Dear Honest John,

I’m writing on behalf of a couple who have recently purchased a 2008 Ford Mondeo 1999cc. Having spent the weekend with them I am now clued up on the circumstances and feel I have enough information to bring this matter to your attention.

The initial sale happened on the 14 th of May 2015 and the car was purchased from ‘we sell car finance ltd’ using car finance supplied by ‘credit4cars’. A deposit of £400 was paid and they assured that the car would be ready for collection the following day as it required an MOT. 6 days later having travelled an hour every day to the garage to collect it following repeated promises of it being ready for collection, it was finally collected on Wednesday the 20 th of May. It was taken on a long journey to Corby. The exhaust was emitting blue smoke and having returned from the trip attempts to restart the car failed and it would not fire up. Surely the blue smoke begs the question how did it pass an MOT on emissions??? Which prompts a further question, was the MOT issued illegally?

The car was obviously not used anymore due to the problems. My friend contacted we sell car finance immediately to report the issues and they promised to fix the car and that as it was not drivable they would collect it on Saturday 23 rd to be repaired. They did not honour this promise and despite making repeated phone calls to various numbers provided, they proved uncontactable and when one did finally manage to get through to someone the response was the same ‘we want to fix it….we’ll get back to you soon’ ‘we will fix it for you no problem’ ‘everything will be sorted’ etc etc. Eventually they registered the number and either ignored the calls or planned their reponse. It became predictable and very concerning.

Understandably as he was still within the 14 day cooling off period my friend decided he wanted out at this point and contacted the finance company credit4cars to cancel the agreement. No response and so he left a message and sent an email to both them and the ‘we sell car finance company’.

This is the point at which I arrived for the weekend. Having studied the documentation from the purchase agreement it was immediately clear that this was a sales scheme set up to sting people. The first observation was that the APR rate was 62%! Total purchase price was approximately £5,500 and full repayment amount was over £10,500 (34 payments of £278/month) I then noticed another section of the agreement which mentioned a device called a ‘starter interrupt device’ which was fitted at an additional cost of £349. I have no idea whether these are even legal in the UK but some quick research suggested they are being used in the US.

I gave the car a once over whilst visiting and soon discovered the oil level was not showing on the dipstick and the temp gauge rose to 90degrees after 5mins of the engine running at idle! Not good. The air-con does not work either and the remote key has to be used manually to unlock the car even with a new battery. Following my inspection of the vehicle I called ‘we sell car finance’ myself to discuss the matter. I was amicable with the woman who answered and insisted that I speak with the manager as the situation was unacceptable. I found the manager intimidating and she would not allow me to explain the situation to her, instead she talked over me and eventually hung up the phone. They were uncontactable for the rest of the afternoon until closing time at 4pm. There are similar stories online about both ‘we sell car finance’ and ‘credit4cars’ and I just hope something can be done to prevent them treating anymore customers in this way and indeed exploiting people who are unfamiliar with how cars & money work.

Essentially we feel the car is definitely not fit for purpose and everything about the deal stinks. As far as I understand my friend is still entitled to withdraw from the contract, get a full refund and walk away up to and including Thursday 28th May. He plans to report this matter in person to the Citizens Advice Bureau and deliver the car back to the ‘we sell car finance’ site in Oldham using a friends trailer tomorrow (Tuesday 26 th ). Obviously time is of the essence and I want to try and help them to get out of this horrible situation ASAP. Any help and advice all you lovely people out there may be able to offer us would be much appreciated!...

Thanks in advance!! Olly

Edited by Avant on 25/05/2015 at 23:22