Byron

ABSOLUTE CON ARTISTS!

DO NOT TRUST THESE PEOPLE!! We found ourselves in a really stressful situation; we're a young family with a 9 month old baby, both of our family cars had broken down on us within a couple of weeks. Our Mini was still on finance, we'd had it for less than a year when there was an oil burning issues and the engine eventually seized. Our best option seemed to be to sell the car for salvage, as it was not worth us spending the amount of money that was needed to replace the engine. We called around a few places, we were very honest about the condition of the car and most of them offered us about £2.5K. When we called Shore Cars, we did exactly the same thing, we explained the engine had seized and they still seemed very happy to offer us £2975. We thought, that's great and accepted their offer. They then wanted to make us wait about a month before they could collect it and pay us for the car, so we told them that we needed the money to put towards a new car, so it would need to be sooner than that. It took them a few days to get back to us, but eventually they did and said it would be 2 weeks. My partner said she was only available on Thursday to Sunday to meet with them so they agreed on a Thursday. At the last minute, they changed the collection day to Wednesday, knowing full well that she would have been at work. Unfortunately for them, she happened to be working from home that day and was able to meet the pickup driver at the garage, where the car was being stored. Straight away they changed their price down to £2k (almost a thousand pounds less than what they'd offered us) and said "that's not what's in my notes" and started pointing out all the little dings and dents we'd already previously mentioned. My partner obviously wasn't happy about this and gave the guy an earful, then there was a whole good cop/bad cop routine between the driver and the guy we'd originally spoken to. It seems obvious that they were trying to catch us out by showing up early on a day that we wouldn't be there in person and hope to just give us the news over the phone, they knew we were in a tough, desperate situation and took complete advantage of us. In the end we got them up to £2,250, which we weren't happy about, but felt like we had no choice. Then, to add insult to injury, they driver didn't even have space for the car on his trailer, so they'd obviously planned not to take the car that day. Be very wary of these people, they do not honour their agreements and will use your situation against you. I would stay clear of them and find a more reputable, honest company to deal with.