Hi Rena, thanks. I am already a member of TCS (thanks to the car breaking down all the time), so I will see what they say, thanks.

I believe that there is a mandatory period where such items can be returned if they do not meet the buyers interests, but you have undoubtedly gone past that period.

Without the carte grise, the garage won't send you any refund. And did you take off the plates ?  Any accident will be your (insurance) responsability !!!!

So I would send the garage the carte grise by "R" poste asap and with your bank details of where he should transfer the funds, and ask him to deposit the plates with the cancelation of the carte grise - only then can you cancel your insurance.

That's truely awful. Sorry, no advice but lots of sympathy!

The story is little more complicated than I originally wrote, just wanted to keep it brief. However yes I do have my plates, now on a different car. He verbally agreed with me that he would send me a refund after towing the car back to Zurich, and then I would send him the carte grise once seeing the money in my account.

The problem now is he is just ignoring me, and fobbing me off. I called him last Friday and he said that he made the payment to me on Thursday (although, his story changed throughout that conversation). I get the impression he is highly shady and is trying to simply keep the car and the money. He told me he's going to export the car. (Even though it will not start and needs 6 new diesel fuel injectors, which amount to 4000sfr with labour).

I'm just concerned that nothing will happen here now. As I said, I have the carte grise, but there is no way I'm sending that to him as well.

The person holding the carte gris is the person that owns the car. In case they contact you and request you to hand it over, only do it when you have your money. With the carte gris they are able to put the car in their name and then there is nothing you can do. Only thing they can do now, is make the car dissapear and deny ever receiving it, but I would think they won`t go that far.

If you know any big guy(s) that speak French I would pay them a visit and ask how much longer they need to pay you.

I can give you the name of a good la lawyer, sometimes, a letter from a big law firm speed up the process.

Good luck.

Write him a registered letter (Recommandé avec accusé de réception) mentioning what you have agreed on the phone and requesting to transfer the amount you agreed upon to your bank account at bank ..., within 8 days.  Assista (TCS) will not accept the case if you have not made a “protection” contract before the case happened.  Should you need a lawyers advice I recommend you to go to “Permanence de l’Ordre des avocats” at rue Verdaine. 50 min. consulting session will cost you CHF 60.-. You may ask the lawyer to write a letter for you, it should not cost more than CHF 100.-. (the letter). Call before going and ask if an English speaking lawyer is available at that day, in the case you do not speak French.  Have a look at http://www.odageneve.ch/fr/permanence. An advice do not buy a car over the Internet nor more than 20 km away from you residence.

If you have legal protection insurance (Assurance de protection juridique privée), they should also be able to help you.

bro gimme a couple hundred francs and Ill get your money back for you tomorrow... fuck the lawyers. We do this NY style 

So Drew, just to clarify, when you say NY style...?

Exactly..

Thanks everyone for your replies, including varying methods.

I thought I would just give an update to say that I have finally received the funds after a lot of relentless phone calls. Eventually I think he had enough of me.

Now he wants me to send the Carte Grise back immediately and without delay. What a joker.

That's quite amusing!

To avoid any further problems, be sure to send the CG by registered mail and keep the receipt. The CG is an important document. You want proof that he has received it.

I would definetly make him wait a little wile..just keep telling him you sent it LOL