Scammed: paid for an MOT which was never done. Options?

SouthLondonUser

A relative sought my help because she got scammed but I'm unsure what to suggest. Basically she paid for an MOT which never happened so she had to redo it elsewhere.

• She went to a garage for the MOT on her car.
• After a few months, she checked on the gov website  and noticed her MOT had expired, meaning the garage had never done the MOT.
• The garage in question was closed, so she has arranged a new MOT elsewhere. The MOT is now OK (double checked on the gov website).
• The dodgy garage is now open again (no clue if the guy went on holiday or what); it still has an MOT sign

Thoughts:

1. If she reports the scam, can she be fined / on the hook because her car was without an MOT for a while, which is illegal? Logic would suggest not, because she was scammed, but law and logic don't always go hand in hand
2. She's looking for the receipt but appreciates that, if she can't find it, there won't be much to do. Even is she finds it, unless the receipt explicitly states MOT, they will probably claim it was only for an oil change or something
3. The garage is currently not on the list of approved MOT centres; is there a way to check if it was a few months ago, when she went?
4. Any other suggestions?

I also noticed another disturbing trend: a few garages she called started quoting crazy prices, like £140 for an MOT; when pressed, they came up with bull* like "but we always do an oil change with the MOT". It seems that quite a few honest gentlemen, when they hear a female voice on the phone, try their luck scamming her.

droopsnoot

There's a limit to how much an MOT station can charge for the MOT test itself, so if you get a bill that shows "MOT Test" and is more than that limit, I'd imagine they could be reported to the DVSA. I'm not sure how much help that would be in terms of getting the money back. If you ring for a price for a test and it's more than the limit (£54.85 at the moment for a car) either ask for an explanation, or phone somewhere else.

Maximum charges: https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/mot-test-fees#:~:text=There's a maximum amount MOT,pay VAT on the fee.

Didn't your friend get an MOT Test certificate when they got their car back after the first test? If they did, and it wasn't recorded on the computer system, then that's a lot different to the garage just not doing a test and forgetting to mention it. The certificate is generated by the computer system, and so the only way I can think of getting a certificate without going through the system is by generating one manually, probably easily do-able in MS Word or similar. I hesitate to use the word, but that sounds a bit fraudy to me.

Mildly_Miffed

If she'd been stopped by the police while the car had no test, then she could have been done - but not in retrospect.

The legal maximum price for an MOT is £54.85.

She should have asked for the MOT certificate when she collected the car.

The garage may not be run by the same legal entity now as it was then - limited company may have changed. Any civil claim is against the legal entity that ran the garage then.

How much time and blood pressure does she want to invest in getting fifty quid back?

chrisw

They don't seem to hand out MOT certificates any more. I always check on the gov site whilst it's being done as I can't bear the suspense.

Slinky

Even if she decides to let things go with regard to her first MOT attempt, she should report the garage for displaying the MOT sign if they are not a registered garage. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

SouthLondonUser

"How much time and blood pressure does she want to invest in getting fifty quid back?"

She's of course not going to spend ££££ to hire a City law firm just to get £50 back. That goes without saying.

However, if anything can be done that doesn't cost her thousands of £ and that increases the probability of this scammer not scamming anyone else, that is worth considering. E.g. can this gentleman be fined for still having an MOT sign while not being a registered MOT centre?

SouthLondonUser

Slinky said:

Even if she decides to let things go with regard to her first MOT attempt, she should report the garage for displaying the MOT sign if they are not a registered garage. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

I agree, but exactly how / to whom?
To the Police?
To the Department of Transport?
To  both?

Car_54

SouthLondonUser said:

Slinky said:

Even if she decides to let things go with regard to her first MOT attempt, she should report the garage for displaying the MOT sign if they are not a registered garage. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

I agree, but exactly how / to whom?
To the Police?
To the Department of Transport?
To  both?

Neither. DVSA regulate MOT stations.

Bigphil1474

All sorts of scenarios with the garage, but presumably it was a legit MOT centre at some point. It's quite hard to get the status of an MOT centre, and also very difficult to hide if you don't have that status but pretend you do. I would report the centre to the DVSA and they will deal with accordingly. They could be in the process of re-applying for MOT test centre status if they had it before, or it may be a new company as mentioned above. Or they could be a legit MOT centre that has some dodgy employee who is camming off their employer.  DVSA will work all that out. 

I've never not got a physical certificate when I've had my MOT done, although Dave round my local garage is a bit old school, so maybe it's just him.

SouthLondonUser

@Bigphil1474 Thanks. The scam test was 5 months ago, meaning the person in question drove around without a valid MOT for 5 months - quite a risk! Of course I asked her, but she doesn't remember if she received no receipt / certificate at all, or if she received it but didn't keep it.

She does remember paying more than £50, around £100, because she believed the bull* of this honest  gentleman who told her about the importance of also changing oil etc etc.

Basically the distinguished gentleman saw a woman, immediately realised she was clueless on all things motor, and decided to take advantage. 

Mildly_Miffed

chrisw said:

They don't seem to hand out MOT certificates any more.

I certainly got one with the last test I had done - last summer.

I'll tell you next week (hopefully!) if it's changed since then.

The certificate isn't the legal record any more - but one is definitely printed off and should be handed over.

There's even a way to get a replacement - https://www.gov.uk/replacing-lost-damaged-mot-certificate

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