Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Can you use a small claims court for what you're alleging which is a criminal offence?

My only thinking is if you do go that route don't even mention 'theft.'

Block the garage entrance first.
Stand outside the garage and tell anyone entering your full story.
Sounds like a quick way to get your money back to me !

Worked for me at Halfords !!!!!!!!!!!

It's also a quick way to a 'disturbing the peace' charge.

Sadly I have to agree with the folks who say you have to prove it, which is really hard to do as the next question is "who has had access to the car etc."
The police are proving to be more and more useless for anything except making videos of cop chases and PR at any public show.
There are several Triumph specialists who are known to be dodgy one of which a main club will not allow his name to be mentioned (he has recently died).
All you can do is threaten to spread the bad word ............carefully.

Did you not notice the longer throw of the gearshift after you picked the car up? Not a great picture of the benefit of the short shift kit

You can report them to Trading Standards. If enough people report them, they will investigate. At some point, they will make a mistake and you'll get some satisfaction that even though you may not have been able to get even, you will have contributed to their downfall.

I bought a lemon years ago - forged service book, car not as described and had been clocked amongst other issues. I got most of my money back and they got a slap on the wrist. Turns out I wasn't the only one they had conned. Trading Standards won't act as an unpaid lawyer from you, but they may possibly be able to help.

Cheers,
Bryan

Maybe he had it in the long throw setting... But I did wonder the same thing.

The 'garage' won't want to get into a protracted discussion over this with you on the premises 'shouting' a little.
If they offer to call the Police you call there bluff
and 'Offer' to get the local papers in on the story (papers love this stuff)

Halfords sold me a £280 satnav that switched off when you came up to a junction
When I took it back 2 weeks later (after driving through Poland with no satnav) for an exchange -
Told me to phone the manufacturer to get an update / patch - common fault apparently
Parked car in entrance - locked it - Took them a couple of minutes to find me a new one.

No-one is going to get the Police involved and possibly get embroiled with the press over £100

I used to work with an electrical retailer, customer brought in a £79.99 vacuum cleaner he said had stopped working. It had clearly been misused and he tried the same tactic of standing in the door shouting. Police were called and in the process of waiting he carried out with his threat of 'throwing the f'ing thing through the window'. We also had another where a guy stood at the door telling every customer not to shop with us, police were not called in that instance as he was just annoying rather than threatening. After 4 hours of him doing this and 4 or 5 requests to leave by staff he finally gave up. He didn't get anywhere though. I sympathise with your situation but I'd definitely suggest the stand in the door approach to be a last resort.

I had a lady do this to me when I was a retail manager many years ago, vacuum had stopped picking things up. Very irate she was shouting and bawling and worked up a crowd of intrigued other shoppers who couldn't really ignore her. So I opened up the machine and carefully unearthed the blockage, which was a pair of her quite badly soiled alan whickers, before displaying said item for her dangling off the end of a large screwdriver. Amazingly she left the shop very quietly in no time to a sniggering crowd of fellow shoppers.............priceless!

Stuart

If someone 'stole' my £100 worth of stuff (and I new for certain it was them) ,
I would certainly make them aware that it wouldn't take me long to cause more than that cost in damage

PM me with the name of the Garage -
I'm not bothered about naming them

There's no need to PM. Do some digging and see what comes up.

I will take this further, i am waiting for a copy of the purchase receipt from only 944, then i will send a copy of it and the dates to the garage. if i get no joy i will go to the small claims court, and name the garage.

There is so much rubbish in this thread its untrue!

Stu, you don't need to 'prove' anything at the small claims court (its a civil case so it is decided on the balance of probabilities, and a defendant gainsaying every statement with 'I dont think so' like a child will see you winning is short order) and it is a perfectly legitimate to pursue the dishonest garage.

More importantly... tell us about escrima!

I was taught and practiced Krav for 12 years back when I was a young dude and getting myself into scrapes. I stopped in 2003 after getting wounded but started again 6 months ago and have been training a couple of times a week.

I quite fancy adding in another discipline, first choice is kavi/escrima but as I live in the middle of the Dales now there isn't a class very locally.