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Tips for giving evidence to support your complaint

The quality of the information you provide can make a big difference when making a complaint. This is really important when you have a problem with your vehicle.


 

On this page:


 

Helpful information to provide when making a complaint

  • Name and address
  • Vehicle registration
  • Finance agreement number (it’s written on most of the communications we’ve sent to you and looks like 12-123456)
  • Phone number and any times to avoid calling you
  • Email address for us to contact you on
  • Details about your complaint and how it’s affected you

These details allow our complaints team to understand the issue you’ve faced and get back in touch to support you. 

 

If you’re not able to provide this information, it might take longer to help with your complaint. 

What to provide when there’s something wrong with your vehicle

Supporting evidence for your complaint

The information you give helps us look into the problem(s) with your vehicle. We need to understand what steps you’ve taken so far.

 

Evidence could include:

  • Repair or order sheets for any work to fix the vehicle
  • Vehicle inspections carried out by a vehicle repair garage or breakdown service
  • Emails or text messages with the dealer, (the dates must be visible)
  • Adverts for the vehicle before you bought it or any photographs you may have taken prior to purchase (date/ time stamped)

Try to make sure your evidence references the vehicle registration, your name and address, or the dealer’s name and address.

 

You can email your supporting evidence to motorquality@closebrothers.com. You must include the complaints reference number we gave you, which starts with CDCR, otherwise this may lead to a delay in us allocating the evidence to your complaint. 

Have there been attempted repairs to your vehicle?

When you raise a complaint, we want to know if any repairs have been made to your vehicle to try and fix the issue. This can help us to understand the history of the vehicle and problems you’re reporting.

 

Tell us:

  • What repairs have been attempted
  • When they were carried out
  • Who carried them out
  • Who paid for the repairs and if it was under warranty

You can share this when you raise the complaint or add it to an existing one.

Providing evidence when you’ve had the vehicle for more than 6 months

You’ll need to prove the problem with the vehicle existed at the point of sale, and it’s beyond expected wear and tear of serviceable parts.

 

We recommend you share an engineer’s report with us. This could be from a vehicle repair garage or breakdown service. 

 

The report should show the:

  • Name of the VAT registered garage or company
  • Address and telephone number of the garage or company
  • Name of the engineer or mechanic, and their job title
  • Vehicle registration and current mileage
  • Fault(s) that existed at point of sale and any that have developed since
  • Fault(s) that are related to serviceable parts

 

You can email your supporting evidence to motorquality@closebrothers.com. You must include the complaints reference number we gave you, which starts with CDCR, otherwise this may lead to a delay in us allocating the evidence to your complaint. 

How to create a timeline of events

A timeline helps us to understand what’s happened and when, making it easier for our complaints team to provide support.

 

Write down a list of the key events in the order they’ve happened and the contact you’ve had. For each item, try to record:

  • the date and time
  • details of what happened
  • if you spoke to anyone (including their name, position, and the company they work at)
  • if anything way agreed

 

Email your complaint timeline to motorquality@closebrothers.com. You must include the complaints reference number we gave you, which starts with CDCR, otherwise this may lead to a delay in us allocating the evidence to your complaint.