability to look for other jobs; if my disabled family member needs to get around we can take cabs so that part is not so bad.

I don't know how much of a cautionary tale this is, since in theory I did everything correctly and went to great lengths to check the vehicle history and get it MOTed before I bought it. I guess next time, if there is anything I can afford, distance selling might make the process easier, but then again it might not since there is nothing to physically stop a dealership dragging their feet regardless of what my rights are.

TheMidnightSkulker

Updated update: the lemon is gone and I have my money back.

------

Slightly more detail update: they actually did send someone today, transferred the full refund to my bank account, I transferred ownership back to them and suspended my insurance. It's over. On phone to the credit card company to cancel the chargeback.

-------

Detailed off-my-chest update: when they arrived the central locking wasn't working on one of the keyfobs, and the alarm wouldn't turn off (which I noticed when putting petrol into it, as did much of the neighbourhood). The car wouldn't start either. The guy asked for jumper cables but I couldn't find an adequate set, but there's a garage very close so he borrowed them from there.

He said the battery fitting (whatever that component is called) was loose and that my garage must have done it. I said they only did a visual inspection and didn't touch it, and anyway I rejected the car based on the faults they found. This did not increase my confidence that I was going to get my money back. I called the dealer and they said they would give the money back when the car started, and accused my garage of loosening the cap, and of costing the dealer money because (they said) they'd put a new battery in it before they sold it to me (which they hadn't mentioned and kinda points to the dealer being the one who'd left it loose, not that it's my problem).

Anyway, the guy who collected it said he wouldn't take it away until I had my refund. I'd lent him some tools that he asked for but then he started picking up debris from the side of the street to repair the connection (!) and I filmed him doing it, because !!!!!!. Also took another set of photos all round the car while we waited.

Anyway he eventually recharged the battery, I ascertained that the refund had landed in my bank account, transferred ownership back to the dealer online, gave the guy the logbook minus the yellow bit (and the blue bit because I didn't have scissors). Suspended my insurance, am now closing the chargeback. After that all I have to do is suspend my parking permit.

----

And now the search recommences for a citrus-free automatic petrol hybrid with <100K miles, a reasonable MOT history and not more than say 12 years old. 

99 bottles of beer on the wall...

TuppenceWorth

I don't understand why people buy a car and then have it inspected rather than vice versa.

I would only hand over my cash after making myself sure that I know exactly what I am buying.

Fair enough if car develops a fault unexpectedly, but a routine inspection after purchase seems baffling to me...

TheMidnightSkulker

The reason I had it done after purchase was because the dealer was 1-2 hours away by public transport. I also wanted the inspection done by a "known good" garage that I have been going to for some years.

The only way to get it inspected before purchase would have been to ask the dealer to get it done. Since they had an MOT done as a condition of purchase, and the validity of the MOT seems to have been questionable, the validity of any "independent" inspection they did would have been equally questionable.

TheMidnightSkulker

Now mind you, your question made me think and after some digging around, I found a service local to me that will travel to a dealership within a certain distance radius and inspect a car there, rather than the potential buyer's having to coordinate appointments. They also advertise considerably cheaper prices than the AA or RAC for that kind of inspection. How far they'll travel, I don't know. And whether they're any good, I don't know, so it comes back to the issue of choosing the "known good" garage or some rando, and the logistics of coordinating that.

I should add that the dealership I bought it from is an AA dealer, and I had made a mental note not to use the AA for inspections after having a suboptimal experience with my previous car. It was so long ago that I don't remember the details now, but I do remember it wasn't good value for money.

TuppenceWorth

TheMidnightSkulker said:

Now mind you, your question made me think and after some digging around, I found a service local to me that will travel to a dealership within a certain distance radius and inspect a car there, rather than the potential buyer's having to coordinate appointments. They also advertise considerably cheaper prices than the AA or RAC for that kind of inspection. How far they'll travel, I don't know. And whether they're any good, I don't know, so it comes back to the issue of choosing the "known good" garage or some rando, and the logistics of coordinating that.

I should add that the dealership I bought it from is an AA dealer, and I had made a mental note not to use the AA for inspections after having a suboptimal experience with my previous car. It was so long ago that I don't remember the details now, but I do remember it wasn't good value for money.

Yep..
It makes sense to have the inspections done first, then agree a price, then pay the money.
Good luck!!

Herzlos

TheMidnightSkulker said:

I should add that the dealership I bought it from is an AA dealer, and I had made a mental note not to use the AA for inspections after having a suboptimal experience with my previous car. It was so long ago that I don't remember the details now, but I do remember it wasn't good value for money.

What do you mean by an AA dealer? One that provides an AA warranty as part of the sale? Because I don't think the AA does any kind of endorsement/inspection on them.


Also, why a petrol hybrid? You're really narrowing down your choices there over just petrol.

TheMidnightSkulker

I mean a dealer that is part of the AA's network and advertises as such.

You are right that the AA doesn't inspect the cars for sale. They do have the prominent wording "...buying your used car from an Approved Dealer means the vehicle has been rigorously checked by our inspectors*"

You may notice that final "*" which leads to a note about some of them being franchised dealers, which makes it easy to miss the note on the footer that says "The AA recommends an AA Cars Vehicle Inspection before purchase. Not all cars are mechanically checked by the AA." 

I interpret that to mean "every used car from our dealers is rigorously checked, but not necessarily in the sense that we actually look at it or do any background checks you couldn't do yourself, lol."

So what it boils down to is that you can get a prepurchase inspection by the AA, starting from £142 for a basic check. 

At the time, I didn't quite trust that for reasons explained above, and I figured if I was going to spend the money I would rather spend it on a check by someone totally unconnected to the dealer, and I figured if that meant having it inspected post-purchase, so be it.

This time around, I'm going to try ClickMechanic. I'm wondering if it would be safe to get an imported car if they inspected it first - from what I've read, mileage manipulation is an issue with imported cars, so I'm wondering if that kind of thing is detectable.

As for petrol hybrid - personal taste, I guess. Ideally I would like a fully electric car, but that's blue sky.