Section 75 claim goodwill settlement rejected, but paid anyway

MrsM2016

Hi,

I would be grateful for some advice on a section 75 claim we are in the middle of, after our charge back was rejected and escalated to a section 75 claim.

We brought a car from an independent dealer in Nov 24 after our previous car was written off in a crash. We took out a 0% purchase credit card especially to do so, paid £1500 deposit on one card, and just over £7000 balance on another. We basically were bareface lied to by the sales person, but they wrote on the receipt that full service log etc was to follow, which never arrived. The advert also included details which were incorrect, one lady owner etc, never been in an accident, so there is evidence in writing that we were misled. We chased repeatedly and got suspicious after Christmas, so paid for full reports on the car and it turns out the car had been in a serious crash and sold at auction, before being repaired and flipped by the dealership. We went back to the owner who said he wasn't aware it had been in a crash, but refused to resolve it with us, despite accepting he had misled us. It was "unclassified insurance" so not a Cat N or S etc. 

We stated a charge back in January and one of the requested actions was to prove damage to the car, so we had it MOTed, and it failed based on the previous repair work not getting the car to road worthy standard. As everything was taking so long with the charge back, we paid the £340 charge to have the car pass the MOT and gave the evidence to the CC provider.

They rejected the charge back and said it should be a section 75 a month ago. It all moved much faster from there, and we were offered the £340 from the MOT cost as a goodwill settlement after about a week. We thought about it and declined, as whilst that corrected what we had paid out, it didn't address the fact the car was worth less than we had paid and had been missold. We declined clearly in writing, yet a week later the goodwill settlement has been paid with no acknowledgement of our rejection email! 

Has anyone got any experience of this happening? We have emailed saying it shouldn't have been paid as we rejected the goodwill offer and wanted to proceed with the section 75 claim, but now I'm quite nervous about what the next steps could be? 

Any advice would be greatfully recieved. Thank you

eskbanker

What resolution are you looking for?

MrsM2016

A refund to the corrected value of the car ideally, which from my research is around £3k less than we originally paid. 

eskbanker

Did they make any suggestion that the goodwill payment would be seen as full and final settlement of the s75 claim?

If the card company are uncooperative, you can look at raising a formal complaint, and ultimately escalate to the ombudsman service if still unsatisfied, so you do have options....

MrsM2016

They said:

"In the interests of resolving this matter amicably and without making any admission of liability, the Bank is happy to offer you the sum of £343.36 as a gesture of goodwill on this occasion.

 

This offer is made in full and final settlement of any claim you may have against the Bank or any of its subsidiary companies arising out of this matter. It is also made on a without prejudice basis and is not to be referred to in any legal proceedings that may follow.

 

Should this offer be acceptable to you, please confirm by responding to this email.  Arrangements will then be made to apply the credit to your credit card account within ten working days.  However, should you have any doubt as to your options then I would suggest that you seek independent legal advice."

I replied:

"Thank you for the offer of a goodwill settlement, but after careful consideration I would like to decline. I therefore wish to proceed with the section 75 claim.

Thank you".

Then they paid it anyway 

eskbanker

That looks promising, it was an offer and they were clearly presenting you with the choice of accepting or rejecting it, so now need to deal with the latter.

Just to be clear, did you explicitly spell out that your expected resolution is a partial refund of circa £3K, as a result of misrepresentation and/or breach of contract by the merchant?

MrsM2016

eskbanker said:

That looks promising, it was an offer and they were clearly presenting you with the choice of accepting or rejecting it, so now need to deal with the latter.

Just to be clear, did you explicitly spell out that your expected resolution is a partial refund of circa £3K, as a result of misrepresentation and/or breach of contract by the merchant?

Thank you for your replies and reassurance.

I have emailed today confirming we did not accept the goodwill offer but have been paid anyway, but I will follow that up confirming what we are actually looking for and hopefully get this resolved soon