Anonymous

WARNING ABOUT GUESTS CARS

2016: We purchased a Chevrolet Captiva and traded in a Vauxhall Zafira. Very nice & friendly at point of sale - even completing our request of snagging work on the Captiva without charge. Outstanding finance on the Zafira was settled into a new loan for the Captiva. I was assured that the Chevy was "HPI clear" but told that they needed to send off all of the paperwork to the finance company for their records - so signed it all off and did the deal. I took delivery but 4 weeks later, found that the Zafira finance was not settled and I needed to pay further instalments! No response to calls until I finally tracked down who told me that he now owned the Zafira and had sent "a cheque" to the Zafira finance company (what sort of car dealership used cheques in 2016?!). 2 weeks of further calls finally resulted in sending me a personal cheque to settle the old Zafira finance myself - but he'd now sold the Zafira (even with my outstanding finance on it... how?.. .well, stick with me, because it gets worse....) 2018: The Chevy had been fine, but 2 years later I needed a bigger car and so went to trade it in with a main dealer who valued the Chevy and then advised that it was a Cat C write-off - he then sent me a copy of the HPI check to confirm this. I contacted the finance company - and they advised that they weren't aware of the Chevy being Cat C - and wouldn't have loaned against the car, if they had known. I now have a car that is worth £4000 less than my outstanding finance and a national car finance company who are as angry as I am - as both of us have been misrepresented, Needless to say, this is now in the hands of the Car Finance's legal team. (I've not left my name due to the ongoing legal situation)