Sold a car on ebay auction, New owner now has issues

[Guest]

Law as studied at university bears very little relation to real life lawyer stuff, most of which involves fudge and bother.

 

It is not harassment to make a dodgy claim against someone. It is twattish, but not unlawful.

[Guest]

Yeah, but that's boring! It's the Internet so therefore in e-law you HAVE to suggest something far fetched. Landmark cases such as Cockwarbler Vs Fannybatter ('if that was me I'd have gone round to his house, burnt it down and shagged his wife) and Messers E. Conan and Quay-Boardwarrior Vs Knobwhistle ('I'd punch his lights out and sue him for defection of character') have set precedents.

 

GPWM.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Its going to be difficult to tell the buyer to FRO now, as on Jaycey’s instruction he has supposedly taken it to a garage who will at the very least want paying for their time to look at it, which the buyer is highly likely to ask to be reimbursed for even if the garage says ‘it seems OK to us’ (which is highly unlikely, as the buyer can take it to any old mate of his till he finds someone who says what he wants to hear).

 

The right thing to do would have been to tell the buyer to FRO as soon as he rang back. I bet £1 there is nowt wrong with the car but now the buyer has got himself wound up into a right state convinced he’s bought a dud. You’ve mentioned it in the ad and it seems 100% clear cut to me but now the situation is a bit more muddy.

 

I think you’re going to have to play it by ear, if the buyer sounds like a mental case who could cause you more problems than it’s worth I’d be tempted to think about giving him his dollar back for an easy life. If he sounds like a dithering but harmless idiot then maybe implement a more robust FOAD-based strategy.

 

One other option is to come up with something that ‘takes it out of your hands’ like saying you’ve already spent his money paying off some debts to a local crack cocaine supply operation and therefore can’t give him his money back even though you’d absolutely love to.

[Cavcraft]

GPWM.

 

?

[chaseracer]

"Good point, well made".

 

HTH

[autofive]

GPWM.

 

?

 

gloopy porridge, with milk

[HillmanImp]

[i am not a lawyer and all that, but I've spent quite a bit of time studying law modules at uni.]

 

Neither am I but I have seen every eposide of the Professionals and Doyle is now Judge Judy in Judge John Dread with Sylvester Stallone and from watching that I know for a fact that the law will allow the new owner to come round your house and buttfuck your pet labrador in the event of a Suzuki billowing black smoke out of the back of it.

 

Alternatively you can simply tell the new owner to jog on. Keep details of his address before sending off the V5 in case your windows get put through so you can go round to his house and set fire to his dustbins in retalliation.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

It is not harassment to make a dodgy claim against someone.

 

I never said it was! What I tried (and failed) to convey is to try and push them into making a decision on either making a [dodgy] claim or leaving you in peace.

[garethj]

I am not a lawyer and all that, but I've spent quite a bit of time studying law modules at uni

 

You need to hammer a smaller module over it

This made me ROFL.

[STUNO]

This thread is quite astounding. Black smoke is quite normal for a diesel, it is unburned fuel from overfuelling. On most injected jap vehicles it is fixed by adjusting the pump, there is nothing at all wrong with the engine. BLUE smoke = bad, WHITE on a hot day = bad. And then there is white smoke (not steam) on startup which is a good indicator of a generally tired motor.

 

This clip...white clouds on start, then a blue haze while warming up, this engine is ok but getting old

this clip...a bit of black smoke on startup quite normal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... wkiXg&NR=1

[jaycey001]

Thanks for the reply's.

 

So far I haven't heard back from him, but expecting a call soon. I will play it by ear, but at a k I think it was a cheap motor. Thinking about it, I brought a campervan a few years ago, two miles down the road the engine dropped out, didn't complain just got on with it, similarly I recently brought a cheap rover off ebay which could easily have been a complete dog, but you pay your money and take a chance. (I even had my train fare home encases I needed to stop off at a scrap yard on way lol!!

 

will send an email stating it was sold as seen and if I get any bother will go from there.

 

Thanks for advice again, just needed some one else's view for me to put this all in perspective. Lesson learnt and all that!!

 

will update on progress of this over the coming weeks.

 

Cheers

jay.

[Cavcraft]

Sold as seen doesn't count for anything any more. Did he try it out before he parted with his money? If so simply state it was sold as described on auction after a test drive was taken first.

[R9UKE]

I had a similar ordeal with an Espace V6 I sold on eBay.

 

With eBay listings I always made a good point and bad point section, as you did, but also state that this is purely what I have observed with no official RAC shite check made, it's up to you to come and check that out for yourself.

 

This guy turned up and took the Espace out by himself, leaving me the keys of his car as security, and had it away for a good 20 mins. He came back, said it was all good, went home and pressed "Buy it now".

 

A week later I had a phone call saying the underfloor storage cubbies were full of water and the gearbox was "gone". A week of abuse followed with threats of court action etc but of course nothing came of it. The car turned up on Gumtree about a year later with a picture of the dash showing he'd done about 50 miles in it since he bought it, but of course it was advertised at twice what he bought it off me at and no mention of a fucked gearbox!

 

As previously mentioned, diesel smoke is just a trait of this fuel. I'd love to see his face when my Vel Satis kicks down... Belfast suffers from a lingering smog for a good few days afterwards.

[Negative Creep]

The contacts from the buyer will go as follows:

 

1) My mechanic has said it's broken and will cost £2000 to repair, please reimburse me

 

a few days later

 

2) I've spoken to my solicitor and unless you pay me I will take you to court

 

then a week or so later

 

3) If you give me £500 I'll forget about it

[plasticvandan]

i have always made a point of over describing,listing every fault (but counteract it with a positive) such as "battery is flat,but new ones are cheap" etc, i usually make it sound worse than it is,and get less than if i was economical with facts,but,i only sell it once,whoever buys it is usually pleased as its better than they thought,they appreciate the honesty,and go home happy

[Vanny]

Who on earth buys a car on eBay and expects it to be faultless? You don't even get that with a new car.

 

When I've bought cars on ebay, I've turned up and taken it without bothering to even look over it. I'm buying a 10+ year old car, if I don't find some faults i'll be too nervous to drive it in case the 'unfound' fault comes and bites me in the arse.

 

I suspect this tool might never have driven a diesel before, No smoke, no poke!

[wuvvum]

I had something similar a few years back with an old Austin - that was a bit more complicated as the buyer hadn't actually seen the car - he bought it over the 'phone and relied on my description, so the "sold as seen" excuse couldn't even be attempted.

 

When the transport company got the car back to his he wasn't happy and sent a stream of emails saying he'd taken legal advice and been told to reject the car (perhaps not very good legal advice - I know you can reject a new car if it's not fit for purpose, but a 60-year-old Austin with no MoT and sold as being in need of work?), and he wanted his money back. Obv. I didn't give him his money back, the threats petered out and the car appeared for sale on a classic car website a short while later, for more than he'd paid me for it and with no mention of the supposed list of faults his "mechanic" had found (or indeed half of the faults that I'd mentioned in my original ad).

 

So I know how the OP is feeling - it's stressful at the time, but there's very little chance that anything will come of it.

[Alexg]

I always get the winning bidder to start the car and drive it down the road before signing a 'Sold as Seen' invoice and paying the cash. I sold a work-mates Polo for him 2 months ago for £800. The guy went round it with a fine tooth comb then test drove the car for a good 10-12 minutes. Later that evening he phoned up using the excuse that he couldn't find the MOT (it was in the book pack)

 

Punter: ...another thing, on the way home I noticed there was a bit of a rumble from the rear and a smell of petrol in the cabin

Me: OK... (silence)

Punter: er...well the smell made me feel quite sick

Me: Oh, but it wasn't doing that on the test drive was it?

Punter: No

Me: I don't know what you want me to say then...

 

End

[Junkman]

Unless the material facts of the car have been grossly misrepresented by the seller, there is no recourse by the buyer if it was a private sale.

EU online purchase buyer protection directives only come into play when it's a B2C business.

 

Also, we must differentiate between differing opinions of a car's condition, and facts.

 

- Someone's "slight scuff" on a bumper might be another's "replacement required" and as such is an opinion.

- A "New clutch fitted 100 miles ago" is a potentially provable fact.

 

"Excessive smoke" is certainly an opinion, that the car passed an emission test during its last MoT is a provable fact.

That you didn't make a profit when you sold the car proves that you aren't a dealer despite your Ebay history.

 

However, advising the buyer to take the car to a garage was a big mistake. By doing this you practically accepted liability.

At the very least you should have restricted this to an emissions test. Maybe you can 'bend' your phrasing into this direction in arrears if the buyer comes back with a four-page-long to-do-list from the garage of his choice.

[SambaS]

Don't listen to Cavette. He is a notorious on-line bully on the run from the cyber police for being mean and nasty to people on the internet.

 

Fuk ov M8

 

I will always stand up for Cavette.... but if he maligns me, I might not stand up to him

 

tooSavvy

 

 

Savvy I love you!