Advice needed on purchase from the UK that has fallen through

Beta Ray Bill

Hey Guys

Looking for some advice on this one.

My Father was in the market for a 162 Mercedes E220 Bluetec.
He manged to source one from a Mercedes Main Dealer in Stockport.
He was happy with the car, agreed a price and put down a €1000 deposit over the phone using his credit card.(Tuesday the 30th of May circa 9am)
He then went to the bank to set up a swift transfer, to transfer the remainder to the Dealer.

Later that night he gets an email from the Dealer stating that the Car was actually sold on the Monday (29th of May) and that he has returned the €1000 euro deposit and could he stop the transfer of the remainder of the Balance?

I don't think he'll be able to stop the transfer, he'll have to wait 5 days for it to get there and another 5 for it to get back.

He's lucky he didn't book flights/ferry/accommodation.
He's particularly annoyed about this as
A: It's hassle
B: He's not getting the car
C: He's not gonna have his money for another 2 weeks (Potentially)

Does my Dad have any come back here?

Regards
G.

Del2005

No. What would he be looking for?

Soarer

As long as he doesn't lose anything on the currency exchange, it'll be as good as he gets.

Unless he wants to make a complaint to Mercedes UK about the behaviour of a main dealer.

Or maybe they didn't want to sell to an Irish buyer as it takes from Mercedes Ireland?

Toyotafanboi

Soarer wrote: »

Or maybe they didn't want to sell to an Irish buyer as it takes from Mercedes Ireland?

Weren't one of the premium brands at this recently, BMW or Merc or someone where they wouldn't sell a car to someone from the republic because it undermined sales here.

bazz26

It was Mercedes.

The Jim Corr in me would think that the sales guy didn't originally see the memo when he took the deposit from the OP's father. He or someone else probably only realized it when the sales paperwork was being drawn up. In order to avoid the ensuing aggro between the dealer and OP's father around that, it was probably easier to say that there was a mix up and the car was sold the day before.

Either that or the car was genuinely just sold the day before.

mikeybrennan

Surely the UK main dealers won't be allowed sell any cars here.

bazz26

They don't sell them directly here. They sell them to Irish people who come over to the UK to buy. UK Mercedes dealers have a policy from HQ not to sell to people here so that they are not taking a potential sale from an Irish Mercedes dealer.

DriveSkill

This is interesting, first time I've heard of it.

I'm actually in the UK next week and was planning on calling to a few MB dealers to see if I could get an indication of prices/specs/availability etc - will be interesting to see if they say 'no sale'! I'm not actually buying next week just want to gauge the market as I'm over there anyway.

Thing is last week looking at a main dealer in Ireland all of his used 161 E-Class were UK imports so maybe they want to keep the market all to themselves and charge us an extra €5K+ for the privilege :-) Cars I was looking at last weekend were priced around €49K and in the UK advertised same spec around the ?30K mark, I reckon with exchange rate and VRT you would clear it here for €42-44ish depending.

J.pilkington

Del2005 wrote: »

No. What would he be looking for?

The currency exchange losses, will probably lose 2 or 3% on the transfer there and back if transfer was from a Euro to sterling account?

Is it not fair for the OP to ask the question and not be treated as if he trying to make a whiplash claim?

Beta Ray Bill

DriveSkill wrote: »

This is interesting, first time I've heard of it.

I'm actually in the UK next week and was planning on calling to a few MB dealers to see if I could get an indication of prices/specs/availability etc - will be interesting to see if they say 'no sale'! I'm not actually buying next week just want to gauge the market as I'm over there anyway.

Thing is last week looking at a main dealer in Ireland all of his used 161 E-Class were UK imports so maybe they want to keep the market all to themselves and charge us an extra €5K+ for the privilege :-) Cars I was looking at last weekend were priced around €49K and in the UK advertised same spec around the ?30K mark, I reckon with exchange rate and VRT you would clear it here for €42-44ish depending.

This is correct.
Irish dealers are bringing in Cars from the UK Dealers and lump a few extra grand onto the price.
Hence the reason my Dad went to the UK to buy