False Advertising - how do I....

[VFellows]

At the beginning of November 2012 I bought a Volvo C70 from a second hand dealer in Derby who advertises on Ebay, AutoTrader, Motors.co.uk as do many others. When I had not received the V5 by mid December I went to the DVLA in Shrewsbury with my part of the V5 and applied for one.

 

I discovered at the beginning of this month that the second hand dealership are still actively displaying and advertising my vehicle as "For Sale" through their website, EBay and Motors.co.uk. I have contacted the dealership both via email and telephone and been told "Sure we will stop advertising it" but nothing happens. I have contacted EBay who quite honestly are not interested because they are being paid for the privilege of advertising

 

To the best of my knowledge this kind of advertising practice is "False Advertising" - How can you advertise as "For Sale" something that you do not own, or have physically in your possession to sell.

 

Is there any organisation that I can approach who will get these people to remove my vehicle from their advertising.

 

Thank you

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

Advertising standards Authority??

[VFellows]

Thank you - Reported to Advertising Standards Authority, Reported again to EBay - this company relisted my vehicle as "For Sale" today. Twitter messages sent from EBay - highlighting Illegal Advert - Twitter message sent from Motors.co.uk highlighting Illegal Advert - maybe this will get them off their rear ends and the decent thing done. The company concerned have a similar, much older vehicle with very high mileage on it - quite crappy that they are using my vehicle as a "hook" for

[VFellows]

A little bit of progress - I guess Motors did not like their 4000 plus twitter followers viewing my tweet

 

Received this morning

 

"Hi, thanks for your tweet. We'll investigate and get back to you "

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Thank you Brigadier for your advice. Result.

 

Advertising Standards took this up this morning. So did Motors.co.uk who did not like the adverse publicity of having over 4000 followers view my tweet.

 

Thank you for your email which I have received today, your complaint via twitter had also been flagged to myself.

This is the first time this issue has been raised with Motors.co.uk directly and I wanted to assure you that we are taking immediate action, in relation to your complaint.

 

I have personally spoken to the Manager at the dealership today and requested that they remove the vehicle in question registration plate LD54 ZRT. I have since checked their stock list and can confirm that the vehicle has been deleted from their stock list today, it takes time for any amendments to be exported through to our system, which means this car will be taken off Motors.co.uk with effect from approx. 10am tomorrow morning. This will then roll out to any exports the dealership has with us. However the dealership will also need to remove this vehicle from any sites not connected to the Motors.co.uk network of which we have no control.

 

I have informed the dealership that should he reinstate this vehicle we will have no alternative than to report him to trading standards, he has asked me to pass on his apologies and has said that this is a human error their end, as they have over 300 cars in stock.

 

I will check the car comes off Motors.co.uk tomorrow and our exports.

 

In the meantime thank you for bringing this to our attention and if I can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me directly.

 

Result - removal from the company's website, the motors.co.uk website, and also from Ebay

 

At last - all this could have been avoided if they had done what was asked of them in the first place and not kept on re-listing it and not been so damned rude - slamming down the phone on me and telling me that they were there to sell cars and not remove stuff from their website.

 

Thank you for your help and I hope this helps someone else because I am sure they are not the only company out there who does this.

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

That's good, well done!!