Lorna N

Threatened with police

I had a terrible experience with Revs last month. I viewed a car and asked if any of the work from the previous MOT had been done and the guy said he had no idea, despite the MOT location being right next door. The car seemed fine regardless, so I bought it, filled up the tank and drove it home. The fuel tank leaked all over the road from the Saturday I picked it up to the Monday morning when Revs collected it to be fixed. The following weekend I returned to pick it up as they would not deliver it back to me nor would they reimburse me for any of the money spent on the wasted fuel. Regardless the car was fixed, and I was happily on my way for about 10 seconds when the check engine light flashed on and off a couple of times and the car juddered on acceleration. I returned to the garage, took it out with the guy so that he could see but the fault did not repeat. Despite this, I had over 30 miles to drive home and did not want the drive the car away without it being properly checked over for an intermittent fault. When I explained this, I was told there was nothing wrong with the car and so they would not be doing anything. I was not convinced the car was safe to drive away so I asked for a refund and was put on the phone with the owner. He reminded me that they had done me a favour by replacing the fuel tank so quickly at an expense of £700 and having half a tank of fuel in the car for me picking it up (most likely the fuel that didn’t leak). He told me that I couldn’t get a refund just because I felt like it and made me out to be lying about the fault. There was no offer of having a look at the car or resolving the issue and instead he threatened to phone the police if I did not drive the car off his property. His tone and attitude throughout the entire conversation was both confrontational and condescending. As a young woman buying a car myself for the first time this was exactly the kind of situation and treatment that I was wary of. I decided I’d rather take my chances with the police than the car, so I returned home without it. I sent an email quoting trading standards and 2 days later received a reply stating that the fault I had described had been confirmed but they would issue me a refund anyway, but no apology whatsoever for the way I had been spoken to. Fortunately, I received the refund the following week, unfortunately, time and tears cannot be refunded and so I would avoid at all costs if you want to spare either