Just purchased new car, problem!!

ukahmet87 · 7th April 2008, 04:32

Hey guys, ive been reading on this forum for some time now, and thought id join now as im in a panic!

we went to buy a car today with my father, and two mates (4 of us), we done a sms hpi check, and the car came back as clean, and also gave the correct vin number in the text message. so we went ahead with the deal and bought the car for £12k

So awhile ago, out of the blue i thought id just do a rac hpi check on the vehicle. and it came back as outstanding finance, and said the VIN didnt match.

Simply put, can my father be done for purchasing a vehicle with outstanding finance on it without knowing? we were 4 people there to witness the money being handed over, and papers being signed etc, and i still have proof of the text message which gave the correct VIN no.

please give some advice guys.....

kennythecelt · 7th April 2008, 08:22

Hi ukahmet and a very warm welcome to CAG !

You will get all the help you need and everyone is perfectly friendly.
You should read the site rules and the FAQ's. A further useful link is the How do I guide to the forum.

You have posted in the correct forum- well done. Another forum that you should have a look through is our vehicle retailers forum and this is the link for you:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...manufacturers/

Please don't panic, someone experienced in this field will assist you shortly.

Enjoy your time at CAG and good luck!!

Regards, Kenny

ReasonableRon · 7th April 2008, 10:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by ukahmet87

Hey guys, ive been reading on this forum for some time now, and thought id join now as im in a panic!

we went to buy a car today with my father, and two mates (4 of us), we done a sms hpi check, and the car came back as clean, and also gave the correct vin number in the text message. so we went ahead with the deal and bought the car for £12k

So awhile ago, out of the blue i thought id just do a rac hpi check on the vehicle. and it came back as outstanding finance, and said the VIN didnt match.

Simply put, can my father be done for purchasing a vehicle with outstanding finance on it without knowing? we were 4 people there to witness the money being handed over, and papers being signed etc, and i still have proof of the text message which gave the correct VIN no.

please give some advice guys.....

Did you buy from a dealer or privately?

ukahmet87 · 7th April 2008, 12:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReasonableRon

Did you buy from a dealer or privately?

privately

ukahmet87 · 7th April 2008, 20:42

anybody please?

lisa1301 · 8th April 2008, 10:43

Your father cannot "be done" for purchasing a car with outstanding finance on it, but the seller can be done for selling it! It could however be that the person selling the car is using the monies from the sale to pay off the finance, which would not yet show on an hpi check because you have only just bought it and the finance wouldn't yet show as having been paid. You do however need to double check the VIN number with the DVLA just to make sure you have got the right VIN number with the right registration no (VRN). Both of these should be shown on your log book.

ReasonableRon · 8th April 2008, 15:48

Your only obligation is to be able to show that you bought the car in good faith (i.e. had no reason to suspect there was anything dodgy about the transaction). For example, if you bought the car for a stupidly low price from a man in the pub then it could be argued that you should have suspected something might be wrong.

The fact that you did a HPI check via SMS is IMO more than enough to prove good faith.

Conniff · 8th April 2008, 15:59

So who did your do the first check with ?

ukahmet87 · 8th April 2008, 23:06

The sms was sent to 83600, which i believe is with thecheck.co.uk.

The vehicle was bought absolutely in good faith, we saw the ad in autotrader, called the guy, went down to see the vehicle, liked what we saw, and purchsed.

as i also said, there was 4 of us there which may be used as evidence? im not too sure what the procedure is, would the car get taken? im have less knowledge in this field.....

ReasonableRon · 9th April 2008, 01:01

Do you know who the finance company is? It is difficult to judge their reaction if you were to contact them - depends who it is and how morally bankrupt they are.

I would firstly get back in touch with the seller and have it out with him. You acted in good faith, took reasonable care and have several witnesses to the fact, so I think you are safe in the possession of the vehicle.

It may well be that the seller has now paid off the finance anyway as another poster has said. If he has not done this then he is guilty of asset conversion and could be prosecuted, although this is unlikely to happen nowadays.

It may also be worth checking if the company who you made the HPI enquiry with has any form of indemnity against losses caused by giving incorrect/inaccurate information.

It obviously needs sorting one way or another to put your mind at rest but also to ensure that the same issues don't crop up again if you want to sell the car to someone else.

Conniff · 9th April 2008, 01:04

The first thing I would do would be to find out which check gave the correct information.

It could be that one of the two companies entered the wrong registration into the system. If the check was done on the correct reg then one of them has outdated information on their system, but which one ?

ReasonableRon · 9th April 2008, 01:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Conniff

The first thing I would do would be to find out which check gave the correct information.

It could be that one of the two companies entered the wrong registration into the system. If the check was done on the correct reg then one of them has outdated information on their system, but which one ?

Agreed - if the reg numbers are different then that would explain the incorrect VIN on the second check.

There 'should' be no difference between any 'HPI' checks no matter where you do them, however there are in fact two separate databases in the UK - HPI themselves and Experian Car Data Check. They are supposed to share data between them to ensure total accuracy. RAC and the like simply charge a fee to access either of these databases and present the result in a nice pretty report.

ukahmet87 · 10th April 2008, 00:21

So lets jsut say the guy doesnt pay the finance etc, then does our car get reposessed? i mean weve got evidence of 4 people, a hpi check on the spot, and the purchase was made in good faith......?

Thanks for all your help so far guys, its allowed me to sleep at nights, i was overly stressed about it!

Conniff · 10th April 2008, 00:27

Unfortunately the car belongs to the finance company and always will until the outstanding finance is paid.
They could come to a deal with you to pay the outstanding finance and you keep the car or they could ask for it back in which case you have to make it available for them to collect.

There are claims of bought in good faith but how that works I do not know.

Why don't you check again instead of going through this, get them to read the reg number back to you before they enter it into the computer.

fed_up_uk · 10th April 2008, 11:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Conniff

Unfortunately the car belongs to the finance company and always will until the outstanding finance is paid.
They could come to a deal with you to pay the outstanding finance and you keep the car or they could ask for it back in which case you have to make it available for them to collect.

Unfortunately this is very true. I know of someone who purchased a car from a member of family and that member of family never told them there was outstanding finance on it. Rest assured they could not stop the finance company reclaiming their property.

Can you contact the company that did the original check and request a copy of the transaction. It might help if you can prove that you acted in good faith but the information supplied was wrong.

ukahmet87 · 10th April 2008, 13:09

Ok, so what exactly are my rights? So im assuming that purchasing a vehicle is now a gamble? The consumer should be protected somehow, in some way, otherwise this is absolutely ridicilous. I hear DVLA etc are trying to improve security measures, what happened to this one?

What should my next step be? If it carries on like this im probably just going to go and appear at his door, and take it from there.

fed_up_uk · 10th April 2008, 13:17

I'm not sure about rights but If you can obtain details about the original check you did, it's worth trying to get them. That way if you paid for a service and bought the car based on that result I suppose you could lay part of the blame with the SMS Check service.

ukahmet87 · 10th April 2008, 13:19

ive still got the sms stored on my phone, and ill be keeping that just in case. This is so stressfull

, who can i contact for legal advice also?

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