Where’s my car?

Sir, I need your help.

In March, I signed a car contract with a car importer. I paid for the car, of which they were supposed to import from Japan. The car was supposed to be delivered in 12 weeks from the time of payment. Even up to now, they have not yet delivered the car.

I have made several attempts to get in touch with the director but he is not taking my calls and isn’t responding to my messages. Your help will be highly appreciated. Thank you.

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that they’re talking to me. I contacted them and they fairly quickly responded, confirming that there have been delays with your vehicle. They also suggested that they’d been in touch with you to discuss a solution.

Now here’s the bad news. FIVE other people all contacted me in the same week, telling me identical stories about the same company. They all paid the company large amounts of money and are still waiting for their vehicles, months after they were promised. They were also being ignored and not given feedback.

Section 14 (1) of the Consumer Protection Act says that where “a supplier undertakes to perform any services for or on behalf of a consumer, the consumer has a right to … timely performance and completion of those services (and) timely notice of any unavoidable delay”.

But we don’t need a law to tell us that, do we? Isn’t it just polite to tell people if something will be late, particularly a customer who has paid a great deal of money.

This company is clearly going through some difficulties and I hope they manage to honour their promises to refund their customers.

Update: It’s now SEVEN other people with the same problem.