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Worked at a city central dealership where space was tight, was common practice to get the customers to drop off their cars at the NCP across the road on day of handover. We had a number of spaces on the 2nd floor. We were supposed to go over and reappraise the PX cars on handover whilst customers were sat in showroom with a coffee, this didn't always happen. Anyway, on this occasion I went over, looked round the car and all looked OK, didn't actually start it or get in it but looked OK. After customer had gone and a near perfect handover, went to move the car..... Can you tell where this is going? Got in the car, went to start it, nothing, no lights, must be flat.... Back to the showroom, get the jump pack, back to the NCP, open the car, open the bonnet........ NO ENGINE!!!!! CCTV showed it being towed into car park by a white van, customer denied all knowledge and then stopped answering the phone, it went legal for a while and I think the powers that be just decided they were getting nowhere. I think if was only the fact that I used to sell a fair few cars that saved me from getting the sack but I got a final written warning over it. Was regularly brought up though and I used to die a little bit inside every time.

And £40 to use Simulcast

I suspect what has happened is someone has been adjusting the volume on their computer and accidently bid for a couple of cars by accident and then not gone to pick them up. Easy done.

Very common some times they even call you asking if your still interested .

We are on 17 for the month which is the best we have done for the first 15-16 days. hoping to break 30 this month with 29 being our record. We have been trading 2 years now, but this week we have only done 4 so may struggle to beat 30 now.

I find in these instances it's best to just let the police handle it. Thay are much more experienced in kicking the fuck out of people!

£50 is all I will take on the phone Casper . just shows commitment from customer, Come and see it and then leave the other £450 on Chip & Pin is my rule .

Seems everyone is just about ticking over at the minute, hopefully it picks up soon!

I never used beer mats.We used to doctor old tax discs to make them look current.

I have seen punters do that and then swap the tax disc for a Guinness bottle label.

A tough lesson to learn. I doubt it will get you anywhere but is it worth checking if your trade policy has any protection regarding fraud? It will also be peanuts in comparison, but I would be harrassing your credit card machine providers. I bet they've still charged you the percentage of the 7750 for processing the transaction....

Don’t you read Pistonheads or other forums? If it has anything other than Mich Pilot Sport 4’s the previous owner neglected all maintenance and you are risking your life driving such a death trap! We often saw it when we entered vehicles as it’s psychological. A couple of years back we put 15 Transits into Blackbushe which went into the F&F sale. These vans were direct from a housing association and had perfect main dealer history and were genuinely mint condition however we were drawing around £1000 less per vehicle than the Lex sale which were missing history and generally neglected. I think there is the same perception with dealer direct cars as buyers think a nice teacher has owned it and looked after it really well and only swapped as auntie Doris has left them some money rather than the nasty traders trying to pass on their knocked old bangers.

Crazy £2 to check the mot history . The one i always liked was charging both the buyer and seller to hpi check it as though its be written off from leaving the seller to going through hall

Dont you hate it when that happens? Manheim are the masters of selling you 'bolt ons' and extras that are of no value to trade buyers and that have no value when sold on. That new thing they started where you have to pay £2 to check the mot history for you? Does anyone not check mot history themselves? Lol

Went to Manheim twice earlier this year then gave up with them. Prices were horrific.

I had something similar years ago think i was still wearing short trousers at the time lol Landrover 90 had spot lights nice bull bar at the time when they were popular radio cd fitted nice alloys when the time came for them to collect discovery at the time it was a different car and total as standard Took £500 off the px price an still made a healthy profit selling it to a landrover specialist funnily enough i seen the same car on ebay last year still going strong ..

Had some Gypo's come in 15 or so years back in a 3 litre omega , wanted to chop it in cause they was doing beer runs to France and been tugged in it coming back through customs and couldn't use it no more cause its card was marked so to speak ....dealt with em, can't even remember what I sold em , few days later another lot came in looking for a big motor , you guessed it to do beer runs to France , I've got just the car lads , don't know how I kept a straight face selling it to em .

Met an interesting coach builder guy recently who owns several high value classic Mercs.It turned out he previously had an accident repair centre for many years.However it had grown to 40 staff with wall to wall agrovation and he got the opportunity to sell out.He is now doing better than ever after being asked to renovate one car.He has a workshop at home and with his son he now renovates top end classics like Ferrari’s for selected customers.He does not advertise and has 3 years work booked in.