On Saturday I agreed to buy an ex demo car from an Audi dealer under a PCP agreement which required me to pay a £3,000 downpayment (as I understood it) and then instalments over the next 48 months. This, I understood, incorporated the addition of parking sensors, road tax and a gap insurance which I had elected for.

I left a £1000 deposit with the dealer and signed a used car order form.

When I got home and read through the paperwork more thoroughly, I was not happy with the figures that indicated that I was actually putting down a £4000 down payment, which incuded the £1000 deposit that I had paid on Saturday.

I went back to the dealer the next day, less that 24 hours later to cancel my order, as I realised that I did seem to be paying a lot for the car, and was uncomfortable with the figures and the £4000 down payment. The Salesman who I dealt with was not in that day, and the one that was said that he couldn't deal with the matter in his absence.

That night I e-mailed the Salesman I had originally dealt with, and said that I wanted to cancel the order for the car and gave the reasons why.

He rang me the next day, explaining that I could not cancel the order - which I knew that I could, and advised that I would not get my £1000 deposit back either, and could incur an additional 10% fee for damages which the Sales Manager may decide to add on. He said that the £4000 included the cost of the gap insurance, parking sensors and road tax, and that I had agreed to this. However I was of the impression that the £3000 deposit and the instalments over 48 months included these costs, therefore I appeared to be putting down a larger down payment than I thought I had agreed to.

My question is this really - attached to the vehicle order form, there is a terms of business sheet which has a paragraph in there to say that the deposit will be withheld if the customer cancels the order, however; this form was not given to me to read when I was given the order form to check, I was not advised orally that the deposit was non refundable, and although the salesman has signed this terms of business sheet, I have not.

Do you think I could get my deposit back on this basis?

Freelander1:

If the car was going to be purchased with any form of finance, you should be get your money back. This is what Trading standard say on this and the garage should know. If the deposit was taken as part of a sale which was to be completed via a finance agreement, then the deposit must be refunded if the finance agreement is cancelled.

Have a read through the following thread which may help you. http://www.moneysupermarket.com/community/forums/t/refund-of-deposit-on-new-car-36996.aspx

If the garage will not budge, contact your local trading standards office.http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/

Huckster

Hi

Typical of a main dealer!

Have you signed the actual finance agreement? If not, you can cancel the order and get a full deposit refund.

If you have signed the finance agreement, get in touch with the finance company asap and tell them you wish to cancel. The agreement is only enforeable if both YOU and the Finance company have signed the credit agreement.

The order dealer's order form is NOT the finance agreement!

Assuming you have NOT signed, tell the dealer where to go and demand your deposit back.

Good luck!