Yewtree/James Harrison/Lee Hudson Cars Solihull - sold me a faulty car

[senbell1]

Hi .I'm about to sound the most gullible fool going .

I write this post in floods of tears totally distraught and in a real bad place . 

 

Sunday evening I bought a car from a car dealer online, the car was advertised as being amazing full service history all working as it should . 

He has numerous other quality used cars for sale all over the Internet. 

 

I paid £4000 with a bank transfer into his business account .

The car was  delivered  last night .. a man handed me the key and said all paperwork is in the glove box and he left .

 

I noticed the only paperwork in the car was a recent MOT form and the drivers manual pack .

I called him questioning this and he told me its all being sent out to me along with the spare key ,

I asked wheres my receipt and log book again he said the receipt will be posted out.

But the log book is missing and its a  perfectly legal sale not to have it when selling a vehicle .

The car is HPI checked and all clear. 

 

Well last night I insured the car and this morning the post office had me fill out a form to register myself as the new keeper and surprising she let me tax it there and then . I was so happy   I had this amazing car ..I spent my entire savings on and at that moment I believed it was worth every penny ! 

 

My partner and I took the car for a drive not long into the drive   

I soon felt myself struggling to turn the steering wheel.

My partner had to drive it .

 

We took it to the nearest garage .

We was told the electric steering column had broke .

I called Ford they quoted over £1000 for the replacement part ..

 

I called the dealer and explained what had happened.

He told me there was nothing wrong with the car when he sold it to me  .

He also said it was drove down to Gloucester from Birmingham last night and everything was great    .

Which was a lie it was delivered on a truck ,

 

when I reminded him of this he changed the subject and said he couldn't believe the cars broke .

I said I cant afford to get it repaired and brought up the warranty.

 

He said his warranty only covers gears and engine .

He said there's nothing he can do ..

 

I was in floods of tears at this point my partner started speaking to him ,

the dealer relayed his warranty terms saying there's nothing he can do and its your problem to sort out our self as the car was perfect when it was handed over .

 

Any help please would be hugely appreciated im in bits . 

 

[dx100uk]

total BS, everything he said

forget the warranty, means nothing docent replace your rights under the consumer rights act (sale of goods - fit for purpose)

 

under CRA as you bought it online

your have 14 days to return it no quibble without any reason.

additionally should the car become faulty or not fit for purpose within 30 days you can also reject it and get a full refund no quibble.

 

100's of like cases here already

 

oh and name names please

[BankFodder]

Yes please. We need the name of the dealer.

Also, as my site team colleague said – it has nothing to do with the warranty at all. You are protected by the consumer rights act 2015 and if a defect occurs within the first 30 days then you have a right to reject the vehicle and insist on a refund.

That's the good news

I'm afraid that the difficult news is that enforcing your rights in many circumstances can be very difficult. If this is a dealer who doesn't want to be found or who has no assets, then I'm afraid that although if you bring a court case you will win without any doubt, enforcing the judgement will be extremely difficult.

Please start by giving us the name of the dealer. There is absolutely no point in holding back with anything.

 

[senbell1]

 Hi thank you for replying to me .  The buisness account i paid into was yewtree cars (yewtree one word ) 

 

Hes goes by the name James Harrison Cars 

Based in Solihull

 

Hes ignoring my calls and not responding to any texts 

Edited January 26, 2021 by senbell1

[BankFodder]

How far away from you is that garage?

[senbell1]

I'm in Gloucestershire 

[BankFodder]

I suppose is not going to make you happy, that we have a lot of people here who end up buying used cars, very cheap, required to pay by bank transfer, and the car is quite a long distance away from where they are but for some reason rather people seem to think that once they have discovered that vehicle, it is the only one available and they have to get it regardless of any difficulties.

I'm posting this for other people who might visit this thread as well so please don't think that I'm getting at you. However, when people buy cheap cars from dealers far away, they forget that they have to factor in the cost of returning the car to the dealer in the event that there are any defects or any problems – and that is assuming that the dealer is legit and will step up to their consumer obligations.

The problem is that dealers who insist on bank transfers are immediately suspect, in my view, because your money is not protected. Had you purchased this vehicle with a credit card or with a loan, then you might have had some redress against the finance company. But the dealers know this and they want cash because they know that once they got the cash, there is very little that can be done.

I've checked yewtree cars and I really can't find any occurrence of that name. I've checked James Harrison Cars and they don't have a website but they are advertising using various presences on various Internet facilities.

Also I can't find any reference to either of these businesses on trust pilot.

What is the specific address that you have for them please? Did you actually go up and see the showroom?

 

 

Hang on I see in fact that the car was delivered to you – so you've actually never visited the address or you don't know what kind of premises they have or whether it is a professional outfit or a showroom or whether there are assets or anything.

What address do you have for them?

[senbell1]

Hi I transfered money over to  their buisness account yewtree cars 

 

No I never viewed the car first hand 

 

I'm such a idiot 

[BankFodder]

I'm sorry to say that I think you again have a great deal of difficulty.

You haven't addressed the question about the address – what is the specific address please?

[senbell1]

311 Wells Green Road Solihull

West Midlands 

 

 

 

 

[BankFodder]

Well it simply a nice-looking residential road. No garages, dealers or anything.

I sense that we don't even really know if he lives there. I suggest that you have a look on the land registry web search and look up that address and see who owns the property. There will be a fee for this but I think it's only about three quid or so.

I will be amazed if he owns the property – and frankly I'd even be amazed if he lives there.

How were you given this address?

[senbell1]

Its the same address on all his adds including his ebay sellers account...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BankFodder]

Well that sounds a bit more hopeful.

I suggest that you search the land registry https://eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/eservices/FindAProperty/view/QuickEnquiryInit.do and if you happen to find that he is the owner of the property then you've got a very good chance at enforcing a judgement.

He doesn't own the property then I think we have serious problems.

I think that the search costs may be about £3 or so. This is definitely worthwhile doing

[Daniel Hanson]

Just thought i would add my experience to this post.

 

I have also bought a car from this 'company', paid by bank transfer and had it delivered.

Didn't really do my research beforehand. But now after looking into it a bit more, the adverts that were placed on places like racmotors and motors co .uk have all been removed (i dont know why)

 

the person is now only selling on ebay and facebook.

 

Fortunately so far my car seems to be okay, and i have tracked down the previous owner who has given me some history.

 

dont think the address you have been quoted even exists.

After looking at a lot of the photos of his cars it appears that he buys most of his cars from car auction site manheim and then sells them straight on.

 

Please do keep us updated, and any further information on seller would also be appreciated.

[senbell1]

Hi makes me wonder why they all been removed of the other sites  this is recent too as I contacted him via motors .co .uk .

 

today ive been  refered to trading standards, I shall call them tomorrow.

 

As for the car dealer he's blocked me from calling him .

I have sent a email regarding my rights and his responsibility as a car dealer .

 

I have the screen shots of the car I bought from the motors . Co .UK website .

I also noticed it was for sale advertised on eBay and didn't sell.  

 

 

 

 

[Daniel Hanson]

Yeah i can only guess that they realised he wasnt a proper dealer, not sure. Good luck with it

[senbell1]

I may of said to him that I shall be reporting him to every car site hes on for doing what hes done to me ..

I cant find him on fb been looking for ages.

 

Wonder if he's reading this thread , when you Google James harrison cars this shows on the first Google page ...  I will let you know how it goes with trading standards .

 

A huge lesson has been learnt from all this 

[dx100uk]

thats why we rename threads...name and shame!!!!

[BankFodder]

By all means you should certainly try to reported to Trading Standards. However, you should understand now that nothing will come of it. They may put it on their database that they will do nothing at all.

Not only that, even if they could do something they will have the same difficulty as we have – of tracking down his real name and his whereabouts.

Have you carried out a land registry check on the address you have using the web link that I have given you?

[senbell1]

Sadly house number 311 doesn't exist . i tried direct messaging u  , but the sites not letting me 

[BankFodder]

It looks as if you have been completely ripped off. I'm sorry about that but frankly I don't think there is much you can do – and believe me, it is not often that I say that on this forum.

I think it's fairly clear that there has been a deception here and although it won't help massively, I would suggest that you report the crime to the police. They will try to say that is a civil matter and you will have to stick to your guns and say that no there's been a deception, that this man is selling cars in an unroadworthy condition and probably he is committing tax fraud offences as well.

I'm afraid that there doesn't even evidence that you have the correct name. It seems entirely possible that such a person simply doesn't exist.

I don't see any point in beginning a legal action because if you don't even have the correct name for this dealer, then a judgement recorded against his credit file will make absently no difference at all and you will simply incur the costs of bringing the claim.

I doubt very much whether he would bother to respond to a claim or to put in a defence. If he did put in a defence then if you wanted to move on to the hearing stage you would have to pay another fee and this would simply put you even more out of pocket – probably to the tune of about £250 or so – and as it seems very unlikely that you could ever enforce the judgement, you would never get any of this money back.

I'm sure you feel very bad and very upset.

The only other thing you should do is start going around the review sites and putting up negative reviews about this person and his business – and business names. At least it will put other people on guard and you never know, you might stumble across other people who know more about him and actually know who he is.

If you do decide to inform the police then you should tell the police that he is trading under a false name.

In terms of your car, I'm afraid that the only way I can suggest to cut your losses is to have the work done. It means that you are £1000 down on the deal – but at least you will have a driving car. However, before doing that I would have the car thoroughly checked over to make sure that there aren't any other defects which are about to materialise which might eventually make the car is simply not economical to repair.

You said that there was an MOT certificate in the glove box. Is it a recent MOT certificate?

Are you able to speak with the previous owner at all?  Cagger @Daniel Hanson who has also bought a vehicle from the same person may be able to help you in this respect.
It seems that he has been lucky enough not to have any problem so far with the car that he bought.

I think at the very least, the lessons to be drawn from this are:

• Don't purchase a used car – or any car from a dealer who is far away from you
• make sure you check the car yourself
• make sure that the dealer is well established and do some research on forums and review sites for negative reviews and positive reviews. However, be suspicious of positive reviews.
• Don't pay cash/bank transfer. You lose all control of your money.
• Insist on paying by credit card or debit card and if the dealer won't accept it then walk away.
• Ignore warranties. They are meaningless and they are simply a red herring intended to distract you from your statutory rights.
• However, as you are discovering, even your statutory rights are meaningless if you are unable to identify the dealer and if you are able to identify any assets belonging to the dealer against which you could enforce judgement.

Please do let us know how this develops and if you are able to track anybody down.
As I say, I think you should certainly inform the police – but it will be a hard job to get them to take notice because they will simply try to say that it's a civil matter and there is no evidence of a crime. You will have to push hard.

[senbell1]

Hi yes I noticed myself he has changed his buisness name on ebay last night 

[BankFodder]

On 27/01/2021 at 21:34, senbell1 said:

Hi makes me wonder why they all been removed of the other sites  this is recent too as I contacted him via motors .co .uk .

 

today ive been  refered to trading standards, I shall call them tomorrow.

 

As for the car dealer he's blocked me from calling him .

I have sent a email regarding my rights and his responsibility as a car dealer .

 

I have the screen shots of the car I bought from the motors . Co .UK website .

I also noticed it was for sale advertised on eBay and didn't sell.  

 

 

 

 

Any chance you could post up the screenshots please of the vehicle which you saw on motor.co.uk and also on eBay so that we can have a look at both.

Thank you

[senbell1]

 I contacted him via motors. Co. Uk 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the car was also advertised on ebay . 

screenshots.pdf

[BankFodder]