I want to take an Audi Garage to court - Advice please!

[homerjunior]

Hey follow RS fans,

This is my first post but been hanging round the forum for a little bit just absorbing what is going on!

I was wondering if anyone can help out with some advice. I want to take a certain Audi Garage to court for basically taking money under false pretenses and not giving it back (I don't want to give too much information out till we have spoken to a lawyer).

I was wondering had any experience or could recommend a good lawyer. It is only for £1000 but it is being wrongfully held by Audi and they keep changing their story.

Spoken to both Audi Customer services and the garage directly with no resolution after three weeks and I am not prepared to do the softly softly approach anymore.

Don't worry, I will name and shame the dealership once this is all done as no Audi business should be taken there in my opinion.

Sorry to start off with such a miserable thread, hopefully my other ones will be a lot more pleasant!

[RSKiwi]

Having been in a situation quite different to you and not involving money but still requiring serious action by Audi all I can say is get everything in writing. Email them and get them to write down all the info especially if you believe they are changing their tune. Try and do this even if it means bugging CS all over again and the branch manager.

In my case (which I will write about soon but Audi are definitely stepping up at the moment) I had email chains that would have been very embarrassing had the media got hold of them.

Worth their weight in gold.

No doubt there are lawyers on here who can advise much better than me though!

[Steve_C]

+1 to getting everything in writing. Depending on what your problem is exactly you could try trading standards and if you paid the £1k on credit card you can take action via the card company. Can you give us any more details of the situation?

[homerjunior]

so basically the crux of the matter was that we were trading in our old TT and the dealership group has a RS4 at another dealership but they had to move it over so that we could view it. Basically they took £1k for a deposit to make sure no one bought the car. We agreed but at the same time made sure that if we decided we didn't like the car we could walk away and get the money back in full. the money was taken over the phone as we didn't agree to this straight away when the sales guy was giving his pitch.

We went back two weeks later and deciding the car wasn't for us asked for our money back. the senior sales guy came out and asked if there was anything we could do to which we said no, it wasn't the car for us. the senior manager then told the money would be sorted through their accoutns team on Monday as they weren't in the office.

Two weeks later and no money so after chasing both the dealership and Slough we heard a variety of stories including that they would not refund the money as this was for transportation cost (never agreed or signed off by us) to them wanting to take £250 for a previous repair they did gratis.

After being patient and dealing with some of the most appalling customer service I have ever experienced I refuse to lie down. I have given them all the opportunity possible and I want to now take this further. These sharks make money by the fact people are lazy and it will not do in my opinion.

We have a copy of all the emails we sent to them and customer services but they have no responded to anything except verbally.

[Steve_C]

did you pay the £1k with a credit card?

[homerjunior]

I'll have to check as my fiance paid for it............

[HYFR]

you need to go higher than the Sales Manager, have you spoken with the Dealer Principal ?
Problem is Slough are Sytner Group, which generally means the bigger the org. the less they care
Try to badger Audi UK CS, they cant allow their franchises to do this

keep us informed in this thread, if you dont get anywhere i'll see if I can help

[Golfather]

Without doubt, Slough are the worst dealership in the country.
They rip you off, whilst blatantly lieing through their teeth at every step.

Wish you the very best of luck in teaching them a lesson...

[homerjunior]

Thanks for all the kind responses!

We used debit card unfortunately.........

I will have a look at the trading standards website and see what our options are.

I was thinking about writing to Audi headquarters in Germany too to let them know of the damage to the brand reputation. Has anyone had any success with that?

[Steve_C]

You could also try issuing a summons for the small claims court - this usually triggers some action.

Good luck with it all and let us know how things progress.

[HYFR]

Don't write to Audi in Germany

Write to Audi UK

[homerjunior]

Does anyone have the address of Audi UK? I read that maybe I should send it to the VW Group in Milton Keynes......

[HYFR]

Correct

[Fatneck73]

Credit or Debit card doesn't matter...what you need is the protection that comes with a Visa or Mastercard and both offer Credit & Debit cards. You'll find all the T&C's are very similar and you probably have just as much cover with a Visa/Mastercard debit card as you do with a credit card...it's just not that widely know.

Remember the great old Barclaycard adverts where Rowan Atkinson sucked the venom out of a snake bite making it all look like having a Barclaycard gave you loads of wonderful extra benefits...well unless I'm mistaken, that all had nothing to do it being a Barclaycard issued card, all the perks they were standard and came with Visa/Mastercard (so we all have them anyway)...but Barclaycard deserve the credit for advertising it as if it was only with their cards. Anyway, I'd speak to your bank (assuming the debit card is Visa / Mastercard) as you may well be protected - sale of goods act, mis-sold act, fraudualent transaction etc. etc. I'd be surprised if, if pitched right, they aren't able to help you out.

[homerjunior]

Nice, that is awesome advice. I'll contact them tomorrow. Cheers.