CLAIMED: Against car seller but they've ceased trading.

[JimmySon]

Asking this on behalf of my brother....

Car bought for £950. To cut the story very short there were some serious issues and within days Citizens Advice were called and the sale was rejected/refused under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and a full refund requested.
Car salesman refused basically saying it's just one of them things with an old car, no refund given. Trading standards were mentioned to which the salesman said "go through trading standards then". This was the last time the salesman was heard from. This correspondence was via text message.

Letters sent out (proof of postage obtained each time) asking for refund, letter before action sent out ... everything ignored.

Claim submitted - ignored (but because of - read on)
Sent to judgement but then annoyingly this was set aside because the courts admitted they had not sent the salesman the claim papers.
Claim papers sent again - ignored (properly ignored this time).

Now at this point the car salesman (not a LTD company and i asked my employer who tried searching their company name and any activity at their post code and found nothing) website stopped loading.
Deadline passed and was sent to judgement (this was at the start of this week).

I then had enough of this wondering & guesswork so i called the salesman myself. Asked if it was 'such-&-such' a company, they paused before asking who I was. I said that a friend of mine had given me their number as they'd bought a car from them earlier in the year and had recommended them. I'd tried looking them up online but the website wasn't loading and i wondered if it was just down or just what the situation was basically.

They said - sorry we're no longer dealing in cars. They've only got a few for sale. (hmm, few for sale but not dealing in cars? I'm not dealing in cars & therefore i have none for sale but hey-ho). They asked what i was looking for. I made up some BS story and closed with asking more about their future - saying so you're no longer trading then really are you?

Their response was no.

Now ok £950 is not £10k for example. It's not a lot to some people but it's a lot to throw away to others. It's easy to say just give up.

The reason i'm here is to find out the situation and where my brother goes from here. What his chances of recouping any money are (he doesn't even have a real name for the guy, just a company name)? What the procedure is from here on basically and from that i can pass on the response so he can decide whether it's something he wants to continue with or knock on the head.

[2222]

How did your brother pay for the car? Credit card? Bank transfer? Cash?

If it's cash, and he does not know whom he dealt with, was the trader's name recorded on the vehicle documentation? The V5C perhaps?

If the trader was actually Mr Unknown trading as Dodgy Cars (for example), I don't even see how your brother issued court proceedings. The case should have been against Mr Unknown, but presumably your brother just put Dodgy Cars on the claim?

Even if the claim is successful, will you ever get any money out of this bloke?

[JimmySon]

I'll try bullet point this for for ease of reading (no offence but i'm a known waffler)...

* Despite my advice to always pay for anything like this with a credit card or at least something traceable, he paid cash.
* I had a look on the V5C tonight and section 2 just says Data protection with some general stuff and section 3 just says No of former keepers 2, 1. Declared new at first registration (but no name or address). Apparently the car was a company car if that matters?
* I could name the company if it would help, not to 'name-&-shame' but in case it'd actually help? It's 3 letters which i am (totally) guessing would be the initials of the person who set the company up followed by the term 'Motor Company'.
* We have the invoice for the car but it just states the company name at the top along with address and their phone numbers. There's a signature of theirs that you can't make out. In fact there's 2 different signatures as one sheet was a deposit.
* Yes on the court claim my brother claimed against the company name & address as that's all that was on the invoice.

The question as to whether he'll get any money is part reason why i'm here. Consumer Rights Act 2015 says he's entitled to a refund. So i am purely guessing that judgement should pass saying he's entitled to it and that somewhere along the line bailiff's may get involved and take stuff from the company owner to sell on and recoup losses. 1) As i say i'm purely guessing that's how the process is as i've never experienced it and 2) if that guess is correct then it's a question of how much battling he has to do to get there .... which goes back to the question of what are his chances of getting his money back?


My brother has actually found the chap on Facebook. He searched the company name which lead him to a profile and from this profile he saw someone elses profile who was the guy who sold him the car. I know it's all very stalkerish but he found the chap.
I asked if he was just a worker or the boss or what. He said apparently it was 2 brothers who owned the setup & that's as much as he (my brother) knows.
That said, there's no paperwork evidence to say that this person worked for that company. Just my brother finding him on Facebook, recognising him & saying that's the man that sold me the car.


Hope this helps you as to whether he has any chance of getting his money back?

[2222]

Your brother needs to get the case changed so it's against Mr Bloggs trading as ABC Dodgy Cars. If Mr Bloggs continues to ignore the case, your brother will win easily. THEN, it's down to debt collecting, which can be very tricky.

[JimmySon]

The thing is, and i'm not being funny here, how can you put someones name on it?

Wont he (my brother) be asked - and how do you know it's Joe Bloggs since his name isn't on any of your paperwork. What's to say he worked at this company that no longer trade?

Brother: "well i stalked him on Facebook and he looks just like the guy who sold me a car".
Court: "yeah right, we believe you, hooooooonest".

I've actually had a look myself and found 'the other guy' on Facebook. When you search the company name it brings up a solitary post where this chap is trying to sell his own car - the post was summer 2017. In the collection of photos of said car is like a static caravan (i assume this was their office) and on the side of that caravan is the company logo & phone number.

But again, what's to say either of these people owned the company? What if they say, sorry pal we were just lowly worker scrubs? I don't know how likely that'd pass as a reply, i'm just throwing it out there.



So my point is - he's currently claiming against the company since that's the one and only name on the invoice.
How can he just switch to naming actual people and saying they ran the company when he has no hard evidence of these people being tied to the company (apart from the 1 photo on Facebook i mentioned) and whether they actually ran the thing or not?

[JimmySon]

Oh and would another key problem here be - while he may have found their name, he doesn't know THEIR address? Still only the company (that is no longer trading)?

[JimmySon]

Looking in the government gateway website, the judgement was submitted at the beginning of November, the judgement was 'issued' a day later. It's been sat at 'issued' ever since.

What does issued even mean? Does he still have to wait on them making a decision? Is 'issued' legal talk for a decision? If so does that mean he's 'won' (but obviously he'd need to then try get his money back).

Just wondering what now.

[Amethyst]

If Judgment has been issued your brother should receive a copy and he can then look to enforcement when it isn't paid within the timescale given on the judgment.

Is the business still on the site ( physically )?