J.T

Obviously I replied to his following letters of complaint and replied to him in full and within the allowed times etc, but it was just this email that was the issue. I wouldn't class that as a letter of complaint, and he even wrote this is just to confirm the contents of our telephone call. If he'd written a complaint and asked me to reply in 14 days etc as the CPR rules state, then I would have replied to it. Judging by what I've read here so far I'm not the only one to have had my pants pulled down, and it's not the best feeling especially when you try to play straight and do the right thing by people.

You're correct BHM, he was claiming the cost of repairs and not rejecting the vehicle.

Hi Trade Vet, as you can imagine it's not been a great day so sorry for having a bit of a rant in my first post. I recognise a few of the names on here that used to frequent the old Autotrader forums, if they are still going? Noacross is correct, but of course I was joking as 99% of my customers are reasonable people. I wouldn't want to go into full details of what happened in the public forum, but we had two phone calls. The first was just to tell me there was a problem, the second was him making a claim we had left his car in a dangerous condition and that he was reporting me to Trading Standards. I had asked him to bring the car back on both occasions, but two days later he sent me an email just confirming what he had said in the phone call but he lied in it as he said I refused to do anything. Which was untrue as I'd asked him to return the car both times, he didn't want to bring the car back basically and wanted it repaired at his workshop. That's what I refused to do. I think we all know 'you refused to do anything' is customer speak for you refused to do it my way. I didn't reply to that email because it was just him repeating what he had said in the phone call, and was waiting to hear from TS (which never happened). He then based his whole case around the 'if they refuse to do anything then I'm entitled to have the repair done at any cost and then sue the dealer for it afterwards' section of the Consumer Rights Act, so it was his word against mine that I'd refused to do anything. Or so I thought. The judge picked up on that comment he had made in his email and said that because I hadn't replied to it and said that was untrue, and I had asked him to return the car instead, that on the balance of probabilities it was the customer that was telling the truth that I had refused to do anything as he had stated it in that email. Case closed. As I said I didn't reply to that email as it was just him confirming what we had said in the phone call, and I didn't realise that comment he made in that email would have been so important 14 months later! Everything else about the case was irrelevant. Enjoy your free car mate. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

It's always good to have your fingers in a couple of pies Hamski. I use two brokers, one for prime customers and one for customers that might not look so good on paper. They have different advantages and disadvantages, my prime broker pays more commission but the paperwork involved is a ball breaker and is probably responsible for the lack of wood in the Amazon with all the printing of documents and getting the customer to come back in to sign. Then I have to create a special invoice for them and rescan everything and send it all back to them. My other finance company is more efficient and call the customers themselves and sort out all the documentation with them directly so I literally just just reply with their V5 doc ref and sign an email and return it and it's all done, though they pay much less in commission. It's nice to deal with a smaller broker as you get to speak with the main man which can be helpful when things get a bit tricky. Good luck anyway.

Hi Jordan, having just given away a free car in court today to a similar bell end, I can strongly advise you to reply to his messages. I would write him a formal letter asking him to reply in the same way and not by text message detailing what work he has done and why, more importantly ask him to return the vehicle for you to inspect. If he writes to you in reply with more guff, ask him again in another letter to return the vehicle and say you cannot proceed with his claim until he does. What I've learnt from my day in court today is that you must reply to everything he sends you, and get everything in writing. Good luck with him anyway, and just remember A.P.A.B