Hi Plumber

 

Thanks for that useful bit of information,  to be honest amongst all the hassle we have been having it never entered my head to go straight to the top.  My partner had a phone conversation with the customer service manager dealing with our case last week and asked to speak with the head of customer services but we we were told we could not go any higher than the person we are dealing with !!! 

 

Interestingly when we mentioned rejecting the car we were told we had to do it via the dealer we bought it from not with skoda directly as they did not sell the car to us !!! there is alot of passing the buck going off !!

 

will certainly put all the information together and fire an email off to alasdair.

 

thanks again 

Sorry to hear of your problems.

 

SkodaUK are correct. Under Consumer Law only the original seller can be held liable for an item sold and therefore it follows that rejection can only be with them. I presume you have kept a full record of all conversations and details with the old dealer. Although they may no longer be a Skoda agent (if I understand you correctly) it may also be worth talking to the relevant Trading Standards Dept.

 

Tim's suggestion of going to the top is a very good idea.

If I understood you correctly your original dealer is no longer in business? In this case it would be very difficult to reject the car through them!

I agree with LLanigraham, involve Trading Standards, it sounds like something they would follow up.

 

Fred 

HI all

The dealer we bought it from is still in business, its all a bit confusing.

We lease the car on a personal contract hire. we thought when we bought the car we were dealing with Skoda Direct as the finance was supplied by skoda and the name on all the leasing documents is skoda uk leasing. Turns out its actually a dealer in birmingham that uses that name to give the appearance your buying directly from skoda. The dealer who now is no longer trading or has been purchased by another group is in barnstaple and they are the garage who fixed or should i say ruined my car.

The reason it has got so messy is, there are way too many people involved we have a complaints manager at skoda, who can only be contacted on a generic email address ie customer [email protected] as he wont give me a direct email or on an 0845 number which 9 times out of 10 when you call he isnt there and you have to wait 2 days to get a call back.

so all in all whoever you speak too its just the same old thing pass the buck make excuses but never actually resolve any of our issues.

We of course have taken legal advice and spoken with the financial ombudsman as our agreement is regulated by them but they told us its a long and drawn out process and im annoyed as i have to maintain the monthly payments for a car that has barely been useable in the last 6 months.

Surely SUK would want to get involved, on the basis that you thought you were dealing with them, whereas there seems to have been 'smoke & mirrors' over who was actually providing the finance.

Don't waste any more time with Customer Services, it's an outsourced call centre working from scripts. Allegedly they have been known to 'Google' for answers!

As others have suggested, take the direct route to the MD. there's a back office there staffed by people than can and will help!

Good luck - I'm sure we all share your pain!

Thanks robin

I appreciate all the advice everyone is giving me. I feel like i have turned into a professional complainer, but a matter as trivial as this may seem to some has all but consumed us. We rely heavily on our car as we live in a very rural area with no public transport or amenities close by. The car has failed us in every respect. All we wanted was our car to be fixed with minimal fuss and Skoda have managed to turn it into a drawn out sage giving us six months of total grief. Every time there is an issue we have to spend days getting it into a garage and demanding a courtesy car and countless times we have been left with no vehicle at all and stranded in our own home.

We just want to see a satisfactory conclusion all round and quickly !! so today i write to the MD

I think I'd get to SUK Head Office and sit it out in reception until someone agreed to see me