www.autokunz.ch nightmare

Complaints Corner
1
I’m living one nasty situation with the company autokunz and I wonder if someone else have gone thru this kind of bad experience.

We’ve visited the company some days ago and test drove one of their new cars. After the test drive, my wife and I spoke with one vendor as we were interested in the car.

The sales guy said we could have the car in two weeks if we wanted to buy it. He advised us to make pay a reservation payment (of 4’000 CHF) so he could send the contract for our review. He did say reservation and that’s important. We made the payment in the following day and received the contract the day after. It was written in the contract a different date (3 weeks after) and the contract also contained some items which we didn’t agree with.

We called the guy and he said they needed the car for test drive with the customers and that’s why he could only deliver on that date. We thought that quite strange as they were trying to sell us a car that was new while using it for test drive. The sales guy said he couldn’t change the contract and the fact that they needed the car for test drive (you have to live with that, he said). We decided to stop the negotiation as we felt that it was quite dodgy. We have never signed the contract.

He told him over the phone our decision and he accepted it. The next day he sent us an email as nothing had ever happened. He basically said we had an oral contract and that was biding. We sent them one registered letter reinforcing that we have never agreed to buy the car in the first place and we didn’t agree with the contract. Today I got their response saying that we must buy the car.

In summary, they have our 4’000 CHF registration deposit, they have no signed contract and they don’t want to give us back the money. They want to force us to buy the car (which is by the way more than 40’000 CHF).

I spoke with a lawyer and he said we are probably safe (although he said he could not guarantee 100% change of winning as there is no evidence of oral contract). Hiring a lawyer will cost a lot of money and I wanted to see if anyone else have experienced a similar situation with this company (or other) before going down this path.

Thanks

2
Paying 4000 would to me indicate that an oral contract probably existed. I can't imagine ever paying a deposit for the sake of it. Your lawyer is either dumb or wants to earn some fees.

3
This won't be helpful, but you're buying a car from autokunz?

Sounds like they're living up to their name.

Good luck bud.

4
But if we had and he broke the oral contract by writing something different in the formal contract? We trusted the guy when he said it was only a reservation fee. BTW, there is no such thing as oral contracts in my country.

5
it will be 'he said' against 'I said' and no witnesses.

Paying 4,000 suggests some kind of an agreement. Oral contract is a contract.

6
Why did you give any money before you had a contract, sounds like buyers remorse to me.

How do you go for a meal if oral contracts don't exist?

7
First, putting money down, in and of itself, in no way implies a contract. Second, an 'oral contract' is only as good as the paper it's written on - it's unenforceable. If you had no money in this, you could easily tell him to go park his car in his pants. The only leverage he has is your money; but an attorney sending a strongly-worded letter threatening court action plus legal fees should be able to convince him to return your cash.

Be loud, persistent, strong, and in general, be a bastard. Make sure any customers get the entire conversation.

8
You're new here, aren't you?

Most contracts here are oral, and if you don't follow though, word will get around.

Tom

9
Why on earth would you put 'money down' & then not believe that money was a commitment?

I would think it showed agreement & a contract was now in place. Some very naive people here tonight.

10
Good for you. There is in CH though, and in case you missed it, you're living here now.

I have no idea why you would pay money in the first place, ask for a contract, receive that contract and then assume that's just a "reservation money" (whatever the heck that is - there's a buying price and a deposit, nothing else) and change your mind as you please.

In what language did you speak with them anyway?

Of course you can hope for courtesy from the company, and you may get the money back. But you may not. Paying that money implies you entered a contract/agreement even if there's no written contract.

As far as the test drives are concerned: since you seem to be buying a car as is rather than ordering one with whatever specifics you want, this is likely a so-called Vorführwagen. Just for your future reference. It's perfectly normal to use them for test drives, not dodgy at all.

11
Putting money down can completely imply a contract in CH.

An oral contract is as good as a paper contract in CH.

Inferred conduct of a person can imply a contract in CH.

Swiss code of Obligations:

Art. 1

1 The conclusion of a contract requires a mutual expression of intent by the parties.

2 The expression of intent may be express or implied.

This is the reason they don't get sarcasm: "yes of *course* I will buy your overpriced car... for *whatever* amount you want".

No sarcasm in CH is the cultural defence against entering expensive contracts all day long.

Source: https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classifi...010000/220.pdf

Art. 8

1 A person who publicly promises remuneration or a reward in exchange for the performance of an act must pay in accordance with his promise.

2 If he withdraws his promise before performance has been made, he must reimburse any person incurring expenditure in good faith on account of the promise up to the maximum amount promised unless he can prove that such person could not have provided the performance in question.

12
I agree. At the moment you give some money, it's a deposit aka agreement for something. In this case, you agreed to buy the car.

13
You might get out of it by looking at the different articles and quoting relevant parts.

"Art. 21 1 Where there is a clear discrepancy between performance and consideration under a contract concluded as a result of one party’s exploitation of the other’s straitened circumstances, inexperience or thoughtlessness, the injured party may declare within one year that he will not honour the contract and demand restitution of any performance already made. 2 The one-year period commences on conclusion of the contract. "

You could claim inexperience under this Article 21, as the "performance" required was a car within 2 weeks, and the written contract had a different date of 3 weeks. The dealership might be exploiting your inexperience with the law to push through the contract. In effect, if it is an oral contract based on a car delivery in two weeks, the dealership broke the agreed terms.

Better is probably Article 23 and Article 24:

Art. 23

A party labouring under a fundamental error when entering into a contract is not bound by that contract.

Art. 24

1 An error is fundamental in the following cases in particular:

1. where the party acting in error intended to conclude a contract different from that to which he consented;

2. where the party acting in error has concluded a contract relating to a subject matter other than the subject matter he intended or, where the contract relates to a specific person, to a person other than the one he intended;

3. where the party acting in error has promised to make a significantly greater performance or has accepted a promise of a significantly lesser consideration than he actually intended;

4. where the error relates to specific facts which the party acting in error considered in good faith to be a necessary basis for the contract.

2 However, where the error relates solely to the reason for concluding the contract, it is not fundamental.

3 Calculation errors do not render a contract any less binding, but must be corrected.

14
Really helpful, thanks.

15
It's really not, cause no one has made an error but you

Just appeal to common sense and courtesy, for heaven's sake. Politely (!!) explain that you misunderstood or whatever you want to claim (cause clearly, you did indeed understand, you just changed your mind as you thought some things were "dodgy" though they weren't). That will likely get you further than any other route.

And btw, you may want to have the name of the company removed here as the mistake is on your end and not theirs. The title clearly suggests otherwise, I don't think that's quite fair (though chances are they won't read this, but who knows).

16
What I don't get is:

1. why a car you tried and is obviously at the dealers needed 2 weeks for delivery.

2. Why extending this to 3 weeks is a deal breaker.

3. What "some other items you didn't agree with" could be.

4. Why you didn't note the mileage/kms to see how much further your car is driven in the intervening time.

Is this new or second hand?

And finally what possessed you to part with CHF4,000 without signing anything or seeing a contract. Did you at least get a receipt??

17
but not if the car has been sold.

18
You all miss the most important thing:

Code of Obligations

Art. 16 B. Form of contracts / II. Written form / 2. Form stipulated by contract

1 Where the parties agree to make a contract subject to formal requirements not prescribed by law, it is presumed that the parties do not wish to assume obligations until such time as those requirements are satisfied.

Means, if you agree to make a written contract there are no obligations until you sign the written contract.

Case closed. Next.

19
Is it though?

If I understand correctly, the OP didn't sign the contract -- so the contract isn't "made". Am I missing something?

20
Yes, that therefore there is no oral contract, either, and they are not obliged to buy the car.

Tom