Hi,
Have not bought a car in years so a bit rusty with all of this stuff... I put down a deposit on a second-hand car at the weekend at a dealer and on their invoice there is an item entitled 'Admin Fee HPI' for £75. They insist they wont sell the car without me paying for this.
I rang to ask them about this, and they said it was to indemnify me and themselves against any future problems with HPI - or words to that effect.
Is this sharp practise or is it common for dealers to insist on such payments?
Many thanks
Paul
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Not bought a car in years either so no idea if its common practice but I do know thats a lot to pay for a HPI check.
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You can do it yourself for £19.99p. The trade get it for much less.
See: www.hpicheck.com/newfrontend/hpi_check.jsp
Ask yourself what sort of people are you dealing with?
If this is a main dealer, HPI checks are standard and included in the price.
I reckon this firm is a stinker and I would buy elsewhere. If they behave like this on an aspect that is to their advantage (i.e. HPI checks show their cars are good), how will they behave when you take the car back because of problems?
Buy elsewhere from a decent firm.
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If the firm did not advise you with regard to this mandatory payment, then I would take it up with Trading Standards - one of the problems, of course, is your deposit if you cancel the order.
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If they won't sell you the car without the silly HPI fee, I don't see why you can't just cancel and get your depo back since they're introducing something new into the agreement you haven't bargained for or discussed.
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Me thinks that they are trying to "pull" one on you! - chances are they probably insisted on the previous owner paying an HPI check charge on this very vehicle before they would accept it as a trade in (to ensure they weren't getting a ringer), so they already know that this car is (allegedly) clean for you to buy.
"You cant get too much of a good thing" is a well known saying, and if works with a scam, and you can get away with it..............
Billy
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Hang on: Is the *total* price still the same, but they've itenised out the £75 fee, or is it on top of the agreed price?
I've had this kind of thing a couple of times when I've bought cars, and the invoice has random charges on it, but the total is still correct.
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"I've had this kind of thing a couple of times when I've bought cars, and the invoice has random charges on it, but the total is still correct."
They don't pay VAT on things like HPI - I have also had the outstanding tax itemised out for the same reason. Bit sneaky if they have added it on top though!
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Lots of Car Supermarkets have similar things - "sales admin fees" or something along those lines. Car Giant (nee Great Trade Centre) were one of the first.
They can charge them if they wish and, of course, the customer is equally entitled to tell them to get lost and buy elsewhere.
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Tell them thanks very much but you'll do your own HPI check.
You can do a check from the RAC website for £5.00!
I dread to think what dealers pay for an HPI check, which are normally done several at a time. Rather less than £75 I would imagine.
Rip off!
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I had a charge added when I bought a second hand car from a major manufacturer, main dealer for three-month warranty. Obligatory old chap I was told. Not on the windscreen I replied, therefore your responsibility. Do you want a deal?
Guess what?
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Via another motoring organisation: Single online check £14.99 (£25 over the phone)
or check up to 5 different cars online for just £17.99, through Experian.
Edited by nortones2 on 15/07/2008 at 19:14
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On the other hand....
perhaps the dealer itemises this for profit maximising purposes. Does the car at the price agreed tick your boxes? It would have seemed so, so why not go ahead and enjoy the car?
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Agree with BillPayer, quite likely its included in the price but itemised seperately.
If it is an extra, and it was not part of the agreed deal then give him the choice of free check or cancelled deal and deposit returned. Or pay it and enjoy the car with no worries coming back to haunt you.
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Evans Halshaw do this round my way (South East) but they seem to be about the only ones who itemise it up front. However as they usually sell their cars at the lowest price within a 40 mile radius, I don't see it as a great problem. Not sure if this applies when you do it yourself, but their £75 HPI includes a years idemnity cover up to the value of the car if anything is subsequently found to be in error.
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I had a car supermarket try to charge me £350 on top of the car price, for metallic paint, on an eight month old car. I explained that the original purchaser had already paid £350 for metallic paint when the car was new and declined the deal (there were plenty more mondeo TDCis available elsewhere at similar prices). The next day I got a call offering to remove the £350 extra, I could have the car at the original price, so I bought it.
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If Evans Halshaw, or any other dealer, sells you a car you do not need an indemnity - they are the ones who are on the hook if it turns out to be the property of a finance company, not you.
Unless it's included within the price you were expecting, tell them to stick it where the sun don't shine, tell all your friends and Trading Standards too.
If it is included in the price, chances are it's 'value shifting' to minimise (avoid) VAT. The traditional way of doing this was with a 'warranty'. It was once common for some dealers to put all the profit margin into their warranty pot to avoid the VAT on the profit on a used car - C&E got quite upset about it IIRC.
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