Absolutely mind blown by this

[letsstaylight]

Not sure what to think - just baffled

2 months ago we went to purchase a car from our local VW dealer (6 months old, value about £40k if that's important). Had a car to trade in. They had one in their network which we agreed on, we left a £500 deposit via credit card and did finance paperwork, were promised we'd have the car within a week.

2 weeks pass and no car despite following up on the phone. Finally got a call back from car sales guy, apparently he'd written our phone number down wrong despite the messages (and emails) and the car had been sold. Annoying, but these things happen. He promises to find us an equivalent.

No car is forthcoming and frustrated with their lack of action on customers who are ready to buy we decide to look elsewhere (their loss). Choose a different car brand.

Go to get our deposit back (via phone as we live a little while away from the dealership).

Weirdly they say they can't refund the deposit back to the credit card so ask for bank details to send £500 to (first red flag). We email them these.

Deposit arrives and it's to a totally different account than the one we emailed to them.

Turns out they have refunded to our joint account which was given on the finance application form vs the account which was emailed to them (my husbands account, it was his credit card).

Obviously we have lost nothing here aside from a load of time due to their incompetence and bad customer service - the money was returned - but the act of refunding cash to a bank account after the initial payment was credit card, alongside accessing bank account details specific to the finance agreement feels so wildly wrong.

Not pushing for nor expect to get anything from VW for this but would love any thoughts/advice as to where they've misstepped, I think it's fair to email to be pretty annoyed about it. GDPR? Consumer rights?

Nothing quite as convoluted but I've had money sent to the wrong account despite being explicit where to send it to. It's just sheer laziness - see sn account attached to your name on whatever system and there it's sent. Certainly would be 'mind blown' - it's human error.

I think you are wrong in seeing the deposit as being paid towards the dealership rather than the car finance company. The car finance company are going to use the deposit in order to offset the payment of the car and reduce the loan with them. (This is why a bigger deposit = less loan). If the deposit had already been transferred to the finance company then they will be the ones issuing the refund.

This almost certainly breaks money laundering regulations.

We were remortgaging recently and the paperwork all came back with the account for the dd completed with account details from 40 years ago. It was DH's account from when he was a student and had been completely forgotten about. Nobody was able to tell us how the mortgage company had found it. Very strange.

My objective isn't to get anyone in trouble

If this happened in my company someone's job would be on the line

it's unlawful per gdpr but sure! No big deal

right so let’s not pretend your mind isn’t blown and admit you’d like a few quid shall we?

It’s pretty simple stuff no?

1. you call head office or dealership manager.
2. You Explain what happened with payments and the gdpr breech
3. you bore them with the “inconvenience” having the car sold out from under you and ask what kind of goodwill gesture they would like to offer you.

if you aren’t chasing cash file a gdpr breech.

like I said, pretty simple…

On the credit card use, business pay 2% is it ? of a transaction cost to the credit card provider.

I wonder if they have to pay again on a refund payment?

As to paying a different account , I think they realised they’d lost the information you gave them and didn’t want to compound their uselessness by contacting you again.

Thats not true. I've just received an £800 refund which went straight back into my credit card balance, no need to send details of my current account

Yes, for once on here it is an issue with accessing data, zero excuse when you even provided them with the other account details. It does all seem a bit strange, they shouldn't have had any issue returning the deposit so stalling and then the excuses and wrong account is bizarre. I'd write a negative review on Google or their website so people know its probably going to be a PIA if they encounter any issues.

As OP should, there's no excuse for a car dealership to fuck all several times.

I’d be really cross that the car I had reserved didn’t materialise. Did it really exist?
I’d not use them again and warn friends not to too if they were considering using them.
I’d be mildly peeved about the banking muddle and unimpressed at their total lack of sound administrative processes, but happy I got my refund.
Nothing mind blowing though and I wouldn’t take any action other than avoid in future.

I'd be more annoyed about the car being sold from under you than the financial refund tbh .

I'm inclined to agree with the OP that this actually reflects a very casual attitude to processes and procedures and financial transactions within this dealership. Maybe in this case "no harm done" (deposit eventually refunded to the correct people, ignoring the original mess up), but this is exactly the kind of thing that can lead to severe problems. I won't bore you with the details but once for my parents, someone assuming that any account was suitable, making a minor mistake and trying to fix it up rather than owning the problem, led to a major fraud investigation before it was worked out what had happened.

This would rile me. I'm very protective about my personal details. I'd also be thinking 'money laundering'. I'm not sure I'd let this go.

When giving a refund for something originally paid for by card, you are supposed to refund the money to that same card.

At least you got your money back.

Let’s hope your perfect then.

They don't sound very efficient but you got your money back without much of a problem, so what is the problem?