A great-grandmother who needs a walking frame to get around and suffers from memory loss says she felt pushed into buying a $26,000 Great Wall ute that she can’t even use. Mary Dewes, 83, hasn’t driven for three years. Her husband Phillip has a brain injury which causes him to constantly fall asleep, meaning he’s unable to drive – but when he responded to an online car ad, salesman Christian Van Lieshaut was quickly on the phone to them. “We got the call, he said he was the salesman and would we like a demonstration run and Phillip said yes,” Mrs Dewes said. “Next thing we know, he was at the door and we were out in the four-wheel drive.” Mrs Dewes said when Mr Van Lieshaut picked them up at their retirement home, he was able to see she needed a walking frame to move about, and in fact had to help her into the car. She claimed they were driven straight to the caryard where a contract was put in front of them. Mrs Dewes said she and her husband felt “pushed into something we didn’t understand”. Her daughter Tracy Loveday said Mrs Dewes suffered memory loss and that by the next day she could not remember signing the contract, and thought she had only put down a deposit of $1000 – rather than the full $26,000 price tag. “My mum won’t even look at the car because it’s too distressing and she ended up in hospital the other day and it’s caused a lot of stress for her,” Ms Loveday said. “That was their life savings and they have nothing left.” Unable to drive the car, the Dewes were also rendered ineligible for the retirement home’s free bus to the shops, meaning they struggled for weeks to buy groceries. “I’m angry with ourselves and I’m angry with that man that did not take anything into consideration,” Mrs Dewes said. “All he wanted was our signature on that contract.” There is no cooling-off period with a new car, so it initially seemed when Mrs Dewes signed the contract that there was no way out. However, Ms Loveday noticed there was a provision in the contract for the dealer to tear it up and keep 10 per cent of the purchase price. She said she rang Mr Van Lieshaut and begged him to do just that, but was denied. Lawyer Christine Smythe, an expert in issues affecting older Australians, said there appeared to be “an awful lot of red flags” preceding the sale. “The salesperson certainly needs some reviewing of sales practices and procedures if he wants to proceed in that line of work,” she said.
