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I would change the last letter of your user name to a N, says me who wears a skirt part time

Hop onto eBay for a false moustache and cheap tickets to Paraguay

Dan, you need to qualify the customer and get a commitment prior to appointing them, they need to know your time isnt to be wasted (politely) and you only appoint genuine buyers, equally they need to know that you guarantee you will not be wasting their very precious time. If they start making excuses, “I have 27 other vehicles I need to see before I ask my dad for a loan..... My method is upfront and fare and ensures neither parties time isn’t wasted.

It’s no good complaining to AT,the chances are that they will penalise you for doing so.You must complain to the Competition and Markets Authority,they say complaints are confidential.I am in the process of doing this now once I can establish what classification AT comes under.I believe that AT are abusing their dominant market position (over 40%) and are operating an anti-competitive practice with their price discrimination.Should the CMA agree,AT being a PLC with a market value of £3.2bn could be in serious trouble.....So come on guys,the more of us who complain to the CMA ,the better.

AT will do nothing other than come up with more ways to relieve you of your money, they don’t care if a small percentage of dealers leave it’s a drop in the ocean to them, years ago I questioned why a private could advertise at a lot less than trade could..... same bullshit answer as normal and nothing changes.... if you want them to dictate your profit margins and how to run your business keep paying but if you want to take control yourself ditch them, whatever you decide it won’t influence them.

Yes you could do, but I think you're missing the point. For dealers that rely on Autotrader but aren't happy with the price rise, we should consider collectively reducing packages to reduce our bill. I think by putting the point to AT that we are willing to do this we could make a difference. I'm not saying its right, but its probably something I will do going forward. But if others would rather moan and do anything about it that's their choice!

Reviews are a pain in the ass but they are a sad fact of running a business, yes people do read reviews and decide what your business is like before even speaking to you, you must reply to the review and turn it around in your favour, explain that it has cost you xyz removing car from sale, preparing it to his standards loss of turnover etc etc state that deposits are none refundable and a contract such as the one he signed is legally binding.....worded correctly it can make him look like a skint chancer wannabe rather than an innocent hard done to saint...

Yep, already reduced my spots from 14 to 8 and removed the finance charge they added for april. will just have to start “cycling” my adverts regularly to get all Cars seen throughout the week.

After reading this thread I'm fuming with the amount of money i've been spending on Autotrader in comparison. I cant believe that some people are happy to pay these big bills. So well done for taking a stand Arthur and I hope it works out, keep us informed! Exactly as others have been saying is we need to make a point to AT that we won't put up with it, and we need to do so without impacting sales. Hopefully I haven't lost you all here but surely the thing to do so that everyone can contribute to standing up to AT, is that collectively we all commit to reducing our packages by 10, 15, 20% as an example. If you can make the most of your forecourt and keep all of those spaces full with cars that are actually up for sale and not sold, in theory it shouldn't impact your business dramatically? It wouldn't surprise me if on a busy month at least 20% of my spaces online aren't in use, either with a car thats already sold or even a space that I just don't use. For ease of numbers: 100 dealers paying £2500 a month commit to reduce there package by 20%. Total before: £250k a month to AT Total after 20% reduction: £200k a month AT losing out on 50K a month as a rough average. These are conservative numbers and I'm sure we could get alot more dealers involved than that. Best case scenario they reduce our packages. Worst case scenario a lot of us will see if we really need to advertise ALL our cars on AT. Depending on feedback, I'll be happy to make an online petition to see how many people would be willing to put there name down to reduce there AT package slightly, then I'll forward to Autotrader! Thanks

Tell them to transfer the credit card balance to their current accounts and then pay BACS. Then they can pay the associated fees that we cannot afford to over the year.

If they can’t pay by transfer or cash I don’t do business with them.

Very sad for those concerned if true but I guess as the retail landscape has changed drastically then there are always going to be casualties along the way. Cars are no longer a luxury good, they’re a disposable consumable so expect more & more changes over the next decade as how they’re retailed alters - one thing’s for sure, it’s only going to get harder.

The purpose of gap is to put the customer back in the position they started, so the price he paid is relevant not the advertised price, the invoice he received from you with the transaction price would be all they’d get from me.