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A car dealer sells a used car and hides the fact that it was an accident car.
A car driver from the canton of St. Gallen is desperate when he contacts the SRF consumer magazine “Espresso” in the spring of 2023. He bought a used car from the car dealer “AutoZeit” in Zizers (GR): a Suzuki Jimny for 27,700 francs. The car was redeemed for the first time less than a year earlier, in August 2022.
Only later does the “good used car” turn out to be an accident car. The vehicle registration document will be cancelled. The result: The listener has a car that he can no longer drive and the dealer refuses to take the car back. Only when “Espresso” switches on does the buyer receive his money back.
Back on sale via Liechtenstein
Now, six months later, the man contacts SRF again. He reports that he discovered “his” car again on a sales platform. Again the car is being sold as a used car, and again there is no indication that it was an accident car.
Research by “Espresso” shows: The car on offer is actually the listener’s car in an accident. The seller is a garage in Liechtenstein.
Garage distances itself
The salesman there is amazed when he hears the story of this Suzuki Jimny. They had no knowledge that the car had had “previous damage”. And: The car is not in his garage, explains the seller. It is being sold on behalf of “AutoZeit” in Zizers, a partner with whom we have been working for a long time.
However, the Liechtenstein garage reacted quickly and wrote: “We distance ourselves from resale and have immediately taken the car off the internet.”
Criminal conduct?
The dealer in Zizers does not respond to “Espresso”’s questions – no contact is made either by email or telephone. But one thing is clear: the seller should have disclosed that the car was involved in an accident. In one The Federal Court ruling states: “Anyone who, when selling a car, conceals the fact that it has suffered significant accident damage and advertises the repaired car as new is committing fraudulent deception.”