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Mon 19 Feb 2018 18:36

Skoda Octavia - Can a dealership cancel a signed purchase order? - Gina Crowcroft

I ordered a factory order Skoda Octavia from Sparshatts Botley on 9 February 2018 after researching offers on CarWow. I paid a £1,000 deposit. I also queried a cashback amount to which I received a vague answer from the salesman who clearly did not really know what it was. Reviewing the paperwork on arriving home I noticed that the figures did not add up and rang the dealership the following day for an explanation. The manager explained it was to do with the maximum deposit allowed on a PCP and that I had exceeded the amount with the trade in value of my old car therefore the excess would be refunded to me as a "cashback". I also had some questions about the PCP which I was committed to but had not received any paperwork on. I was then asked to leave a review on CarWow which I did as follows:

"Think I drew the short straw of a new salesman - who whilst very friendly was not completely knowledgeable and did not explain all aspects of the final costing properly resulting on additional phone calls. Whole process of ordering a new car took far too long and it would be easy for the dealership to cut this time down significantly by asking the customer to complete forms whilst the salesman is ferrying backwards and forwards to the site manager for agreement on trade in values etc. We were there for more than 2.5 hours. It will be interesting to see how long the factory ordered car takes to arrive and whether the eventual information verbally supplied re the PCP contract is accurate or not. I think they should give a draft copy of the terms and conditions of the PCP contract prior to signing the order for the car in order for the customer to know exactly what they are signing up to." I gave 5 stars for Friendliness and 3 stars for Communication, Knowledge and Ordering Process.

The dealership rang me today (19/2/18) to inform me that they are cancelling the order and refunding my deposit because they didn't like my review. Despite my attempts they were not willing to discuss it with me, they just kept repeating that they are not obliged to sell me anything and no longer wanted to do business with me.

My query is, are they allowed to cancel the order if they have signed a contract?

Not that I would want to do business iwth them anymore but I just want to know where we both stand legally.

Advice appreciated.

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Mon 19 Feb 2018 20:01

Skoda Octavia - Can a dealership cancel a signed purchase order? - RobJP

They are under no obligation to deal with you if they feel there is a 'fundamental breakdown' of trust. They have not left you in a worse financial position.

I find it rather amusing that you are 'whining' about them not wanting to do business with you, yet you are saying you don't want to do business with them !

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Mon 19 Feb 2018 22:26

Skoda Octavia - Can a dealership cancel a signed purchase order? - Gina Crowcroft

They are under no obligation to deal with you if they feel there is a 'fundamental breakdown' of trust. They have not left you in a worse financial position.

I find it rather amusing that you are 'whining' about them not wanting to do business with you, yet you are saying you don't want to do business with them !

It is only as a result of them unilaterally cancelling the order without discussion that I no longer wish to do business with them. I am not whining about them not wanting to do business with me I am asking whether there is a legally binding contract in place as both parties signed an agreement for the supply and purchase of a vehicle which they then cancelled for not other reason than the fact that I left only a slighter hgiher than average review on CarWow.

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Wed 21 Feb 2018 00:36

Skoda Octavia - Can a dealership cancel a signed purchase order? - focussed

"I am asking whether there is a legally binding contract in place as both parties signed an agreement for the supply and purchase of a vehicle which they then cancelled"

My view is that a legally enforcable contract did exist.

There was a offer.

There was an acceptance of that offer.

There was a consideration (ie the deposit) The fact that the company returned it is immaterial.

So- in UK contract law an enforceable contract existed.

Whether or not you would want to pursue the company for anticipatory breach of contract is another matter.

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Mon 19 Feb 2018 20:03

Skoda Octavia - Can a dealership cancel a signed purchase order? - alan1302

Yes, they can do that. They have paid your money back so you are back to where you started.

Very odd though!

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Thu 22 Feb 2018 20:20

Skoda Octavia - Can a dealership cancel a signed purchase order? - SLO76

Had it happen to me a few times over the years. If the gaffer thought a punter would be too much trouble he’d tell us to cancel the deal and show em the door. You got a good deal on a good car then posted a critical review of the firm who’s probably just sold you a motor at zero profit just counting it towards their volume bonus. Then to top it all your whining about them cancelling yet now you tell us you wouldn’t want to deal with them anyway!

Life goes on. Forget it, buy another car and this time be a little more forgiving of a trainee/junior salesman’s mistakes and lack of experience if you get a good deal out of them. Even more so if they are worthy of 5 out of 5 for friendliness. I went through this phase, made plenty of cock-ups with my paperwork but always tried my best to please the customer. Sometimes however, that’s just not possible.

Edited by SLO76 on 22/02/2018 at 20:21

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Thu 22 Feb 2018 20:35

Skoda Octavia - Can a dealership cancel a signed purchase order? - alan1302

Had it happen to me a few times over the years. If the gaffer thought a punter would be too much trouble he’d tell us to cancel the deal and show em the door.

Does sound like that is what they have done - they would be expecting the op would get and the car an then reject it so easier to cancel now before any money is lost.

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Mon 19 Feb 2018 23:12

Skoda Octavia - Can a dealership cancel a signed purchase order? - Avant

The VW Group is probably not the only one where these reviews take on far more importance than they deserve. Anything less than top marks for a dealer gets a huge b******ing from the importer.

Clearly this dealer is more worried about said b******ing than about losing a sale. Since they'll also get similar treatment if they don't meet their sales quotas, their actions seems a little strange. Maybe in matching the Carwow quote they were giving away more of their profit margin than they wanted, so that your deal wasn't of great value to them.

That said, in the interests of maintaining relations with the dealer while the order goes through, I personally wouldn't take part in any review until after delivery of the car.

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Tue 20 Feb 2018 09:05

Skoda Octavia - Can a dealership cancel a signed purchase order? - Bromptonaut

Whether they can cancel or not would be first and foremost about the terms in the sale agreement. It almost certainly provides for either side to withdraw under some circs albeit customer doing so will lose deposit. Even without such a term there's probably case law around 'loss of trust' as mentioned above.

My first guess would be that the salesman made a mistake somewhere and they wern't making money on the deal.

The suggestion about scores in customer surveys is interesting. The local Citroen dealership emailed me after some minor work on our Berlingo. They sked me to complete the survey and said anything less that 80% meant, in terms, trouble from Citroen UK.

Since then I've refused to complete the things.

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Fri 23 Feb 2018 09:35

Skoda Octavia - Can a dealership cancel a signed purchase order? - oldroverboy.

The suggestion about scores in customer surveys is interesting. The local Citroen dealership emailed me after some minor work on our Berlingo. They sked me to complete the survey and said anything less that 80% meant, in terms, trouble from Citroen UK.

Since then I've refused to complete the things.

Our kia dealer is the same. They say they get trouble from Kia uk if less than perfect scores. They know now not to call me for a "score"!

Edited by oldroverboy. on 23/02/2018 at 09:36

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Fri 23 Feb 2018 14:00

Skoda Octavia - Can a dealership cancel a signed purchase order? - Miniman777

The suggestion about scores in customer surveys is interesting. The local Citroen dealership emailed me after some minor work on our Berlingo. They sked me to complete the survey and said anything less that 80% meant, in terms, trouble from Citroen UK.

Since then I've refused to complete the things.

Interesting point and what I do not like is that it creates a false air of competence with that dealer.

Those that do complete them probably pander to the dealership think they'll do them a favour in the future, when in reality what everyone wants is an honest and undistored appraisal. When things go awry at a dealer's with repairs and they are unhelpful, there's a lack of goodwill from the manufacturer, they are not going to get 80% plus surveys unless customers lie.

I tell it how it is for hotels, restaurants whatever. With cars we have a Mini serviced at a branch of Sytner's and genuinely never had an issue, yet my Nissan had air con issues last summer that took months to resolve and did force me to complain to the manufacturer.

Failing to complete the survey also paints a distorted picture, but if you are dissatisfied, that is your only option really.

There's far too many false reviews on the net, and it can be hard to sort the wheat from the chaff.

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Fri 23 Feb 2018 20:27

Skoda Octavia - Can a dealership cancel a signed purchase order? - SLO76

Satisfaction questionnaires often mislead. The bulk of contented punters can’t be bothered filling them in, only the genuinely delighted (I praised my local VW dealer in several, so they keep sending me the things) or outraged customers take the time to respond. But manufacturers do need to find out where they’re losing customers in such a competitive marketplace.

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Tue 27 Feb 2018 14:35

Skoda Octavia - Can a dealership cancel a signed purchase order? - nick62

On the subject of "satisfaction questionaires" I once gave bad feedback to a company who are probably one of the biggest providers of automation equipment in Europe.

They had changed (updated) the internal firmware on a small controller I use regularly. The update made a software program (I had developed about four years ago) stop working! As my systems/software are "validated" for the particular industry in which I work, this was not a small problem for me.

I got in touch with their "technical helpline" to try and get to the bottom of the problem. This is a very slick operation and they always return your enquiry within an hour, but it was obvious that the "trained robots" on the other end of the 'phone were cluless as to my issue, (note this company is very good at NEVER admitting it might have a problem with any of its products).

Despite them being polite, I gave a rubbish review on the automated email I received the following day. Within 24 hours the manager of the department called me to ask as to why I had left such a bad review? After about 30 minutes trying to discuss my problem, it became obvious he was not interested in resolving it, he was only interested in getting me to revise my review!

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