Virgin Money Section 75 Claim - Car Purchase

allymonty

Hi, 

This might be slightly long but it has been 7 months and I just want to try and give all the facts

My partner was having twins last November and we both had 5 seater cars and another 4 year old therefore I went out and purchased a used 7 seater for around £3000 on November 22nd 2021. All was fine with the car until 26th February 2022 when it broke down and the merchant refused to fix it under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, they picked the car up from my home, has it driven to their preferred garage and then refused to fix it at their expense. 

They had sold me a warranty for said car and tried to claim on this warranty without my permission, when the warranty company made me aware I closed the claim down and asked them why they did it when they initially said they would fix it only to turn around and decide they weren't going to. The car would not start and basically broke down on a main A road with children in it and I had to get off the road to a retail park safely just before it gave out completely. 

On the 17th March 2022 the merchant stopped communicating with me, they would not answer my calls and never returned my emails. I then opened a case with Virgin Money as I had purchased the car using a Virgin Money credit card. 

Virgin Money initially said they would do a chargeback claim. This was partially won however the merchant disputed the larger claim. We then said we wanted to pursue a Section 75 claim as the merchant had broken their contract with us, were not communicating with us and were refusing to tell us where the car was. 

The merchant then emailed us on the 22nd June 2022, stating that they had not dropped the car back at the garage and we could pick it up. They had had the car for over 12 weeks, refused to tell us where it was and were now practically begging us to come pick it up. Which we were advised not to do.

On the 30th August we received a letter from Virgin stating that our section 75 claim had been denied because the car was now fixed and we had caused delays. We immediately disputed this laying out once again all the evidence we had already put to them and now the dispute is with the executive complaints department within Virgin. They also stated the merchant had confirmed the damage was due to 'wear and tear' which I have been told is not a legally recognised term and can't be used to determine what was wrong with the car and that it would mean the merchant wasn't liable. 

We now have no idea what we should do. All advice up until now from Legal, citizens advice and consumer groups has been to leave the car where it is

• It is coming up on 1 year since we purchased the car. 
• It will be out of MOT in less than 8 weeks. 
• We are still the legal owners
• We still have no idea where the car is  
• We are incurring costs for this car as we have still had to insure it and tax it. 

The issues with the merchant were:

• Car broke down within 13 weeks
• They refused to fix it under the Consumer Rights Act
• They stopped taking our calls
• They refused to tell me where the car was until 22nd June
• The one time they did take my call (I called from my partners number) They told me I wouldn't get the car back unless I paid them £100
• They tried to initiate a claim on my warranty, in my name without my permission

Problems with Virgin

• They appear to have not read any of the evidence submitted to them
• Have taken months to respond and have even admitted some of their letter responses were sent incorrectly
• They blamed us for causing delays when this is not true in the slightest 
• Are generally dragging their feet and blaming Mastercard for the delays. 

What we need to know is

1) Can we offload the car whilst we are awaiting the result of the section 75? (We are just wary of being completely out of pocket should we wait longer and have to MOT it)
2) If Virgin deny the Section 75 for a 2nd time and we take them to the ombudsman can we sell the car whilst we do that?
3) If we go and find the car and we find there are issues with it still outstanding - what can we do about that?

Can anyone offer any advice? Not sure where we should go from here or what we should do. We have tried to follow every legal avenue the way we have been advice but keep hitting roadblocks and now we are potentially going to be even more out of pocket come November. 

Ebe_Scrooge

I'm struggling somewhat to make sense of all this, but there are few things to bear in mind.  Firstly, any used car can have faults, and at the lower end of the market there is the concept of "reasonable expectation" - on a (presumably fairly old) car for £3000, it's reasonable to expect some faults to develop.  What actually was the fault?

If the dealer was trying to claim off the warranty, it's well-known that after-market warranties exclude far more than they cover, and wear-and-tear is pretty much always excluded.

If the dealer stopped replying to your emails, why didn't you walk into the showroom and speak to them face-to-face to find out what was going on?

I'm having difficulty working out the bit about "they had not dropped the car back at the garage and we could pick it up".

Remember, S75 basically puts the same responsibility on the lender as the vendor has.  If it's the case that the garage were being reasonable in saying that the fault could reasonably be expected on a car of that age and value, and the fault wasn't covered by the warranty, then that's why the S75 was rejected.

But you then say the car is now fixed?  So did the dealer in fact fix it, at no cost to you?

Sorry, confused-dot-com!

born_again

purchased a used 7 seater for around £3000 

So what age, mileage & make? As there is a expectation age of the car makes a difference.
Was the fault present when you bought the car, or what was the cause of the breakdown?



As £3K 7 seater at todays prices is going to getting long in the tooth & depending on just what the problem was. Wear & tear could be the cause.

A S75 claim is never quick. Months is a normal timeframe, as often they go to legal dept, which slows things down a lot.

SuperAllyB

What was the problem with claiming on warranty?  Surely if the dealer thought that could be successful it would have got your car sorted which was the end result you wanted.

Grumpy_chap

There is only a provision for an S75 claim when there would be a claim against the vendor under consumer rights.

It is not clear that there is a claim against the vendor.

The vendor has offered a repair (via the used car warranty that was part of the overall package of supply) which the OP refused to accept.  Why did the OP refuse the repair via the warranty?

What remedy is the OP now hoping to achieve?

Consumer rights are limited to reasonable expectations, which take into account the ago and condition of the product purchased.  For a car at £3k, the reasonable expectations will be rather limited.

Not every fault on a used car would be grounds to reject, which appears to be what the OP seeks to achieve.  What was the fault on this car?

Does the OP have the car now and what loss will the OP have suffered if they simply sell the car?  Bear in mind, the OP will have lost some value in any case over the year, but has had the beneficial use of the car in that time.

allymonty said:

Hi, 

This might be slightly long but it has been 7 months and I just want to try and give all the facts

My partner was having twins last November and we both had 5 seater cars and another 4 year old therefore I went out and purchased a used 7 seater for around £3000 on November 22nd 2021. All was fine with the car until 26th February 2022 when it broke down and the merchant refused to fix it under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, they picked the car up from my home, has it driven to their preferred garage and then refused to fix it at their expense. 

They had sold me a warranty for said car and tried to claim on this warranty without my permission, when the warranty company made me aware I closed the claim down and asked them why they did it when they initially said they would fix it only to turn around and decide they weren't going to. The car would not start and basically broke down on a main A road with children in it and I had to get off the road to a retail park safely just before it gave out completely. 

On the 17th March 2022 the merchant stopped communicating with me, they would not answer my calls and never returned my emails. I then opened a case with Virgin Money as I had purchased the car using a Virgin Money credit card. 

Virgin Money initially said they would do a chargeback claim. This was partially won however the merchant disputed the larger claim. We then said we wanted to pursue a Section 75 claim as the merchant had broken their contract with us, were not communicating with us and were refusing to tell us where the car was. 

The merchant then emailed us on the 22nd June 2022, stating that they had not dropped the car back at the garage and we could pick it up. They had had the car for over 12 weeks, refused to tell us where it was and were now practically begging us to come pick it up. Which we were advised not to do.

On the 30th August we received a letter from Virgin stating that our section 75 claim had been denied because the car was now fixed and we had caused delays. We immediately disputed this laying out once again all the evidence we had already put to them and now the dispute is with the executive complaints department within Virgin. They also stated the merchant had confirmed the damage was due to 'wear and tear' which I have been told is not a legally recognised term and can't be used to determine what was wrong with the car and that it would mean the merchant wasn't liable. 

We now have no idea what we should do. All advice up until now from Legal, citizens advice and consumer groups has been to leave the car where it is

• It is coming up on 1 year since we purchased the car. 
• It will be out of MOT in less than 8 weeks. 
• We are still the legal owners
• We still have no idea where the car is  
• We are incurring costs for this car as we have still had to insure it and tax it. 

The issues with the merchant were:

• Car broke down within 13 weeks
• They refused to fix it under the Consumer Rights Act
• They stopped taking our calls
• They refused to tell me where the car was until 22nd June
• The one time they did take my call (I called from my partners number) They told me I wouldn't get the car back unless I paid them £100
• They tried to initiate a claim on my warranty, in my name without my permission

Problems with Virgin

• They appear to have not read any of the evidence submitted to them
• Have taken months to respond and have even admitted some of their letter responses were sent incorrectly
• They blamed us for causing delays when this is not true in the slightest 
• Are generally dragging their feet and blaming Mastercard for the delays. 

What we need to know is

1) Can we offload the car whilst we are awaiting the result of the section 75? (We are just wary of being completely out of pocket should we wait longer and have to MOT it)
2) If Virgin deny the Section 75 for a 2nd time and we take them to the ombudsman can we sell the car whilst we do that?
3) If we go and find the car and we find there are issues with it still outstanding - what can we do about that?

Can anyone offer any advice? Not sure where we should go from here or what we should do. We have tried to follow every legal avenue the way we have been advice but keep hitting roadblocks and now we are potentially going to be even more out of pocket come November. 

born_again

TBH. If the car is fixed then as far as S75 goes that is the end of the matter. There has been no breach of contract. Even complaining to FOS will not get a result & take a lot longer. Selling the car would muddy the waters even more.

Only part that Mastercard would have been involved in was the chargeback & they have fixed timescales. S75 has nothing to do with them. That is all in Virgins hands & any payout will be from their pocket's.

Given it will have been a 3rd party warranty. I would be amazed if it was anything it would payout on. 

[Deleted User]

You bought a modestly priced used car; it broke down after around three months of usage, you disrupted potential warranty repair and have been arguing with the retailers and now card issuer - is this correct? What outcome are you looking for here?

phillw

allymonty said:

refused to tell us where it was and were now practically begging us to come pick it up. Which we were advised not to do.
....
We still have no idea where the car is  
...
They refused to tell me where the car was until 22nd June 

So you knew where the car was on 22nd June, who advised you not to pick it up? Have you tried to pick it up since?