Deposit for Car

[John Brown]

This is strange !

A French guy saw my old car for sale and agreed to buy it.

He gave me a cheque for 500 euro as a deposit ( didn't ask for it ) and said he would come back in 2 weeks with the balance of 1700 euro.

He gave me a handwritten receipt for the deposit and photographed the cheque, receipt and log book with his posh mobile phone

He lives over 600 miles away and was just passing through with work when he saw the car. He said he was a builder.

The cheque was paid into my account and cleared.

That was 10 weeks ago and he hasn't returned my phone calls or texts.

My question is, under French law do I have to wait for him to contact me or can I try to sell the car and give him his deposit back when or if he ever gets in touch. Am a bound by some form of contract because the reciept does say he would return after the 15th March.

I have only a name and a mobile phone number and that he lives in Paris ( and his 500 euros ) and the car !

[AnOther]

Sounds like the old 'Irish scam' paying for a meal in a restaurant then walking out without eating it [:D][:D][:D]

Seriously it does seem rather odd but there are all sorts of possibilities for the non-communication, in hospital/prison/dead, maybe he lost his phone and with it all your details, who knows ?

My take on it now would be that because of the undue delay he has failed to honour whatever contract there may have been between you and therefore I'd feel free to flog the car to whomever and pay him back his €500 if and when he gets in touch.

If he does surface again it's unlikely that it's going to be on the doorstep unannounced with the rest of the money !

I suppose via his cheque your bank might be able to make some inquiries on your behalf.

BTW, surely it should have been you giving him a receipt for the deposit not the other way round ?

[Val_2]

You have his address on his cheque! Write to him or look under that address to see if there is a phone number in the online Pages Blanche etc. Personally I would keep that deposit aside in case he returns, send him a letter by AR saying you are now putting the vehicle up for sale and if he wants his deposit back,to contact you for a cheque to be sent back. That way, if the letter is delivered and signed for, you have complied with the law.

[AnOther]

[quote user="Val_2"]if the letter is delivered and signed for, you have complied with the law.[/quote]Which particular law would that be Val ?

Just curious you understand [;-)]

[Sunday Driver]

It's the law of contract.

When taking a deposit on a car, the seller establishes a legal contract by writing out a receipt identifying the two parties by name and address and stipulating that the amount paid is an arrhes (non-refundable deposit) together with a date by which payment of the balance of the sale price must be made, otherwise the deposit will be forfeit. A typical timescale would be thirty days from the date of the receipt. Two copies of the receipt - one to the buyer and one retained by the seller.

Once this contract deadline has expired without payment of the balance, the deposit is legally forfeit and any subsequent offer by you to refund the deposit as suggested by Val_2 is merely a gracious gesture on your part.

However, in this case, the receipt was written out by the buyer so if he did not include the necessary deadline for full payment (either by error or deliberate omission) then the contract remains legally valid.  If he doesn't respond to your letter and claim his deposit back and you go ahead and sell the car to someone else, then he could simply turn up at a later date, claim non-delivery and demand the return of double the deposit.

Given the very strange circumstances surrounding this deal, perhaps that's what he intended all along....

 

 

[Wilko]

If he is doing what SD suggests why not phone/text him and say you have sold the car to someone else, if he then turns up for his 1000 euros (2x arrhes) you know he is out to con you but you still have the car so can still fulfill the contract, which puts the ball in his court, he's also driven 600 miles, what a shame !

W

[Pommier]

[quote user="Wilko"]If he is doing what SD suggests why not phone/text him and say you have sold the car to someone else, if he then turns up for his 1000 euros (2x arrhes) you know he is out to con you but you still have the car so can still fulfill the contract, which puts the ball in his court, he's also driven 600 miles, what a shame ! W[/quote]

That's really clever!

 

[John Brown]

Thanks for all your comments and advice.

Regarding writing the receipt, I took it that because he wrote French much better and quicker than I would he took the lead.

I signed it, kept the original and he took a photo of it

SD, He put " the balance will be paid after the 15th March" with no end date.

The cheque went in the bank months ago. Will my bank provide me with a copy or release his details after so long ?

It was a business cheque, I think ?

If he's genuine, I would like to give him his deposit back

I'll speak to my bank and if I hit a brick wall I'll do what Wilko suggests, in case its a double deposit refund he's after.

BTW His phone never rings and goes straight to answerphone which seems odd for a businessman

Thanks again

[Chancer]

I am sure that as soon as he is released from custody you will be near the top of his "to do" list [;-)]

[John Brown]

Trust you to put your spin on it, Chancer.

Mobile Phones work in prison ( or so I'm told ) or do you know that for a fact !

They don't work from beyond the grave, however !

Lets hope there's a simple reason like the phones been lost, because everything about the car & me was on it.

Maybe he goes around giving money away to Cotton Heads like me

BTW "Cotton Heads" are what old people with white hair are called in Liverpool

[woolybanana]

JB, may I suggest that you pop down to the local gendarmerie and find out if this is a known scam. Ask their advice as to how to proceed, perhaps.

[Wilko]

WB you have more faith in the flic/plod than I do.

W

[idun]

I think that WB's idea is a goodun. In fact I have checked up when I thought something was iffy.

I'd ask if they thought that I was a victim of some sort of fraud.

I too have little confidence in the gendarmes/police, but never the less, they should know some things.

 

[AnOther]

Frankly I think anybody who really believes this person is a scammer paying out €500 deposits on cars all

over the country simply to rip off sellers for an equal amount by 'disappearing' then turning up months later is border line paranoid !

You've made best effort at contact (your phone and text records and even this

forum would stand up in court) and waited far more than a reasonable time too so whether your scrap of paper constitutes a contract or not comes a point when you have to say enough is enough, just how long are you suppose to wait. Even if he was responding you could ask the same question, can 'after March 15th' really be read to have meant mean ANY time after ?

A contract is not only based on law but also on good faith and reasonableness - yes even in France !

 

I say to hell with him then and if he does turn up in x weeks or months time

demanding the car or €1000 give him his €500 back and tell him to sue for the rest.

The very worst case outcome here would be that you did end up paying but given the circumstances you've described it seems to me to very remote risk and one worth taking.

[John Brown]

Its good to hear different viewpoints on this

I'm going to speak to my bank tomorrow and try to get his details and send a registered letter as Val suggested.

If I can't I'm going to put it up for sale again. In any event its going back on sale if I don't get a reply by post after a week

The text's I sent to him this morning were undelivered so I'm starting to think its just a problem like losing his phone

Thanks for all the contributions

John

 

[idun]

The other question is, can that cheque of his still be stopped?

 

I am never sure how any bank in France works and have known of a cheque being returned a long time after it was cashed.

[Chancer]

[quote user="AnOther"]Frankly I think anybody who really believes this person is a scammer paying out €500 deposits on cars all over the country simply to rip off sellers for an equal amount by 'disappearing' then turning up months later is border line paranoid !

[/quote]

My suspicion is that it was part one of a scam that he was unable to continue, hence my comments about custody,

I have heard that it can take mant many weeks for funds initially creditted from stolen or forged cheque books to be removed again, a particularity of the French banking system, its during this phase when the person believes that they have the money as it is shown on their bank statement that they implement the scam, and there are many variations of it.

Now 10 weeks does sound like more tha enough time for the French banks to react but frankly nothing would surprise me these days in France, at what stage would you confidently be able to say "the money is mine to spend, they (the bank) cant take it back now"? As if they have made an error they can do so at any time thereafter, and dont forget that we are not in a country that would inform you or ask your permission beforehand.

If it were for a lot more money then I would withdraw it and close the account.

When I was 18 the Midland bank only debitted £3 from my account for a cheque of IIRC £63, it was for my car insurance, the broker was a friend and she assured me that they had recieved the full amount, the differnce was a hell of a lot of money to me at the time, a few weeks wages so i reluctantly told the bank, they assuered that they had not made a mistake, the money was mine to spend and that they would not come back for it later, you can guess the rest [:(] several months later after having spent the money it took a lot of negotiating to persuade them to allow me to pay it back in instalments, in France it would have just been taken and in the position I was then I would have ended up interdit bancaire.

Many years later on a friend who ran a hairdressing salon recieved a surprise credit of £25000 into his personal account, we discussed what could happen thereafter, he waited a few months and it the error was not discovered, at that stage he asked the bank for a loan of £25000 to develop his business, they refused so he told them he was changing to another bank as he was dissapointed with them, in reality he was concerned that if he spent the money they would take it back or at least what they could from his business account so he wnated to protect his-self.

He changed banks and then transferred the £25K from his private account to the new business account and invested it in the business, ça veut dire spent it, a not insignificant proportion found its way back to him via laundering.

His old bank eventually found their mistake over a year later and asked him to repay the sum, he had by then a very plausible story of where he had assumed the money had come from, he strung them on for another couple of years before they finally had no choice but to accept a payment plan of £100 per month with no interest being charged.

[John Brown]

I must admit I was pleased / relieved / surprised when the cheque cleared and I quickly moved the 500 euro into my savings account.

Basically because I'd not asked for a deposit and would have settled for his word

If it was a rubber cheque could he not have given me a cheque for the full amount and driven away in a nice Focus Estate leaving his old banger on my drive to gather dust.

I'll run the idea of speaking to the police past the bank if they can't / will not help

[Val_2]

As mentioned previously, he could have been killed or died naturally. You could find out by looking in the papers for his area,you have a copy of his cheque which will have his address on it and go from there.These things do happen and you would not have any inkling about it unless you do the investigation. The mairie where he lives would confirm if anyone of that name is now deceased if you explain the situation.

Its quite a mystery and I would love to know the next installment[8-)]

[Chancer]

OK firstly in France when you "think" a cheque has cleared, even when the bank tells you it has cleared, it is not the case when a scam is involved, it can be several weeks before the money is taken back away from you, I am not certain of the actual mechanism hence you will have to do some research but I am fairly sure its either stolen or forged cheque books or identity theft.

In any case during that window of opportunity which is much longer than you or I would believe possible thanks again to the French banking system, the fraudsters use several modus operandi all of which involve you in repaying them some of the money that you think you have but will one day find you dont, it could be a simple refund less expenses, it could be one of the more inventive scams.

In any case at the moment you have lost nothing as the buyer/scammer has not made any contact, its either he has lost the phone and all contact details or perhaps my hypothesis, your only risk would come if he makes contact and asks for you o refund some or all of the money, whether or not you have sold the car.

If you ask yourself a few questions you will probably be able to make a good guess as to whether he was genuine or otherwise.

Did he spend enough time looking at and testing the vehicle, asking the right questions etc?

Did he try to negotiate the price down?

Did he suggest the sum of the deposit or yourself?

 

[John Brown]

I'm not sure what you mean Val by "I have a copy of his cheque with his details"

The cheque was paid into my bank ages ago. I've got no details other than his name, he said he lived in Paris, his plate on the car ended with 90 which I'm sure is for Paris and his mobile number. Was I supposed to photo copy his cheque because I didn't know that

I'm as keen as anyone to get to the bottom of this

[John Brown]

Obviously I hope your hypothesis is wrong, as probably as you do for me.

Your three questions

He took it for a five minute run, leaving me with his very tatty Ford Focus with a very large dog in the back seat on what was left of the rear seat

He stood over the running engine for a few minutes, listening.

The back of his estate car looked like a builders van. He spoke excellent French but said he was Polish. I greeted him with the only Polish word I know "Gin dob bree" which I believe is Hello and he said something back in Polish ( I think )

He got the price down by 100 euro saying the spare wheel was a bit worn

It was all his idea to offer me a deposit and wrote 500 euro's without me saying a word

You make a good point regarding giving the deposit back. I will issist on seeing some credible ID before parting with a cheque

[idun]

[quote user="John Brown"]

I'm not sure what you mean Val by "I have a copy of his cheque with his details"
The cheque was paid into my bank ages ago. I've got no details other than his name, he said he lived in Paris, his plate on the car ended with 90 which I'm sure is for Paris and his mobile number. Was I supposed to photo copy his cheque because I didn't know that

I'm as keen as anyone to get to the bottom of this
[/quote]

 

You didn't have 'just his name' you know. His address was on that cheque and lots of us who are used to France would have taken a photocopy or at least jotted the details down before paying it in.

[John Brown]

Yes you are right, I should of photocopied the cheque. I will in future .

I think its only about the third cheque I've had in 5 years so it won't be a big deal.

When my printer finally pegs it I will get one of those combined printer / scanner / copiers

What was throwing me was "I have" rather than "I did have" I was beginning to think I had paid the cheque in incorrectly

What's life if you don't learn from it !

I'm very thankful for all the help on this

  

[NormanH]

Just a small point:

if he had the old style number plates which show the département in which he lives, 90 is not Paris, it is Belfort...