Discovered faked mileage after paying a deposit, now seller is refusing to return deposit.

[SimianSymphony]

Hi All,

 

Recently, my dad had found a second hand merc off of facebook and we went to see the vehicle which looked fine and next morning my dad had paid a deposit of £500.

Although a bit late, I decided to get the vehicle history and it revealed that the car had its mileage adjusted twice (-11k and -42k).

 

 I called up the seller asking him to return the deposit along with the reason to which he sounded bewildered but explained that the reason is that the the car had its engine replaced and therefore the mileage was adjusted to match the replaced engine's mileage.

 

By now I was convinced that the guy is dodgy and the mileage had been adjusted twice where as the engine had been changed only once. regardless of his explanations, I was adamant that the money needed to be returned to which he refused.

 

We called the bank and explained the situation and in turn the bank had frozen his account, so the guy might have been startled ,  he called up again promising that he'll return 250 immediately once his account is unlock and the remainder once the car is sold.

 

However now its been months, haven't heard from the guy nor seen a penny of that £500, clearly he had managed to get his account unlocked. Later on the bank contacted us saying that they can't help with the matter.

 

Contacted the police as well  to get nothing and everything seems a hit a dead end.

 

I tried looking for the man's address thinking that I could make a case at the small claims court but again he seems untraceable (although we have his bank details). 

 

Any suggestions on what could be done about this?

 

Edited January 30 by dx100uk
added A few blank lines only..dx

[dx100uk]

Was this your bank that initially intervened?

was this deposit paid by a debit card?

 

and some dates please

and is this a trader or a private individual?

 

Dx

[SimianSymphony]

@dx100uk

Yes, the deposit had been paid out of my mom's account, so we contacted her bank (Halifax) who initiated the block.

It was a bank transfer directly to his account.

The payment had been made on  the 29th of October 2021.

 

I haven't seen any business details from him. The ads had been posted using a facebook account in his name. So I think he would be an private individual. After us refusing to buy the vehicle, the original advert on facebook had been removed.

 

The same car along with many other adverts for other cars appeared on facebook but under a woman's name but with the same last name. I would presume that it would be his partner.T

 

Given the number of cars he is dealing with, I am surprised that the operation is under an individual's name rather than a registered business.

Edited January 31 by dx100uk
added A few blank lines only..dx

[dx100uk]

Made every mistake in the book to date then....

 

pop up on companies house website and the fca register type in his name...anything?

 

DX