Daniel H

Dan

After my experience I implore anyone thinking about buying a vehicle from GP Cars to think very carefully about doing so. The car I was interested in was the only of it's model and specification in the country and therefore I felt the 360 mile round trip to view it was worthwhile. Pam was very helpful in arranging the appointment and was flexible with the time given the distance involved. The car was in the condition advertised and I was given time and space to view it. I was allowed a decent amount of time to test drive it and view the history of the car at my own pace. Due to the condition of the car, sensible price and it's relative rarity I decided to put a deposit down on the vehicle as it was exactly what I was looking for. Pam took the £1,000 (£1,000, for an independent garage!) deposit over the phone the following morning and assured me that the car would be taken off sale and nobody would be allowed to view or test drive it. The car needed to be prepared before it could be sold so we agreed that Pam would call me five days later to give me an update, which I was fine with as we agreed that the best course of action for me would be to arrange finance myself and that would take a few days as well. I reassured GP Cars that if this finance was taking too long I could take out finance through the dealer themselves to secure the car. Pam assured me that they would wait up to two weeks before we had to do that which was plenty of time. TWO days later I was repeatedly called whilst at work and received a voicemail from another salesperson called Alice. When I returned her call I was asked whether I had secured the finance on the car yet as somebody else had viewed and test driven the car since I had paid the deposit (!) and GP Cars wanted to sell it to them instead. I was told that the deposit was only 'valid' for 48 hours and this time period was now up. I told Alice that the finance was being arranged but would not reach my account for a few working days. Alice said she would inform the sales manager and he would call me back. I never received a call from him. As arranged, Pam called me after five days to say that if I didn't have the finance they would be forced to sell the car to somebody else. I confirmed that I had been accepted for the finance and was waiting for the money to be transferred. I asked for it to be confirmed that the car was ready to be collected due to the haste of the garage in selling but received no response. For the next week I received very little communication from GP Cars despite confirming repeatedly to them that the money had been transferred and that I was ready to collect the vehicle. I eventually received a text message saying that the car had been sold to somebody else and inferred that the reason why they had done so was because I was 'not ready' to buy the car. My deposit was returned a few days later. After my deposit had been returned, the car was still advertised as for sale on most known websites including Auto Trader. I am extremely disappointed by the service that I received from GP Cars, it is my opinion that I have been the victim of profiteering once I had placed my deposit and GP Cars realised the rarity of the vehicle and the interest that was shown in the days leading up to and after me viewing and committing to buy it. I was left out of pocket and wasted a considerable amount of time and energy dealing with the business. I highly recommend avoiding dealing with GP Cars unless you absolutely have to.