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Part 1
Version 1.2 · In force from 30 September 2026
These terms are between you and Ricki Robin Ltd. Please read them before you buy.
They replace version 1.1, in force from 29 September 2026, which you can still read at /terms/v1.1. The first version, in force from 2 August 2026, is at /terms/v1.0. The version that applies to a purchase is the one in force when you made it (section 15.2).
Dean's Car Check is a service operated by Ricki Robin Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales.
In these terms, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Ricki Robin Ltd. “You” means the person or business buying from us.
Your contract for a report is with Ricki Robin Ltd. We are the seller. We take the payment, we can give you a VAT invoice, and we are the company you deal with if something goes wrong.
We compile each report from licensed UK vehicle data: DVLA and DVSA records, and data services we license from third parties, including Total Car Check Limited and, for outstanding finance, Experian. Those companies are our suppliers. They are not your seller, they are not our parent company and they are not our partners. Their own terms for the data they supply are in section 14 and below these terms.
These terms apply to:
If you are a consumer (buying for purposes wholly or mainly outside a business), you have statutory rights that these terms do not affect. Where a section applies only to consumers or only to business customers, it says so. Everything else applies to both.
This is the most important section on this page. Please read it.
A Vehicle History Report sets out what the records say about a vehicle. We take the vehicle registration you give us, look up licensed UK vehicle data about that vehicle, and set out what those records say, on a single page, in plain English.
We report licensed UK vehicle records. Nobody visits the car.
Nobody from Ricki Robin Ltd, and nobody acting for us, sees, drives, examines, tests or inspects the vehicle. We are not mechanics, engineers, valuers or surveyors. A report:
A report can never tell you whether a vehicle is safe. Only a physical inspection by a qualified person can do that. If you are buying a vehicle, we strongly recommend you also get an independent pre-purchase inspection from a qualified mechanic or engineer, whatever your report says.
Your report shows the records available to us at the moment you ran the check. Records change. New information is added by the DVLA, the DVSA, the police, insurers and finance companies over time, and there is always a delay between something happening and it appearing on a record. A report run today may differ from one run on the same vehicle next week.
Every report carries the date and time it was run, and a unique reference number. Please use a report that is current when you buy.
This matters more than any other single sentence in these terms.
If your report says we found no record of something (no outstanding finance, no insurance write-off, no stolen marker, no logbook loan), that means the sources we search did not hold that record at the time we looked. It does not mean the thing did not happen.
Records can be missing, late, wrong, or held somewhere we cannot search. Some things are not centrally recorded at all: logbook loans (bills of sale), for example, are registered at the High Court against the borrower's name, not against the vehicle, so no vehicle-check service in the country can search them by registration number. We check the main private lender registers, but a lender who does not report to them will not appear.
A clear report reduces your risk. It does not remove it.
We report the licensed record as it is. Where a fact is not available to us, we say so on the report. We never guess and we never fill a gap with an estimate. We do not present something as confirmed when our source did not confirm it.
We check the vehicle registration you give us. Because a single mistyped character is a different car, we look the registration up for free, show you the make, model, colour and year we have found, and ask you to confirm it is the right vehicle before you pay for anything. Nothing is charged until you confirm.
If you confirm a vehicle and it turns out not to be the one you meant, the report we produced is still the report you asked for, and it is not faulty. Tell us anyway. Email support@deanscarcheck.com, and we will look at what happened and put it right where we reasonably can.
4.1 You must be 17 or over to buy from us.
4.2 Our data sources cover vehicles registered in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, excluding Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. We cannot check vehicles registered outside the UK, and a UK-registered vehicle's history before it was imported may not be available to us.
4.3 Dean's Car Check is offered to customers in the United Kingdom. We do not direct the service at customers in the European Union, the EEA or elsewhere, and we do not undertake that the service or these terms comply with the law of any country other than the United Kingdom.
4.4 You need a free account to run a check and to keep and revisit your reports. You are responsible for keeping your sign-in details secure and for what happens on your account.
Finance check is powered by Experian
5.1 All prices include VAT. We may change what is included in each tier, and we will show the current contents on the pricing page before you buy. What you get is what the pricing page said when you paid. Changing the tiers later does not change what you already bought.
5.2 The record risk score (Gold and Guided Gold). Your report shows a score out of 100. It starts at 100, and we take points off for each adverse marker that the records in your report show, such as an insurance write-off, a stolen marker or outstanding finance. The report lists every deduction and links to the section it came from. A check we could not make is shown as not counted and never changes the score. The score is worked out by fixed rules, not by AI, so the same report always gets the same score.
The score counts what the records show. It is not a prediction, a valuation, a rating of the vehicle's condition or safety, or advice about whether to buy. A high score means few adverse markers were recorded. It does not mean the vehicle is safe or free of problems, and section 3.4 applies to it in full.
5.3 No valuations. No report includes a valuation, and we do not value vehicles. Every report, including the free one, has a “What's it worth?” section with links to free tools run by other companies, for example Autotrader, Parkers, What Car? and eBay, where you can research a price yourself. Those sites are not ours: the figures, content and terms on them are their own, and we are not responsible for them.
6.1 The price shown on the order page when you place your order is the price you pay. All prices include UK VAT at the standard rate. Ricki Robin Ltd's VAT registration number is 519713773. For a VAT invoice for any order, email support@deanscarcheck.com.
6.2 Card payments are processed for us by Stripe. We do not see or store your full card number.
6.3 You pay in full before we produce a paid report or add credits to your account.
6.4 We take reasonable care to make sure prices are right. If we spot an obvious pricing error before we have supplied the report, we will contact you and you can confirm the order at the correct price or cancel it for a full refund.
6.5 (Business customers only.) If you do not pay us in full when due, we may charge interest on the overdue amount at the statutory rate under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, accruing daily from the due date until payment.
7.1 Your order is an offer to buy from us.
7.2 For a single report, the contract is made when we make your report available to you.
7.3 For a credit pack, the contract is made when we send you confirmation that your credits have been added to your account.
7.4 If we cannot accept your order, we will tell you and we will not charge you. That might happen because of an error in our systems or in a price or description.
7.5 If you have paid and we cannot produce your report. We take payment before we build your report, so occasionally a data supplier fails, or cannot find the vehicle, after you have paid. If that happens you have not received what you paid for, and we will refund you in full. Email support@deanscarcheck.com with your order reference, or the registration and the date, and we will issue the refund within 24 hours of hearing from you. We may also refund you without being asked if we spot the failure first. The refund goes back to the card you paid with, and your bank may take a few working days to show it. If you used a credit, we put the credit back instead (section 9.6).
This section 8 applies only if you are a consumer.
Under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 you normally have 14 days to change your mind about something bought online. How that works here depends on what you bought.
Your report is digital content that we produce and deliver straight after payment, usually within a minute. Before you pay, we ask you to tick two boxes. The first says you agree to these terms. The second says, word for word:
“I ask Dean's Car Check to produce and deliver my report now, and I understand that once it has been delivered I will have lost my right to change my mind and cancel for a refund.”
Ticking it is your express request for us to start straight away, and your acknowledgement that you lose the right to cancel once the report has been delivered. We confirm it in the email we send with your report.
If you tick those boxes and we deliver the report, you cannot then cancel for a refund.
Before we deliver it, you can still cancel for a full refund. Email support@deanscarcheck.com.
If we do not deliver the report at all, section 7.5 applies. If the report is faulty, section 16 applies. Losing the 14-day right to change your mind does not affect your rights when something is wrong with what we supplied.
A credit pack is different, because we are not delivering all the reports up front. You have 14 days from the day we confirm your credits to change your mind, for any reason or none.
When you spend a credit, the button says you are running the check now, and beside it we tell you: “Running this check now uses one credit and that credit cannot be refunded afterwards.” If you then cancel the pack within the 14 days:
We refund within 14 days of you telling us, to the payment method you used.
To cancel, email support@deanscarcheck.com with your name, your account email and your order reference, or use our model cancellation form at the end of these terms, addressed to Ricki Robin Ltd. You do not have to use the form.
After the 14 days, credits are non-refundable except where the law says otherwise or where we have got something wrong. See section 9.
9.1 What a credit pack is. A credit pack is a number of reports of a named tier, bought in advance at a lower price per report. Credits are per tier: you own, for example, “5 Gold reports”, not a pool of points. Credits of one tier cannot be used for a report of any other tier. Silver credits cannot buy a Gold report, and Gold credits cannot buy a Guided Gold report.
9.2 Packs are sold only in the quantities shown on the pricing page, at the prices shown there when you buy.
9.3 Credits last 24 months. Every credit expires 24 months to the day from the date you bought the pack. We show you the expiry date before you pay and in your account at all times, and we will email you 60 days and 14 days before any credits expire. Credits are spent oldest-first, so the credit closest to expiring is always used next.
9.4 What happens at expiry. An expired credit can no longer be used and has no cash value. We do not refund expired credits. This does not affect your rights under section 8.2 or your statutory rights.
9.5 Credits are not transferable and have no cash value. They belong to the account that bought them. They cannot be sold, given away, transferred to another account, exchanged for money, or used by anyone else. They are not a gift voucher, not electronic money, and not a payment instrument.
9.6 If a check fails. If we take a credit and then cannot deliver the report, we put the credit straight back on your account, and you can see both movements in your account history. If a report is faulty, section 16 applies.
9.7 If we withdraw or significantly reduce a tier. If, while you hold unexpired credits, we stop selling that tier or significantly reduce what it includes, we will tell you and you may choose: keep the credits on the changed terms, take replacement credits of at least equal value, or have the unused ones refunded at the price you paid. The choice is yours, not ours.
9.8 Before you buy a pack, please note: credits expire after 24 months; they are tied to one tier; they cannot be transferred; and after your 14-day cancellation window, unused credits are not refundable. These points are shown again at the pack checkout, and you tick a box to confirm them before you pay.
10.1 We add a trade badge to accounts that buy in volume. A single purchase of a large Gold or Guided Gold pack adds it automatically, and the pricing page shows the pack size that does this. There is nothing to apply for and nothing extra to pay. A trade account gets a larger daily allowance of Free reports (fair use still applies, section 11) and can buy Guided Gold packs of 25 or more, which we sell to trade accounts only. Every other pack, in every tier, is available to anyone.
10.2 A trade badge does not change your legal status. Whether you are a consumer or a business customer under these terms depends on whether you are buying for purposes wholly or mainly outside a business, not on how many reports you have bought. If you are a consumer, buying a large pack does not make you a business customer, and it does not take away any of your consumer rights.
10.3 If you are buying in the course of a business, please tell us by emailing support@deanscarcheck.com. We will treat you as a business customer, and sections 8 and 16 will apply to you differently: business customers do not have the 14-day cancellation right, and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 does not apply to your purchases.
10.4 Business customers may use reports for their own business, including checking a vehicle for a customer or on a customer's behalf, and showing that customer the report. You may not resell, republish or redistribute our reports or the underlying data as a data product of your own, and section 12 otherwise applies to you in full.
11.1 The Free report is offered subject to a daily fair-use limit per account, shown in your account. We may change the limit, and we may pause or withdraw free access to an account we reasonably believe is being used to avoid paying, to run bulk lookups, or otherwise in breach of section 12.
11.2 We supply Free reports with reasonable care and skill, exactly as we do paid ones, and section 3 applies to them in full. Because they are free, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 rules about paid-for digital content (satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose and matching its description) do not apply to them. Nothing in this section limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law does not let us limit.
12.1 Your report is for your own use, in connection with a vehicle you own, are considering buying or selling, or, if you are a business customer, are checking for a customer under section 10.4.
12.2 You must not:
12.3 You may of course show your own report to the seller you are dealing with, to a mechanic, to your insurer, or to an adviser helping you. If you publish a report more widely (online, on social media, in a forum), you are responsible for that publication and for anything a reader takes from it.
12.4 We and our suppliers own the intellectual property in the reports, the site, and the underlying data. Buying a report gives you a personal, non-transferable right to use your report for the purposes in 12.1 and 12.3. It does not transfer any ownership to you.
This section applies to every part of a report that is written automatically rather than being a raw record, for example the summary, any written note on value, and every explanation in a Guided Gold report. Section 13.7 covers Speak to Dean, our AI chat assistant.
13.1 What it is. We take the records already in your report and explain, record by record, what each one means and why it appears. Where a marker is present, we set out what that type of marker usually indicates and the steps buyers commonly take next.
13.2 What it is not. We explain the records. We do not inspect the car, we do not value it, and we do not tell you whether to buy it. The explanation is not advice, not a recommendation, not a verdict, and not a professional opinion. It says nothing about the vehicle's condition, its roadworthiness or whether it is safe to drive, because our records cannot tell us those things and neither can we.
13.3 How it is written. Some of it is wording we have written and checked in advance, for example what each section of a report means. Some of it is written by an AI model, supplied to us by Anthropic, working only from the records in your report and within rules we set: for example the summary and, on Guided Gold, the reading of your own vehicle's results. We test those rules, but a person does not check each AI-written passage before you see it, and AI can make mistakes. The records themselves are the authoritative part of your report. Where an explanation and the record ever appear to differ, the record is what counts.
13.4 The explanation is about the vehicle, never about a person. It describes what a source recorded about a vehicle, when it recorded it, and what you might do next. It does not, and is not designed to, say or suggest anything about the conduct, honesty or intentions of any seller, keeper or other person. A record about a vehicle is not an accusation against anyone.
13.5 General information, not your situation. Explanations describe how a type of record generally works. They are not tailored to your circumstances and cannot take account of facts we do not hold. Where a report mentions your legal position, it is general information about the law, not legal advice on your case. If something on your report matters to a decision you are making, take your own advice. Citizens Advice (citizensadvice.org.uk) is free, and a solicitor is worth it where the money is significant.
13.6 Section 16 applies to these explanations in full, including the parts of our liability that cannot be limited.
13.7 Speak to Dean. Speak to Dean is an AI chat assistant. It is not Dean and it is not a person. It answers general questions about Dean's Car Check and about checking a car. Its answers are general information, not advice, and it can be wrong. It does not change these terms, your report or your rights, and it cannot make promises for us. For anything about an order, email support@deanscarcheck.com.
14.1 Our sources. We compile reports from licensed UK vehicle data, including:
Finance check is powered by Experian
More detail is on our data sources and methodology page.
14.2 Terms required by our data supplier. The following wording is required by our agreement with Total Car Check Limited and is reproduced exactly as they require it. It sets out guarantee terms that those companies offer directly, and which apply between you and them:
By purchasing a vehicle history check you are agreeing to the following terms and conditions:
1 – Total Car Check Guarantee Terms and Conditions – https://totalcarcheck.co.uk/TotalCarCheckGuarantee
2 – Experian Finance Check Terms and Conditions) (includes Data Guarantee) – https://totalcarcheck.co.uk/ExperianGuarantee
14.3 Those guarantees are theirs, not ours. The Total Car Check Guarantee and the Experian Data Guarantee are offered by Total Car Check Limited and Experian on their own terms, and any claim under them is a claim against them. Ricki Robin Ltd does not operate, underwrite, fund or decide those guarantees, and we cannot accept or settle a claim under them. If you want to make one, contact us at support@deanscarcheck.com and we will pass it to Total Car Check, who handle it.
14.4 The limits of third-party data. We take reasonable care in compiling and presenting your report, but the underlying records are created and maintained by other organisations: the DVLA, the DVSA, the police, insurers, finance companies and their data suppliers. We cannot guarantee that a record held by one of those organisations is complete, accurate or up to date, and we do not control when they update it. Sections 3.3 and 3.4 explain what that means in practice.
14.5 If you think a record is wrong. Tell us at support@deanscarcheck.com. We will tell you which source the record came from and, where we can, raise it with them. Records held by other organisations can usually only be corrected by that organisation, and we will point you to the right place. If you are a seller or a vehicle keeper and you believe something we have shown about a vehicle is wrong, use the same address. We will look at it and correct our own output where it is wrong.
15.1 To the service. We may change how the service looks and works, change our data suppliers, and make changes to reflect changes in the law or to fix technical or security problems. If a change significantly reduces what a paid report includes, we will tell you in advance, and if you hold credits for that tier, section 9.7 applies.
15.2 To these terms. We may update these terms. The version that applies to your purchase is the version in force when you bought. If we change these terms in a way that materially affects credits you already hold, we will email you first, and if you do not accept the change you may cancel your unused credits for a refund of what you paid for them.
15.3 To prices. We may change our prices. A change never affects an order already placed, or the price you paid for credits you already hold.
16.1 What we always remain responsible for. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for:
This is not boilerplate, and it is not qualified by anything else on this page. In particular, no wording anywhere in these terms, in a report, in a PDF, or anywhere on our site limits our responsibility for injury caused by our negligence. If any part of these terms would have that effect, it does not apply.
16.2 If something is wrong with what we supplied: consumers. If a report is not delivered, is incomplete, or is not of satisfactory quality or as described, you have rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Depending on what has gone wrong, those may include having the report put right, a price reduction, or a refund, and you may also claim damages for loss our breach has caused you. These rights are in addition to anything in these terms and cannot be signed away. The one qualification is that a claim for damages on top of those remedies is subject to the limit in clause 16.4; the remedies themselves are not. Email support@deanscarcheck.com and we will sort it out.
16.3 What we are responsible for, and what we are not. We are responsible for loss you suffer that is a foreseeable result of us breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for loss that is not foreseeable. Loss is foreseeable if it is obvious it will happen, or if both of us knew it might when the contract was made.
16.4 A limit on our other liability: consumers.
What this clause is about. It does not touch anything in clause 16.1, and it does not reduce the statutory remedies in clause 16.2. If a report is wrong or undelivered, you still get it put right, reduced in price or refunded, and that is not capped. This clause is about compensation on top of that: a claim that our breach caused you a further loss.
Subject to clause 16.1, and without reducing the statutory remedies described in clause 16.2, our total liability to you for all claims arising from or in connection with any one report is limited to the greater of (a) £1,000 and (b) the total amount you have paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose. Where you have run more than one report on the same vehicle, that single limit applies once to all of them together, not once to each.
Why there is a limit, in plain terms. A report costs a few pounds and reports what licensed UK vehicle records say on the day you run it. Section 3 explains, at length and before you buy, that nobody sees the vehicle, that records can be missing or late, and that a clear report reduces your risk without removing it. We have set the limit at a level intended to be a real remedy rather than a token one: many times the price of a report, and above it if you have spent more with us than that in the year. It is not a way of avoiding responsibility for the report we actually supplied; clauses 16.1 and 16.2 govern that and they are not capped.
16.5 Business customers. Subject to 16.1, if you are a business customer we are not liable to you for loss of profit, revenue, sales, business or business opportunity; loss of or damage to goodwill or reputation; business interruption; reduction in asset value; loss or corruption of data; or any indirect or consequential loss, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty or otherwise. Subject to 16.1, our total liability to a business customer in connection with the contract is limited to 125% of the fees you have paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose.
16.6 Things outside our control. We are not responsible for delays or failures caused by something outside our reasonable control, including failures of internet or network connections, or an outage at one of our data suppliers. If there is a delay, we will tell you as soon as we can and take steps to reduce its effect. Section 7.5 still applies if you have paid for a report we cannot produce.
16.7 What our reports are for. We say this plainly in section 3 and we repeat it here: a report is one input into your decision, not the decision itself. Please do not rely on a report alone when deciding whether to buy a vehicle, and please do get an independent mechanical inspection. Nothing in this clause reduces our responsibility for the report we actually supplied. Clauses 16.1 and 16.2 govern that.
17.1 Email support@deanscarcheck.com. Tell us your report reference and what has happened. We aim to acknowledge within 1 working day and to give you an answer within 5 working days.
17.2 If you are not happy with our answer, reply and ask for it to be reviewed. A different person will look at it and respond within 10 working days. That is our final response.
17.3 (Consumers.) If our final response at 17.2 does not resolve things, two routes stay open to you.
Court. You can bring a claim in court. Nothing in these terms, and nothing about using our complaints procedure first, takes that right away. Clause 21 says which courts you can use, and for claims of this size the small claims track is designed to be used without a solicitor.
Alternative dispute resolution. ADR means settling a dispute through an independent body instead of a court. We are not a member of an ADR scheme and we are not required to use one. ADR is voluntary for both of us. If we cannot settle your complaint between us, we will write to you to confirm that, to give you the name and website of an ADR body that would be able to consider it, and to tell you whether we are willing to take part.
Free, independent advice is available at any stage from the Citizens Advice consumer service: citizensadvice.org.uk or 0808 223 1133.
17.4 (Data supplier claims.) If your complaint is a claim under the Total Car Check Guarantee or the Experian Data Guarantee, tell us and we will pass it to Total Car Check, who handle those claims. See section 14.3.
We handle your personal information as set out in our Privacy Policy. Ricki Robin Ltd is the data controller. For any privacy question or request, email privacy@deanscarcheck.com.
19.1 We may suspend or close your account, and end these terms, if you seriously or repeatedly break section 12 (acceptable use), if you do not pay when due, or if we are required to by law. We will tell you why, and you may ask us to review the decision. A different person will look at it and respond within 10 working days.
19.2 If we close your account for one of those reasons, we will refund unused, unexpired credits at the price you paid for them. We will withhold that refund only where we have concluded, after the review in 19.1 and on clear evidence, that the account was used fraudulently.
20.1 We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation. We will tell you in writing, and it will not affect your rights.
20.2 You may only transfer your rights or obligations to someone else if we agree in writing. Credits are not transferable (see 9.5).
20.3 This contract is between you and us. Nobody else has any right to enforce it, except that Total Car Check Limited and Experian may enforce section 14.2 and section 12.2 in respect of their own data.
20.4 Each paragraph operates separately. If a court decides any of them is unlawful, the rest stay in force.
20.5 If we do not insist immediately that you do something you must do under these terms, or if we delay in taking steps against you, that does not mean you do not have to do it, and it does not stop us taking steps later.
20.6 (Business customers.) These terms, together with the order, are the whole agreement between us about their subject matter, and they replace any earlier drafts or discussions about it. Nothing in this clause limits or excludes any liability for misrepresentation, and nothing in it prevents you relying on anything we have told you about the service.
21.1 (Consumers.) These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. You can bring legal proceedings in the courts of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland, you can bring proceedings in the Scottish courts or in England and Wales; if you live in Northern Ireland, in the Northern Irish courts or in England and Wales.
21.2 (Business customers.) These terms, and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them or their subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims), are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.
You only need this if you want to cancel a credit pack within your 14-day window. You do not have to use it. An email saying you want to cancel is enough.
To: Ricki Robin Ltd, trading as Dean's Car Check, 66 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NA, support@deanscarcheck.com
I/We hereby give notice that I/We cancel my/our contract for the supply of the following service:
Ordered on: ……………………………
Order reference: ……………………………
Name of consumer: ……………………………
Address of consumer: ……………………………
Signature (only if this form is notified on paper): ……………………………
Date: ……………………………
Ricki Robin Ltd · Company number 17186577 · Registered in England and Wales · Registered office 66 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NA · VAT registration number 519713773 · support@deanscarcheck.com
These terms were last updated on 30 September 2026.
═══ END OF RICKI ROBIN LTD TERMS ═══
Total Car Check Limited is our data supplier, and a copy of its own standard terms is hosted below ours on deanscarcheck.com/terms. That document is Total Car Check’s, reproduced unaltered, and it is not changed by any version of these terms. Your contract for the purchase of a report is with Ricki Robin Ltd, on the terms above.