Misrepresentation act of 1967 use against a business?

[colsy73]

Afternoon one and all.

 

Hope you're all doing well?

 

I was hoping that someone might be able to advice me of something just milling around my head.

 

On the 7th of April, I found a car on Gumtree and entered into a conversation with the seller. After a while, my gut instinct was literally going ten to a dozen because the seller said that he wanted to sell the car to me using a third party, gullible as I am, I researched the said third party which was Reedy's Trading Group. I did quite a bit of research on Reedy's Trading Group and found many a website that verified that they were real. Even on their website and the back end they had Gumtree accredited within their SEO.

 

I proceeded with the sale doing a bank transfer for £2779.00, Yes, I know, what a idiot. Turns out that Reedy's never existed, they had cloned all of these websites and created reviews.

 

I got in contact with Gumtree to report the seller after reporting the fraud to Action Fraud for all the good its done. I work as a user experience designer and I wanted to ascertain exactly how Gumtree verify who is real and who isn't? I contacted Robert Hatterley who is the CEO of both Gumtree and Ebay UK and the only reply that I kept on getting was that how Gumtree are a classified add and they have a dedicated Fraud team...

 

This is where I need the advice. 48 hours after the [problem], another company cropped up on Gumtree selling 15 cars, the name of the seller was Reedy Trade. I created a dummy account and these people sent through pretty much identical to how I was [problem]med before. I have reported this to Gumtree, 72 hours later, I checked and the seller is still there.

 

If Gumtree is quoting itself saying that it prides itself on how it tackles Fraud and they have a dedicated team, yet in 48 hours I have managed to prove that the fraudsters are still trading on Gumtree, would I be able to claim damages back under the Misrepresentation Act of 1967? Because they are claiming that they are being vigilant, yet this isn't the case?

 

Thanks in Advance

Cole:|

[steampowered]

No, the Misrepresentation Act only applies against someone you have entered into a contract with.

 

I.e. it would only apply if Gumtree's misrepresentation had caused you to enter into a contract with Gumtree. Not where you entered into a contract with a third party.

 

You would instead need to look at "negligent mistatement". Although that requires you to prove Gumtree owed you a duty of care.