Gaz_d

My partner brought a Suzuki from the dealership and we were promised excellent after care service and had RAC cover thrown in. We brought through finance and left feeling reasonably happy.

My partner noticed an issue with the way the car drove within the first month and took it back to be looked at. No offer of a loan vehicle whilst it was looked at, but fine. Hopefully this is one off. Found to be a problem with the fuel injector so they cleaned it.

A couple of weeks later we have a warning light and same physical issues we had before. So we take it in once again. This is when we got to know Lucy. If you enjoy being spoken to like a moron and nonsense spouted at you then you’ll enjoy her. Once it was dropped in we were told that the warning light had disappeared and their engineers needed to see it to diagnose the issue. To get around this they had to have one of their engineers drive it home a few times so that they could see the issue - I was even asked for £20 fuel money so they could do this.

Over the course of the month and a decent number of anger inducing phone calls with Lucy and we got nowhere. We called the RAC cover line (the one the dealership provided us) and they offered us advice which was different to the action Clark’s were taking. When I explained this to Lucy she told me they were reading from a script and that they shouldn’t be taken seriously.

The engineers are either not very good or are liars and know that this is an expensive problem to fix. After a month stand off where nothing was achieved we gave up. I called Lucy to tell her I’m collecting the car that afternoon and the tells me that I can’t. I then have to explain to Lucy that it’s my property and telling me that all their sales people aren’t available to hand me some keys is not an acceptable position to take.

So, the Mrs drives to work on Monday and lo and behold the warning light and issues happen within the first short journey in. At this point we have had quite a bit of correspondence with the finance company as we want a refund. We need to go to another garage to get evidence of a faulty car being sold which we do. All they did was plug in a tablet and they find the same error code that was on our paper work from Clark’s on our first repair … five minutes work. Clark’s left us without a car and did nothing for a month … well a mechanic got home a few times on our petrol so I guess someone benifit from the whole thing.

Oh also, Lee left us a voicemail. I tried calling a couple of times a week for a month but he was either not in or in a meeting. Never called me back so no idea who he is or what he wanted.

Fortunately the finance company went in our favour … but Jesus what a hassle. We also read the report from Clark’s to the finance company. Apparently, WE lied about the mileage. The figure they gave meant my partner would have had to have driven the car 300 miles every day we had it - she didn’t.

So, avoid if you don’t like unprofessional, unskilled, lazy and generally unpleasant people. Most importantly though, they lie. Do yourself a favour and don’t give them the time of day.

Not going to waste my time telling people what they already know. The only reason anyone is looking them up on here is because they've been caught out by these wasters.

I had 3 sums of £89 and a £14 initial fee. Of course, I cancelled straight away and asked for a refund - had the same copy and paste responses everyone else here probably received. After plenty of back and forth I was given no real proof that my money was taken from me legally or honestly. I ended up asking for a subject access request. Legally if a company has any information stored on you then they must share it and have a month to send a satisfactory response.
After I received my response and (shock horror) none of the information I wanted was there.
The key information I needed was Transaction data, technical data, profile data and marketing data. Within the SAR they also included a privacy policy stating they had all this information on me stored as it’s their company policy. Basically, a subject Access Request should tell you all your dealings with any organisation in detail. I was sent my name, address and phone number and that was about it. Useless.
I called up the Information Commissioner’s Office for advice and was told to send them a response highlighting specific info that I wanted and that two weeks should be enough time to resolve the situation.

This is the email that I sent -

‘Thank you for sending me the subject Access Request followed by a copy of your Privacy Policy. In the 'data we collect about you' section it states the below -

‘• Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender, driving licence number and its expiry date, national insurance number.
• Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
• Transaction Data includes details products and services you have purchased from us.
• Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
• Profile Data includes your username and password, purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
• Usage Data includes information about how you use our website, products and services.
• Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties, and your communication preferences.’

You seem to have provided me with the first two bullet points of information only. I have highlighted all the missing data that your Privacy Policy states should be present within the Subject Access Request. I must query why it’s not there.
In your ‘How is your personal data collected’ section you clearly state that you automatically collect data from interactions with the website. This is not present and is what I have been asking to see from the beginning of our correspondence. I specifically want to know how you collated my info and were able to charge me for a service I had no idea I was signing up for.
‘Information we collect about you. As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see Cookies below for further details.’

Not only have you failed to provide the information from your own Privacy Policy, but you have failed to send me a full SAR within one-month. Please can you specify if there is an exemption as to why this information is not here? I have read through your SAR and almost all of the information you say that you have stored is missing. I have spoken to the Information Commissioner’s Office for guidance on this and they have recommended that two weeks will be enough time for you to resolve this. If I do not have a satisfactory response within that time, then I shall lodge a complaint with them

Regards,’

Once sent I heard nothing for two weeks – they then responded with an email with an IP address only. Joke.
I called up the ICO once again and made a complain against them. I notified the Admin Life what I had done and said that I would drop this whole thing if all my money was refunded. Surprise, I got all my money back. This process took about 3 months, and I was very persistent.

I thought I would share this as it might help others. There is clearly no functioning website or service and the fact they would not share any of my information with me makes it abundantly clear.

Went to Stourbridge store. Service was decent enough. I expected to have to go back later in the day to allow for testing of a games console and games. Ended up leaving some card details and leaving the shop. Got email alerts giving me progress reports and after a couple of days received full payment. I was very impressed.

I believe the process is new and being trailed. I thought my experience was successful. Would use again.

The holiday to Croatia that I booked with my girlfriend was easy to sort out and went smoothly.

In the lead up we had plenty of emails advising us about the flights which were very useful.

The photos of the location were very accurate and in no way did I feel cheated by the actual views and from the hotel.

Never booked online before but I would be happy do to so again.