Graham Hill, Car Finance Expert, Lifts Lid On Car Dealer Crooks

Thursday, 25. March 2010

The OFT has hit out at used car dealers, who they claim are letting customers down and not taking their legal responsibilities seriously. They are saying that more needs to be done to make customers aware of their legal rights and dealers aware of their legal responsibilities. Dealers are avoiding their responsibility to have vehicles checked prior to sale or to fix problems when pointed out by customers. Following a mystery shopper investigation into 1,000 dealers they found that nearly 30% of customers who contacted dealers did not have their problems rectified with an average of £425 spent to rectify the faults which were actually the responsibility of the dealer to fix. Furthermore, the survey reported that illegal mileage tampering is still as rife as ever costing used car buyers around £580 million a year. The OFT has reinstated its recommendation that electronic clocking devices be banned from general sale. They have also recommended that mileages stored by the Vehicle and Operator Service Agencies, when an MOT is carried, out should be made available to authorised vehicle checking agencies. Another problem identified by the OFT is that of dealers trying to avoid their legal responsibilities by pretending to be private sellers. As a result of its investigation the OFT has issued new guidelines for the motor industry and plans to take action against dealers that flout the law. By Graham Hill