Confused by car dealer

[joedevivre]

Hi all, 

Not sure if i am posting this in the right forum but here goes. 

I bought a BMW car in January this year from what I believed to be a private seller. He told me it was his car and he had been using it as a run-around since his previous car was stolen, but he had now replaced the stolen car with a fiat 500 abarth so didn't need the BMW any more. 

 

Since buying the car, it has had all sorts of problems and been very expensive to repair, and still not working properly and needing major repairs. However i thought that as this was a private sale, this was just a 'buyer beware' issue and that as I had no way I could prove the seller was aware of these faults before selling the car, and may have been an honest seller, so there was nothing I could do about it. 

 

Last night I was looking on gumtree and noticed another car for sale photographed in exactly the same location mine was (outside a distinctive house). It is the exact same model and the description is very similar. I checked the phone number and sure enough it is the same as the one I was contacting back in January. However the seller has given himself a different name. 

I messaged him off a different phone number, and he did not correct me when using this new name. He said it was his car, and he had been using it as a run-around. But was now selling it to buy a Fiat 500 abarth! Familiar routine. 

 

There is obviously some dishonesty going on here. But i have no idea what angle he is working and how to proceed about it. I'm sure there is nothing I can do about the sunk cost of the car I bought. But should I be bringing this to somebody's attention? Surely the car would need to have been registered in his own name in order to sell it. 

 

Any advise would be much appreciated. 

Joe  

 

 

 

[BankFodder]

On the basis of what you say, it seems fairly clear that you have somebody who is dealing representing themselves as a private seller in order to avoid any consumer liabilities under various consumer legislation – and also, presumably, any tax implications.

You certainly could want people and I would be considering contacting HMRC to begin with. However, what you are really interested in is seeing if you can get some recompense for the expenses to which you have been put repairing the car.

You can easily bring a legal action but of course do you know his true identity and do you know where he lives? Does the property which features in the photograph belong to him?

When you bought the car, did it have the sellers details on the documentation that came with it?

[joedevivre]

Hi BankFodder, 

Thanks for reading and your reply. I'm relatively certain that when I bought the car, the name on the V5C registration document matched the name that he gave me.

 

I know the address where I picked up the car, which he said at the time was his home. He may not still be there but I suppose I could ask him for his address while showing interest in the new car. The property in the photos is not the same, he told me at the time it was his dad's place. But I don't know where that is.  

 

Do you think legal action would get anywhere if I did have his details? 

 

Many thanks for your advice, 

Joe 

 

[AndyOrch]

How much did you pay for the vehicle ?

 

How many cars can you sell before you are classed as a Trader ?

Quote

You are free to buy and sell as many cars as you like provided you can show HMRC you aren't intending to sell for profit. Insurers that provide motor trade insurance would look to you turning over a minimum of 6 vehicles a year for them to class you as a trader

 

To prove he is a trader you need to show that he sells several cars a year and advertises them online or trade magazines ec

[joedevivre]

Thanks Andy. 

It is useful to see that definition. It sounds like it would be quite difficult then to prove somebody is trading if they say they are selling privately, especially if the numbers are not too high, and I don't have a lot to go on! Although doing a reverse image search on google, it has just brought up two old, deleted adverts for other cars - another BMW and a Nissan - both photographed in the same driveway. (Attaching pictures so you can see how easy it is to distinguish  the house)
It was £3400. 

Many thanks, 
Joe 

[BazzaS]

So, 4 adverts so far, but over what timescale?.

[joedevivre]

9 months between buying my car and the new one on gumtree. Difficult to say for the latter two as the adverts have since been deleted and I can't see the dates. I'm inclined to assume they were within this timeframe, purely because I was able to find the photos despite the ads being deleted, though I am not able to find the photos of the car I bought in the same way. 

 

 

[honeybee13]

Have you tried the Wayback Machine to see if there are photos in a cache somewhere?

 

HB