A row has erupted between an online retail car giant and a motorist after they were accused of refusing to hand money back. 

Emily Baughn, originally from Cricklade, bought a Fiat 500 for just over £5,500 from online car retailer Cinch in November 2022.

She was told by the company that the car had ‘broken down’ and would not be delivered on time.

A request for the money to be put towards the cost of another car was rejected as this was against company policy.

Emily, who now lives in Exeter, was told she had to buy a new car at which point the full cost of the Fiat, £5,509, would be refunded.

However, her bank Chase did not accept the refund.

Swindon Advertiser:

Sarah, Emily's mum, explained: “Emily’s bank account is American, and it sent it back.

“She’s been asking about the money since November 25 and she has got proof from Chase that they have done everything they can.”

A dispute then started between Emily and Cinch with the company saying they no longer had the money to give back as a refund.

Sarah said that her daughter has since opened a Nationwide account making it easier for Cinch to refund the money to her.

Since then Emily has asked the company for an update only to be told that they are “looking into it.”

She is now planning to take legal action by taking Cinch to the financial ombudsman to try and claim the money back.

Sarah added: “We are all feeling pretty perplexed because of the lack of information and we are having to potentially write off £5,500 as we are not getting anything back from them.

“'We’re looking into it' doesn’t give us any information at all or any confidence.

“I spoke to somebody on the messenger chat thing on Saturday and he said: ‘I can see that the man dealing with your claim has put a timeline together.’

"Well, I can give him a timeline, he needs to look into where the money is.”

Cinch has now been accused of being uncooperative by Sarah and Emily.

“Some of the responses have been borderline sarcastic and rude.

“Emily emailed them the week before Christmas and it wasn’t unreasonable with what she was saying, but their response was: ‘We’ll fit you into our timeline.’

A spokesperson for Cinch said: "We’re sorry Ms Baughn had problems receiving the refund for her car.

"Once it became clear that the issue was with her bank, we worked hard to resolve the issue and were able to successfully transfer her refund via an alternative route.

"We financially compensated Ms Baughn for the inconvenience and are delighted she found another car to buy on cinch.co.uk.

"We’re proud of our customer service, including a 14-day money-back guarantee, free home delivery in as little as 72 hours and an ‘Excellent’ Trustpilot rating from over 22,000 reviews.'