12:01 pm, August 20, 2024
Buyer’s remorse. We’ve all copped for it – when a customer buys a car, gets it home, then opens the mail to find an unexpected tax bill or the excess demand from their vet but has just spent all of their money.
In a country where taking responsibility for our own actions is becoming less and less of a thing – we’d much rather smash up shop windows and go looting in Greggs, if recent national behaviour is anything to go by – what happens next is that the individual in question will go out of their way to reject a perfectly good car, trying to do anything and everything they possibly can to get their money back.
Unfortunately, they’re also backed by the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Any law that keeps dodgy dealers off the streets and allows professionals to sell decent cars to decent people isn’t a bad thing in principle.
But I’ve been in this game long enough (and, I’m sure, so have you) to know that no matter how decent a car you choose to sell, there are still plenty of far-from-decent people out there who have been brainwashed into believing that all car dealers are crooks and that customers are always right. Both of which are statements we know to be untrue.
Just recently, I sold a Volvo XC70 – a really tidy old thing, low miles, loads of history.
I knew it was an absolute peach of a car as I’d used it myself for four weeks while we were refitting the kitchen and it drove without fault.
There was nothing wrong with it at all other than a small crack on the inner tailgate plastic that you couldn’t see with the boot closed – and which I declared in the ad.
As I do with a lot of cars such as these in today’s market, I sold it via a specialist online auction. Not eBay, because you can’t leave feedback for terrible buyers on there, but via a trust-based platform that specialises in modern classics.
It did really well, selling for top book (just over £4k based on age and mileage).
The lady buyer was based more than 200 miles away but was adamant that she didn’t want to collect the car herself, so instead sent a local fly-by-night with an ‘Our Tommy’ tattoo and a Transit flatbed to come and pick it up, which I took as my first warning sign.
Knuckles dragging on the floor, he arrived four hours later than he said he would and nearly did a Dukes of Hazzard jump over the cab of the Transit while loading the Volvo on to it, blocking the A5 and causing traffic chaos as he did so.
No paperwork, no condition report, just a few muttered grunts and off he went, at least 850kg overweight (the truck that is, although he came pretty close himself).
At that point, I should have just tipped off VOSA in the hope it prohibited him from going any further, but it was gone 6.30pm by the time he rocked up and there was a pint in the pub with my name on it, so off I went, with a nagging feeling that I hadn’t heard the last of it.
Sure enough, the following afternoon I received a photograph…
A perfectly fine second-hand Volvo XC70 sold by Big Mike became the victim of buyer’s remorse
Where the tailgate plastic was cracked previously, it had now been broken off. The buyer was saying it was misdescribed and she wanted to reject the car.
Being a seasoned veteran, I take more than 200 photos of every car I sell, so countered her photo with one of my own, at which point I got a follow-up message saying that warning lights were now showing on the dashboard.
That was accompanied by a photograph of a handheld scanner tool that she claimed to be an ‘Engineer’s Report’, showing seven stored codes, all relating to historic low battery voltage.
As soon as I explained this to her, I was accused of dishonesty and trying to fob off the problems.
An hour later, I received an irate text message from her clearly hard-as-nails husband who didn’t have the front to talk to me on the phone.
Along with accusations of dishonesty and a lack of morals was a demand for his money back, so I politely replied that I would not be offering a refund.
I did, however, say that I’d be more than happy to have the car inspected by an independent mechanic, whereupon we could make a reasonable assessment as to my liabilities once in possession of a proper report.
It never materialised, so nor did his refund.
One thing it didn’t stop, though, was a tirade of further abuse, including three negative Google Reviews of my business which I managed to trace back to him, his wife and his father-in-law.
They’re now in receipt of a cease and desist letter from the excellent people at Lawgistics UK, who exist to look after the likes of you and me.
But here’s the best bit…
As someone who always likes to have the last laugh in a situation such as this, I spotted the car for sale on eBay last week.
I’ve just bought it back for half of what they paid for it, using an eBay account whose name they won’t recognise, and I’m ready to go again with it for a second profit.
I’m also going to make sure my driver is four hours late when he picks it up. Karma is a beautiful thing.
Main image used for illustrative purposes
Who is Big Mike? Well, that would be telling. What we can say is he’s had more than 40 years in the car trade so has probably forgotten more about it than we’re likely to know.
