Car dealers fined for misleading eBay advert

A SANDWELL car dealership and its director have been ordered by magistrates to pay almost £10,000 in fines, costs and compensation for misleadingly advertising a car on eBay.

Marios Emiliou, aged 54, and his company MJC Motors of Oldbury were handed the huge penalty by Sandwell Magistrates.

The prosecution by Sandwell Council Trading Standards followed a complaint from an eBayer who bought a 2002 Renault Laguna, advertised on the auction website as “part exchange car to clear with tax and MOT” in December 2009.

But when the buyer travelled to Emiliou’s Dudley Road West garage to collect the car, he was given a receipt which stated the car was unroadworthy.

The buyer was not told at any point in the sale that the car was unroadworthy and had not noticed the receipt. The car broke down after the gearbox failed on the buyer’s drive home.

The buyer, from Telford, reported Emiliou and his car dealership to Sandwell Council Trading Standards.

Emiliou pleaded guilty to two charges under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 relating to the eBay advert being untruthful and misleading.

Guilty pleas on behalf of MJC Motors, which also has another base in Queens Road, Smethwick, were entered at a previous hearing.

Further offences against both parties under the same Regulations were dropped.

Emiliou, of Rosemary Hill Road, Sutton Coldfield, was fined £800, ordered to pay £1,126 costs, £1,200 in compensation and a £15 victim surcharge – a total of £3,141.

MJC Motors was fined £3,000, ordered to pay £3,000 costs and a £15 victim surcharge – totalling £6,015.

Sandwell Council’s cabinet member for neighbourhood services Cllr Derek Rowley said: “The gentleman who bought the car for £1,200 turned up to collect it from MJC Motors in Oldbury expecting to get a car he could use to safely transport his family.

“He drove away and shortly into his journey, found it very difficult to make the gears work. The car was undriveable and had to be picked up by a recovery truck.”

Defending, Ms Azza Brown said that the offences resulted as a result of oversight and “sloppy” practice, rather than an intention to deliberately mislead.