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I purchased a car I had seen on eBay and it's turned into a nightmare. The current MOT seems to be fraudulent as it omits some serious defects which should have been advisories. A search through MOT history shows the advisories were present on the prior 2 MOTs, so this looks like seller did a deal with an unscrupulous MOT station to enable the car to be sold as though it were without issues. Surely this act alone is fraud?
My local village garage & MOT centre have examined the car and also believe it has not been serviced for some time. It was sold as 'recently serviced' and with 'Full Service History' (I have a screenshot of the ad) but there was no actual paperwork handed over, just some stamps in the service schedule book, and the final two seem dodgy as the stamp has no contact telephone number, and the company doesn't appear to exist (checked with Companies House). The 2 latest pages are written in the same hand and in the same ink, possibly at the same time.
Purchase was completed via bank transfer on day of delivery (16/03/26) and seller was anxious to get away having booked a taxi. I did not have the time to fully examine the car before he departed. Its conditon is not what it looked to be in the advert photos, either. The payment transfer was made not to a company account but to an account in his name. I didn't smell a rat at the time, unfortunately.
Having gone down a rabbit hole on the web it has been revealed that this man did 4 years in jail from 2018 for dodgy deals and fraud in association with car sales, and has been banned from being a company director for 10 years. However, he is still trading and his wife is the only named person on the Companies House files for the company that sold me the car.
My bank can't/won't help me, neither can eBay as I did not finalise the purchase via their portal. I've been given various pieces of advice from police and DVLA but it seems the best advice/support I can get is from Citizens Advice, as their name has been given to me by everyone else I have spoken to. It's impossible to get a timely appointment with them where live so, mindful that I have 30 days to reject the vehicle under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, I've put together a detailed letter given reasons for rejection, which include the lack of a Full Service History. I emailed it to the seller yesterday, posted the signed original to the address of the seller's business ('Signed For') and await response.
Since he is a convicted criminal who appears confident to continue to deal in dodgy car sales I am not hopeful of a reply or indeed any refund. What else can I do, if anything? I now have a £3k loan to repay to a credit union, and no funds (income is from state pension) to buy another car, which I rely on as I live rurally without any public transport locally.
Thanks for reading this, any advice welcomed.
My local village garage & MOT centre have examined the car and also believe it has not been serviced for some time. It was sold as 'recently serviced' and with 'Full Service History' (I have a screenshot of the ad) but there was no actual paperwork handed over, just some stamps in the service schedule book, and the final two seem dodgy as the stamp has no contact telephone number, and the company doesn't appear to exist (checked with Companies House). The 2 latest pages are written in the same hand and in the same ink, possibly at the same time.
Purchase was completed via bank transfer on day of delivery (16/03/26) and seller was anxious to get away having booked a taxi. I did not have the time to fully examine the car before he departed. Its conditon is not what it looked to be in the advert photos, either. The payment transfer was made not to a company account but to an account in his name. I didn't smell a rat at the time, unfortunately.
Having gone down a rabbit hole on the web it has been revealed that this man did 4 years in jail from 2018 for dodgy deals and fraud in association with car sales, and has been banned from being a company director for 10 years. However, he is still trading and his wife is the only named person on the Companies House files for the company that sold me the car.
My bank can't/won't help me, neither can eBay as I did not finalise the purchase via their portal. I've been given various pieces of advice from police and DVLA but it seems the best advice/support I can get is from Citizens Advice, as their name has been given to me by everyone else I have spoken to. It's impossible to get a timely appointment with them where live so, mindful that I have 30 days to reject the vehicle under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, I've put together a detailed letter given reasons for rejection, which include the lack of a Full Service History. I emailed it to the seller yesterday, posted the signed original to the address of the seller's business ('Signed For') and await response.
Since he is a convicted criminal who appears confident to continue to deal in dodgy car sales I am not hopeful of a reply or indeed any refund. What else can I do, if anything? I now have a £3k loan to repay to a credit union, and no funds (income is from state pension) to buy another car, which I rely on as I live rurally without any public transport locally.
Thanks for reading this, any advice welcomed.
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