And then you wonder why people dont update threads?

Ok, spoken to Action Fraud, fortunate that the Met Police have chosen now to crack down on Fraud really isn't it We have a crime number and they are investigating, they are especially thrilled at the text where he says he's a trader, as will be HMRC who action fraud also work with. No more correspondence has been sent, nor will be sent now until the LBA next week which will be sent recorded to the seller only. LBA will not include our evidence, just the basic facts that we are taking him to court for misrepresentation of the vehicle. Son has spoken to his insurance and spoke to a wonderful lady who, on hearing the story, waived the £40 cancellation fee for him. When we need to take it back either me or his Dad will insure it for him. So, lets bring it on then! Will keep this updated.

LMAO, it will be those topless cars Sadly doesnt reveal anything, but thank you.

I have a few phone numbers for them now, all of which have been passed to Autotrader but until TS contact them to obtain the info I cant do much, google searches dont come up with much and AT ads dont stay online for long to search. I'm quite close to finding out which garage Tom works for, might be worth paying it a visit. Wonder if his boss knows he's selling dodgy motors on the side that have been bodged in his garage?

Hi Ganymede (hows titan btw? ) I can't prove it sadly, I can prove he deliberately disguised the registration number for the second autotrader ad, which Autotrader will confirm is standard practice for a trader. TS are obtaining full records from AT for me. TS advised me that the advert was misdescription, though they probably mean misrepresented: I guess at this stage I just want to give the guy a scare and let him know that we are on to him in the hope that we dont have to go to court. Perhaps best left with the letter for now then, I just wanted to put the additional evidence that we didnt include in last nights letter to him really. Would you send a copy of everything to 'Tom' as well?

Additionally, as I now believe 'Tom' and Seller are a partnership is it worth copying Tom in on all correspondence as it is Tom's name on the V5?

I'm planning on sending this, hand delivered this evening. Thoughts?

My husband has taken to calling me Miss Marple lol. I've had a constructive day to say the least.... Telephoned Autotrader who run the advertisement. It seems when cars are advertised via their site they log the registration numbers, helpfully they emailed me a copy of the advertisement for the registration number of my sons car: But wait I hear you say! That ad is different. Correct, it is, so I called Autotrader back who tell me that the second advertisement, the one on which basis we purchased the car, was listed fraudulently using an incorrect registration number for the car, and incorrect enough for it not to be a key press error. Autotrader tell me this is how Traders masquerading as private sellers often operate... Unfortunately for my [EDIT] he used a photo of my sons car showing clearly the correct registration number. I then decided to pay 'Tom', the 'lady' owner a visit. Tom wasn't in, but I did speak to his Mother who knew nothing of this car she claimed. Tom, she tells me is a mechanic (lightbulb moment!) and is away at the moment. I tell her that Tom needs to contact me as this is now fraud unfortunately and as his name is on the log book he's in just as deep as the seller. Mother then strangely says "Well, you buy cars sold as seen dont you?". I point out that 'sold as seen' cannot override my rights and in this case its misdescription. I show her the evidence. She looks worried. I arrive home to several emails from a good friend of mine who weirdly knows the seller, he has found dozens of Facebook photographs of Seller and Tom together in all sorts of social situations. Tom and seller are good friends it seems, looks like they have a little bit of dodgy trading going on doesn't it? The final, wonderful bit of icing on the cake was a text message seller sent this morning stating: So, big round of applause to the best comedy double act Stone, Staffordshire has to offer. The evidence of fraud has mounted to such an extent that the local Police are nipping in later for a chat about it. In the meantime I am hand delivering a letter to the seller again tonight containing all extra evidence gleaned today. Ball is in his court now, unless he wants to avoid a very messy court case and possible prosecution he needs to be refunding £1650 asap.

Thank you, the insurance advice is something I hadn't considered. The car is garaged and is not being used now it has been rejected. My son did take legal cover on his insurance so perhaps thats something we could use? At this stage we would be happy with a full refund, but as I dont think it will be forthcoming I want to find out what we can and can't claim back. Kicking ourselves really as we should have seen this. Text messages from the seller are further incriminating and he claims to have owned the car for 7 months in them, yet this cannot possibly be correct. The V5 arrived in the post moments ago and "now owned by a lady owner" is completely untrue as the previous keeper is named 'Tom'. It also lists 4 previous keepers not the 2 he claims in the ad. Another interesting point is the previous keeper 'Tom' is not the 'David' we purchased the car from and is a completely different address. I am attempting to track down Tom and may pay him a visit tonight as he is reasonably local to me to find out why he sold the car and who to. I have a feeling the lack of keeper change to the seller possibly indicates he is a trader.... With the benefit of hindsight there were many red flags we should have noted, believe me we are kicking ourselves thoroughly now. Will keep you informed. Thanks

Hi, The cost involved is £1650 at present, the seller lives with his parents so we hoped that they would bail him out if it came to it (big house,reasonably affluent area etc). I don't think the guy is a trader, I've been digging and can't find any evidence yet. He was unemployed for a few months and we believe he probably purchased the car cheaply to fix and make a few quid on, I think he's fairly green around the ears from the wording of his ad as I'd be surprised if a trader would use the statement "In the 8 Months I have owned it not a single thing has gone wrong" We know he is working now and was bragging about his £300 a week joinery job so hopefully not all will be lost if we win. I'd had this conversation with my husband last night and we came to the conclusion it was our only option to take him to court, to fix would be £700 - £800 and a new engine which son cannot afford, and in present condition the car is scrap value. I'm willing to throw £200 at it in the hope we do get somewhere. I was going to ask if he didn't pay could we employ a bailiff to seize goods? He has a reasonably new van on the drive he purchased for work. I'm glad your case worked out well! Can I ask how long it took to resolve?

As I am certain that this seller will not hold his hands up and admit to any of this I am now trying to prepare papers for court, I apologise for writing all this down in one shot but there are things I wanted to know while they are fresh in my head. On purchasing the car we knew it needed 2 new front tyres so son purchased these, along with tracking at a cost of £100. Can this be claimed back as the work was done before the major problems became apparent? Insurance is still running on the vehicle, and at £200 a month is expensive. Can this be reclaimed along with the final cost of cancelling the insurance should we win and the car be returned? Can we claim storage charge for the vehicle and if so at what cost per week? Can we reclaim the court fees of £100? Can we reclaim the cost of the second vehicle inspection we need to have completed? We were happy to just get back the £1650 initially and write off the additional costs, however, I want to start preparations now for filing court papers so if I know what I am allowed to claim and what I'm not I can sort out some costings etc. Thank you

This is the link to the album showing a few photos we have of sealant, evidence of recent tool scratches around the head, sealant around the head, clean bolts where the head meets the engine, new gaskets etc http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y111/pulliptears/Poloevidence/?albumview=slideshow Mechanic will give us a written testimony that the above works will have taken place within the last 4-6 weeks, evident from the lack of grease or oil coving the works. As the car has covered less than 150 miles since purchase he is willing to state that these problems were not as a result of fair wear and tear and were there when purchased which negates the statement "fantastic runner" and means that the statement "In the 8 Months I have owned it not a single thing has gone wrong" cannot possibly be truthful.

This may be long, I'll try and keep it as concise as possible. Ten days ago my son purchased a car on the basis of this advertisement: Within days it had lost 2 litres of oil despite covering less than 50 miles. We booked it into a local garage who confirmed that the head had been taken off the engine in an attempt to mask head gasket problems and that the car had recently been filled with sealant in various places to try and mask valve seal issues. The garage are willing to stand up in court and testify to this, we are also planning on gaining a separate independent report which will back up the first one. Having spoken to the seller his attitude is "Tough, cars blow up, see you in court", unfortunately for him I believe this is where he will come unstuck as it would seem that 90% of the advertisement I quoted above is a fairy tale. This is a copy of the letter we sent yesterday giving him 7 days, in 7 days time we plan on sending an LBA via recorded. I hped someone could perhaps help me with the wording of that? We do have a piece of paper signed 'sold as seen', however, Trading Standards advises me that this does not restrict my rights regarding misdesription, and this advert is full of misdescription. I'm awaiting a phone call today from a car dealer who sold this car in December 2011, he is willing to provide me with a copy of the invoice which proves the seller has not owned this car for 8 months. Seller claims that the work must have been done before he purchased the car, trader is also willing to put pen to paper and confirm that the engine was not full of sealant when he sold it. I have some excellent photos to illustrate which I will upload today. Many thanks for any help you can give us! This is my sons first car, he's devastated and now the car is sat in the garage unused while son is having to pay insurance on it Best wishes Jane

Thank you Gemspan, we really do owe them a lot. The system isn't perfect, and the abuse of it is horrendous. I forgot to add the number of youngish men with Staffys that would turn up to meet elderly parents and claim the dog was theirs. Some days I really wanted to say something to people as they shouted at the reception staff demanding their animal be treated and offering pocket change for it. Things do need to change, long term unemployed should not be allowed to go out and buy expensive pedigree animals and expect someone else to treat them. We had a Christmas Card from our old PDSA vet, we had sent her a card with a donation just to say thanks and update her as to how the Terror was doing. The vets there are often on rotation from other practices and we were exceptionally fortunate that the one we saw had come from a veterinary hospital specialising in weird and wonderful animal diseases. I'm in no doubt that a regular vet would have failed to diagnose our boy because his condition is so incredibly rare. Anyway, I could go on all day about the rights and wrongs of the system, but I'll be forever in their debt.

From my POV... My other half has always worked, I've stayed at home and raised our kids and gained a degree at the same time. Just as I finished Uni he was made redundant. He's never been out of work since the day he left school and his redundancy came from a job he had been in for 14 years. It was one heck of a shock. Fortunately we had mortgage protection in place so the major worries were dealt with. We have 2 dogs, an ageing 11 year old Westie and a rather energetic 9 year old Scottish Terror, neither of which were practical to insure at their ages, even if they had been insured at that point all non essential expenditure needed to stop. Within weeks of him losing his job it became apparent our Scottie was very very sick. The PDSA were amazing, we seemed to be there 2 or 3 times a week and each time would try and donate at least £20. Without going into the weeks of tests and treatments and culminating operation I will tell you that they saved his life. He had a very serious liver condition and though his prognosis is still very guarded the dog we were warned wouldn't last a week back in August 2011 is currently sat here next to me happily snoring. My observations from those few weeks had me fuming. I lost count of the number of people who would walk in showing off Shih Tzu Pups, Bull dog pups, boxer pups etc. Each time I'd question why on earth would you buy an animal knowing full well you cannot afford to offer it basic medical care without assistance? The amount of people who would come to the counter demanding treatment as if it were a right rather than a privilege and the amount of people who would throw a few coppers on the counter then head outside into new cars. Receptionists could range from the lovely to the downright patronising. Some of them really did look down on you and make you feel small. The Pedigree issue is tricky though, I did consider what we would do should our other dog become sick, we couldn't have afforded his treatment yet here we were using the PDSA for the first time ever under genuine circumstances, yet they could in theory let us down because we had 2 pedigree dogs who had been loved and looked after all their lives until our life was turned upside down. I do think the blanket policy of 'only 1 pedigree dog' needs to have some leeway, perhaps looking at each case individually rather than excluding people in genuine need. Anyway, we had a happy ending, other half found a new job, our little Scottish Terror is still reasonably well and we try and donate to the PDSA whenever we can in an attempt to pay back the enormous amount we owe them.

Im afraid Im in agreement with Gadgetgirl here. I firmly believe that compensation should be awarded to put the injured party back in the financial position they would have been in if they did not have the accident i.e. prescription costs, time off work etc. Anything other to me is profiteering. Following correct legal procedure and not reporting the accident shouldn't mean that someone else is rewarded for your failures.

Apple are one of those manufacturers that go above and beyond service usually. There are a few manufacturers whom its better to go directly to and Apple are one. Book an appointment with Apple's Genius Bar online. They will have you fixed a heck of a lot quicker than Argos ever could.

they seem to have a problem with Holiday Company threads...wonder what line of work they are in?

:D I think its ridiculous that JoLo has gone to the trouble of registering just to have a moan about something thats 2 years old

I have been expecting parcel for almost a week now, due to be delivered by DHL. Four days running now my parcel has failed to arrive due to "adverse weather". Ok, there is snow throughout the UK but believe me my street is clear, has been all week and I have even sighted a DHL van in the street! Sounds like a wonderful excuse to me. My parcel is again out for delivery today and I'm afraid if DHL don't deliver they can take it back to the supplier. The parcel is bags of dog food, I will run out tonight so if it does not arrive I'll have to go out and buy more. Useless.

I imagine your postie thought he was doing you a favour in saving you a trip down to the sorting office. Personally I think complaining about him is more than a little unfair as he was trying to save you time. If you feel that strongly about it speak to the postman himself.

Just putting a positive POV forward, I had few problems with Zyban other than dreams, which I found I had with patches as well. Worked for me

My friends car was broken into over the Christmas holidays. These were incredibly stupid thieves because they took a few invaluable bits and pieces and left her £150 brand new cream Ugg boots in the passenger footwell. Anyway, relieved at the fact she still had her Uggs she called the police who amazingly sent out SOCO. He relief was short lived however when SOCO dusted the entire interior of the car coating said brand new Ugg boots in a thick black powder that wont come off

wouldnt have been a Fiat Punto would it?

Didnt happen to try and use the discount codes on all 3 orders did you?