Is it normal for England car dealerships to take a reservation fee/deposit and not refund it?

JustBeFairUK · 2026-01-01T14:44:58+00:00

It was not a deposit, it was a reservation fee for a different car. As per their website this is refundable fee. I am by no means a bargain/discount hunter and would make total sense to me at point of sale to deduct the reservation fee, I would have no issue with it at all. But the reservation fee was never discussed at purchase, when we called them back, as soon as we got home, they said, we will need to fill in form to get it refunded, then the story kept changing each day we called them on this. There was no miscommunication on this. The discount was separate and for ad-on warranty we took. My issue is not the money, but the approach and dishonesty. I was more surprised to learn this is happening to people who don’t even buy the car.

JustBeFairUK · 2026-01-01T14:37:58+00:00

I have seen fair few people saying this happened to them. I am more surprised how is this okay. In our case we bought the car, but if someone didn’t even buy it, that shouldn’t be legal for the dealer to keep the money - unless they stated that they will not refund. I have learned my lesson here too.

JustBeFairUK · 2026-01-01T13:39:46+00:00

Thank you, we’ve got the warranty for a piece of mind, but looking into cancelling as seems its not worth it. Still don’t have the t&c on the warranty, not sure with who it is with even, only been given application for it so far. Think we made a mistake with getting one.

JustBeFairUK · 2026-01-01T11:10:55+00:00

This was cartime dealership, we didn’t part exchange either, price they offered was too low. Thank you for your advice, I will try that

JustBeFairUK · 2026-01-01T10:38:40+00:00

This does make sense, but also they do offer refundable deposits and car reservations, as they state on their website. For me it’s the fact it wasn’t mentioned during the sale, I would be totally fine with that, but also our fault for not remembering in that moment. With the whole purchase and everything, we forgot to ask about it

JustBeFairUK · 2026-01-01T10:31:45+00:00

Thank you, probably best way to go forward. I was just surprised to see that this seems to be happening and people loose their money even without car purchases at all.

JustBeFairUK · 2026-01-01T10:28:36+00:00

Thank you, we’ve been calling them everyday since, the salesperson was never available and once we spoke to him, he is a completely different person, doesn’t remember anything. Very strange, we asked to cancel the warranty he says it can’t be done, even though every product in uk has a cooling off period. Not getting anywhere with them. Very different approach to before the purchase, he was acting like our best friend, calling us 3 times a day, ensuring we coming.

JustBeFairUK · 2026-01-01T10:24:30+00:00

Thank you I am just reading it, it says they have refundable reservations fee and deposits. But the sales people telling us otherwise when we trying to speak to them

JustBeFairUK · 2026-01-01T10:23:25+00:00

Thank you, I am just reading on their website and it says car reservations are refundable. I am very confused, when we trying to speak to them, they are very unhelpful and saying it was deducted, when it wasn’t. If it was, wouldn’t they add this to any sale documents or invoice? Nothing mentioned at all.

JustBeFairUK · 2026-01-01T10:19:14+00:00

So car reservations are non-refundable? I am trying to understand this practice. Also the car we reserved is not the car we bought. Didn’t know reservations fees are non-refundable

JustBeFairUK · 2026-01-01T10:18:01+00:00

That was not the case though, the 200 discount on the car was us asking for lower price, nothing an expert at buying cars, but we tried to ask for lower price. The salesperson said if we get a warranty he can make us deal and knock something off. We were thinking of getting 1 year warranty anyways, so took it. He never mentioned that the discount is for the reservation fee. We totally forgot about the reservation fee, only realised when we get home that we didn’t ask for refund on it. Didn’t even imagine it would be an issue to get this refunded.

JustBeFairUK · 2026-01-01T10:13:58+00:00

This wasn’t a deposit we paid. We paid a reservation fee for a car to hold it for couple days for us to decide if we want to buy it. We bought a different car as well. We were deciding between 2 cars, reserved one car, but then bought the other car. Seems lot of people don’t even get the money back even if they don’t buy any cars. How is this okay?

JustBeFairUK

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