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Copart BMW X5 - with Altered Odometer ? Being Ignored


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Dear All,

I purchased a BMW X5 from Copart on 01/06/2021 online(in covid Lockdown) at a price of £22600. The advert said  car mileage 22453 , Estimated Retail value £37000.Additional information(Mileage discrepancy on HPI(NMR check).Mileage consistent with MOT(MOT date 05/04/2021), former keeper --0 and V5 ---not present, used --unrecorded.All the money were paid to Copart via bank Transfer. I did not performed any HPI check on the vehicle.I sat on the NMR website which was asking me about some 11 digit letter which I didn't  have.

 

The car starting showing certain warning lights and was taken for a service to a local BMW garage where the story unfolds.The car had a regular service history and last service was done at  98000 miles. I received the original V5 in post after I applied for V5 to DVLA. The original V5 has name of Alphabet cars as owner, who confirmed to me along with pic that the car was sold by them via BCA on 31/03/2021 at mileage of 103268.BCA confirmed the same. they will not disclose the name of the motor trader.

 

So the events are.

31.03.2021----Alphabet cars sold at mileage of 103268 via BCA. mileage tempered by buyer(a Motor Trader) and V5 not updated with DVLA

 

05.04.2021 ---First MOT of the car at a mileage of 22000 then drive around a while

 

01.06.2021---sold it via Copart.

 

I have exhausted the complaint procedure of Copart who are taking the defence of terms 8.1 and 8.2.

 

Since the car had no documents so the thought of calling the BMW garage never crossed my mind. Moreover the estimated retail value they put as £37000, the value of a similar car with original mileage of 22000. Therefore it gave me the impression that even if there is a discrepancy , it is not that gross, to have caused the significant depreciation in the value.

 

My common sense told me that they are experts, so any value they put on the car will be correct. Have provided all proof with doc to Copart, of course they are not ready to take the car back neither are they ready to refund even a partial amount. It seems that i have paid them approx £2k  to do fraud on me. 

 

This is happening in 21st Britain.

I am angry, frustrated and above all HELPLESS.

 

Thank you everyone for reading my post .

 

any suggestions will be highly appreciated

 

 

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Please will you monitor this thread for a fuller reply later.

In view of the mileage discrepancy which is clearly fraudulent I would begin by informing the police. It won't do much good but I think it will be helpful to get hold of a crime number.

 

Also please could you upload your files again but this time all of them in pdf format and also with names which describe the contents of the file. Thank you

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  • dx100uk changed the title to Copart BMW X5 - with Altered Odometer ? Being Ignored

before we start on this we might as well make it clear not only for you but for anybody else who visits this thread but there is a wonderful act of  Parliament called the consumer Credit Act.  Section 75 of the Act basically says but if you use any kind of finance to buy a vehicle such as a vehicle Finance loan or you use a credit card then the finance provider bears equal responsibility for the condition of the vehicle as if they were the dealer.

 This means that if the dealer ignores you or else the dealer suddenly disappears because they want to avoid their responsibilities, it's not particularly serious because you can sue the finance company instead .

 

When you paid by bank transfer you threw away all these wonderful rights which protected you and made you pretty well immune from any mistakes that you might have made when buying a vehicle and in this particular case it seems that you have made a lot.

 

it may well be that this is the way the dealer wanted you to pay.  It may well be that the dealer offered you some kind of discount in order to persuade you to pay this way but the net benefit to the dealer is that they knew  that if there was any problem with the vehicle that you would have no come back at them through the the finance company.

 

You would have to deal with them directly and of course that is always more difficult as you are already discovering.

 

I understand how that you bought a vehicle which was advertised as having only 22000 miles or so but later on you discovered that it had over 100,000 miles. Is this correct ?

 

also I understand that the car is demonstrating some faults but I don't think you have told us what they are.

 

the first thing that you must do is that you you must write a letter to the dealer and inform them of the defects that you have discovered also of the mileage discrepancy and you should tell them that you are asserting your rights under the Consumer Rights Act and  because it is not possible to repair the mileage problem you are rejecting the vehicle and you want a refund and that they should let you know how they intend to organise that and also to collect the vehicle .

 

Send this letter off immediately by email and also by recorded delivery.

 

from what you have told us already I suppose that we shouldn't expect any particularly co-operative outcome and in that case I'm afraid that it is most likely that you will have to litigate.  There is no pointin trying to enter into negotiations with an uncooperative dealer which is determined to avoid their responsibilities.

 

 The problem here of course is that the car has a very high value and this takes you well beyond the small claims limit.  this means that if you happen to lose then you will be responsible for the other side's costs.

 

On the basis of what you say, losing is pretty well an impossibility so you can feel quite secure about that - however you should understand the risks.

  If you are prepared to bring a claim in the county court then we will certainly help you in every respect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I've been looking at Copart and I see that they are an auction house full stop when you bought this vehicle were you "copart member"?

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First of all thanks for taking the time out to read and reply to my problem.

Yes i purchased annual membership of Copart for £100/. I am still a member.

Secondly, when a car is purchased via online auction, as in this case, will the consumer rights and distance selling rights apply?I am unsure about that.

Thirdly  since it happened in covid lockdown so a physical inspection was impossible,as no customer were allowed on site.

lastly are there any cases won, by someone in a similar situation as myself.

I have all the documented proof along with detailed service history provided to Copart, but since due to privacy issues neither BCA nor Copart are willing to disclose the name of the motor trade who have tempered odometer.The various warning messages coming in dashboard has not been brought into the notice of copart, who have send me detailed description of the terms 8.1 and 8.2.

I am not offered any incentive to pay via bank transfer. I did it out of my foolishness.

 

I did some reaserch online copart exclusion clauses do not meet the reasonableness test under section 11 (1) of the un fair contract terms act 1977(gary alexander - v - copart uk ltd(case no d7qz86fa edmonton county court london). Is it relevant to my case.

 

 

docs1.pdf

Edited by dx100uk
single pdf's merged to one.
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We have had a few Copart cases on this Forum in the past and it seems to me that pretty well every one of them has involved mileage discrepancies.

 

Also so far as I can see every Copart story which has come to this forum appears eventually to have been abandoned by the owner of the story so that we have never known whether there have been any successes. It's very unsatisfactory.

https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/search/?q=copart&quick=1

 

 

What I do see though is that by taking out the copart membership, people are apparently agreeing that they are trade purchasers and I suppose this must be a device used by Copart to avoid responsibilities under the Consumer Rights Act.

 

Section 32  of the Consumer Rights Act provides that any term in a contract for goods which attempts to restrict the liability of the trader is unenforceable.   However the so-called membership agreement is a separate agreement and is not part of the agreement to supply goods so I suppose that Copart would argue that section 32 didn't apply and of course they could well be right.

they have clearly given the whole issue of avoiding consumer obligations some considerable thought.

However, it seems to me that forcing ordinary consumers to agree that they are trade purchases could be an unenforceable term under the unfair terms provisions of the Consumer Rights Act.

 

 Overriding all of this this is the fact that you tell us that they advertised the car as having a mileage of 22000.

You have evidence that this is untrue but you relied on that mileage in order to form your decision to purchase the vehicle. The advertisement that it had 22000 miles was a misrepresentation and that would give you a basis for claiming against Copart regardless of whether you were consumer or a tradesperson.

 

What have you said to Copart? Have you seen that their member scheme apparently guarantees your purchase in the event that there is a mileage discrepancy ? Have you raised this with them ?

 

An important question is whether you are allowed to bid on a car if you have not purchased membership . Can you tell us?

 

And I'm sorry to rub it in but for the benefit of others, looking at the history of Copart and their attitude to customers I'm amazed that people are prepared to buy cars unseen, for large amounts of money, pay by bank transfer, apparently sign their rights away as trade purchasers from a company which simply specialises in bringing in thousands of unsaleable vehicles from sources all over the world in order to find suckers in the UK  who for some reason rather get over-excited by the prospect of a deal and abandon all precautions to the winds.

 

And yet a simple search through the internet would very quickly reveal the kind of company that you are dealing with and the kind of problems that ordinary innocent purchasers seem to be having far too regularly .

 

It's pretty clear that if anybody manages to buy a good car from copart then they were lucky.

 

It's a sort of lottery but unlike the lottery where you can invest £5 with a chance of winning millions, and if you lose all you lose £5, with Copart the cost of your lottery ticket is £22,000 and if you lose you lose the lot. If you win then all you win is your £22,000.

 

 

And I really don't want to hear about Covid. It's a load of BS

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I am an ordinary layperson who would buy change car after couple of years and purchase car only for personal use.

I am not a trade person. Because Copart allows all members to bid where as other car auctions only allows motor traders, therefore I became Copart member. It is like eBay, where anyone can register but in Copart you are ONLY ALLOWED to BID When YOU HAVE THE MEMBERSHIP.

 

I brought the member protection pledge and bid with confidence slogans in their attention, But since  their ad said that there is NMR discrepancy so their reply is that my car is not covered under that pledge.

 

When I question them that the advertised Estimated retail value of £37000 (value of a similar car with unaltered odometer) has misled me and made me believe that the car has covered mileage in the region of 22000 if not 22000 precise since they didn't took into account the depreciation in the value of the car after  covering More than 100k mile, keeping in mind that they are the experts in their profession. Misleading buyer with overinflated price resulted in the buyer placing high value bids on the car, hence more commission for Copart. If they would have put an estimated retail value as £10-15000, then obviously the buyer would have bid less for the car, hence less commission for Copart Their argument is that the value they put is for general guidance,the buyer is supposed to do their own research rather then relying on their information. section 8.1 nad 8.2 and the membership terms are quoted that I have accepted them and by doing so they are discharged of all liabilities.

 

I have even wrote to Copart that the specific seller has committed a fraud which I have brought to their attention along with all documents, either they are party to it or the seller has used their platform.They have made no comments.

 

If i have the documented evidence that the car odometer has been altered by a specific motor trader( name Only Known to BCA and Copart) can it be reported to police?

 

what are my options now ?

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yes.  You should waste no time reporting it to the police.

 

The  police will express nearly no interest at all and in fact will find the whole thing is a nuisance but you need a crime reference number.  It will be helpful.

 

In terms of what can you do,  the answer is that you will probably have to start a claim against them and of course because the claim is for a value far greater than £10,000 you should be aware that this will put you on to the fast-track.

 

The fast-track means that if you happen to lose the case then you will be liable for a large proportion of their costs which of course could amount to quite a lot of money.

 

Also unfortunately when defendants who are well resourced realise that a claim is going onto the fast-track they sometimes use procedural rules to increase the difficulty of the claim you are making simply to increase the costs so that the whole thing becomes rather more dangerous and more threatening to the claimant if the claimant is a litigant in person such as you .

 

You can be certain that Copart is very well resourced and also this won't be the first time that somebody has tried to challenge them on the basis of mileage discrepancies.

 

You can be certain that it is important to them that their business  model is because they have an awful lot at stake if a court what decided that their business model is unfair and unenforceable.   Therefore you can be completely certain that they will rise up against you and will spend whatever it takes - even far more than the value of the claim in order to crush you to make sure that their business model remains intact.

 

You have told us that apparently Copart have said to you that you are not covered by the membership pledge in respect of the mileage discrepancy but I'm afraid I don't understand why not .

 

Please will you  explain more clearly.

 

 

Additionally, although I said earlier that the membership program seems to be a contract which is  separate to the the purchase contract, the fact that you have told us that you are not allowed to purchase anything unless you enter the membership scheme makes me think that there is a reasonable basis for arguing that in fact the two contracts run together and they are all part of the Contract for the vehicle.

 

If this argument succeeded then it would be possible to argue that the membership contract operates against section 31 of the Consumer Rights Act and therefore is  unenforceable.

 

 

 

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I've just had another look at your opening post and I my now realise that I hadn't fully taken in what you had written.

 

I see that the origin auction advertisement actually want you that there might be a mileage discrepancy and that you should check it up.

I understand that you started to try and check it up and eventually gave up.

 

this puts a totally different light on the matter because it means that copart flood up that there was a problem with the mileage and despite this you went ahead it and  bought it.

 

I'm afraid the in that case even if there was no doubt about your status as a consumer purchaser, I don't think you'd have any basis for complaining that the car had been misrepresented.

 

I'm afraid that I don't know what the law is about  knowingly selling cars which have had their mileage illegally tampered with as seems to be the case here. But I suddenly I think that despite  what I said in my last post, that you are in an extremely difficult position and I don't really know what to advise you.

 

in terms of reporting  a fraudulent sale  I don't think you could do that  in the circumstances. You certainly could report the the the illegal  alteration of the mileage to the police but I don't think they would be at all interested even to take down the details. 

 

This needs a lot of further  research but  I'm not sure where to start.

 

 

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