Internet Car Leasing Con Costs Customer £2,500

Wednesday, 4. November 2009

A reader of What Car, Carey Trewavas, wrote in to effectively confirm something I have been warning about since the recession started. He arranged to lease a car through a broker, known as Auto Dealer Direct. In August he sent a bankers draft for £2,511 as his deposit payment on the Audi A5 that he ordered. Since then he hasn’t been able to contact Auto Dealer Direct by phone, email or letter. According to What Car the company has been shown as dormant at Companies House since April but was still able to extract this money from Carey via its website as a result of its offers. It would now seem that Carey has lost his deposit and will not be receiving the car he has on order. Had he paid by credit card or made the payment to the leasing company rather than the broker, as we always insist upon, his money would have been safe but he paid a bank draft direct to the broker, one of the most dangerous things you can do. With brokers failing by the day this is becoming much more of an issue, especially when cars are advertising rates that are very cheap. And it doesn’t stop with brokers, dealerships are still failing so be very careful when making payments to dealers when entering into a finance arrangement, make sure that you make the payment by credit card in order to protect yourself, especially if the delivery time is some time in the future. The money you have paid the dealer will not have to form part of the payment for the car until the car arrives with him or it has to be paid to the lender at the time the car is delivered so in either event there is plenty of time for the dealer to go into liquidation with your money sitting in his bank account. A good reason for not parting with any money until the car is due for delivery and another reason for not simply taking the lowest rate. By Graham Hill