Put a £500 deposit down on a car, dealership has sold it to soemone else help???

[Mumsieof2]

Need advice
We put a £500 deposit on a used car last Saturday on credit card via phone, this is reputable large dealership. The salesman agreed a price for my part exchange and knew that I was remortgaging as the interest rate is lower. He agreed to discount the car by £500 too. He sent me a confirmation of the order via email basically stating part exchange price plus outstanding balance plus all the details of the car that I was buying ie equipment, data about the car etc...
Whilst on the phone on the Saturday giving him deposit via credit card. He asked if I could get the ball rolling asap with getting the finance done, retaining the private plates I have on the part exchange. Which I duly did.
On the Monday the mortgage company agreed to pay £14k into my bank account in 3-5 working day. I had paid £80 in retaining my private plates, informed thd insurance company the change of plates. Also phoned the dealership to speak to the car salesman the same day to inform him that i had started the process everything was done, finance will be in place. However he was too busy to speak to me the receptionist told me to leave number and he will ring me back. I emailed him with what I had been upto, to keep him update anyway.
He did ring back the following day Tuesday, to give the horrific news that the car had been sold by another dealership within the group. Someone else had put a deposit 5 hrs before me. So they had the legal rights to the car. So within the weekend 2 days when deal was done the car was sold to someone else..?? I am extremely upset, as I have spent past 10 months searching for the right car in the right colour, with those specification and mileage. I am also in financial dire straits as the car was to be financed through my business Iam self employed. However, I still have my old car on finance that was to be part exchanged at£200 per month. The remortgage payment for the new car is £330 so in total £530. Iam unable to draw £330 from business to cover the loan for the car as I don't have it, as Iam still left with the old car I was suppose to have part exchanged. So we will have to finance the additional borrowing from own savings. The dealership's mistake has put us in a financial nightmare. Please can someone advise what are my rights. I know I can't expect them to get me the back the car I put deposit on. I just would like a car that was like the one I was going to buy at the same price. Am I in my right to ask them to find me one since it was their bodge up. At the same price. I've also wasted £80 putting my private plates on retention thinking it would be transferred to new car. The salesman told me to do it too to speed things on. Should I write a letter of complaint to the dealership and escalate it. I'm rather in a crap position.

Thanks to anyone who have some advice. Sorry for long post.

reputable dealership....now there's an oxymoron for you, even with the big names.

what have you lost? £500 certainly, and that needs to come back immediately. The private plates can be transferred to a different car so no real loss there. You've wasted time, and so can ask for compo for that, and if you still want to deal with these loons then you can certainly ask them to try to find you a similar car as presumably they sell the make you want. They can't magic one up if it doesn't exist; may I suggest compromising on colour?

Write a letter of complaint because this is a big cock-up, and ask also for compensation for wasted time at your normal business rates. But to take out a bigger mortgage for a car, when you are in such tight financial straits that you can't even find an extra £300- odd; that is a disastrous financial decision and is not the dealership's problem.

Thanks special we took the loan from mortgage as the interest for us is 1.5% tracker rate rather than dealership 4%, so approx £350 interest over 40months as that's the term left on our mortgage, we didn't want to increase the length of years. Dealership was£2500 interest for 5 year term. It made financial sense to us to do it this way.
In normal circumstances we would have traded the car which is for business use, the business pays for car loan. But with this deal gone down the pan. £330 is having to be forked out by us, until we find another car to which will then be paid from the business again and not us. I'm just mad that I trusted them, they seemed keen on getting the deal done asap and I stupidly went ahead got the ball rolling and now, just feel like going in a circle and unable to find a similar car for the price they offered as similar vehicles are asking £1.5k more. I'm under pressure to find a car, which really I would have preferred to be able to take my time on finding the right one rather than rushed job and making compromises on colour and spec. Going to write a letter of complaint see where it gets me.

I had a similar thing happen and they sold me a car with better spec than the one I lost out on, but for the same price, so I got more car for my money IYSWIM.

You do sound a bit over-stressed about it all though, and unless there's a compelling reason to have a specific colour I think you are being a bit picky. You won't get compensation for wasted time but if it's a large dealership they should be able to find you a decent car pretty quickly.

People cock up, or I suspect in reality your sales guy has been shafted by his colleague. Don't take it personally.

choughed I will be very happy if they could get me a car before repayments start. They have now said they will try their best to get me a similar model and will ask the brand head office for help in sourcing us a car, as they will have more stock availability before going to the dealership groups. At least in someway I feel less burden searching for the car with all the specs I really wanted. It's been very frustrating as the model seems to be a popular PCP lease type company car, so are predominantly diesel engines. I want a petrol one as I don't do much motorway driving, the car that I had a holding deposit was it also had park assist which I really wanted, I'm crap at parking not many of the models have this expensive optional extra so is quite rare plus also had leather seats, sunroof, sat nav also all optional extras that weren't standard on the model. At the end of the day I don't want to get as much out of them because of there mistake. Just a car with specs I wanted, probably will compromise on colour.