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Showing content with the highest reputation on 03/20/15 in all areas

  1. 1 point
    Dear Auto Trader Group. Or PLC. Or whatever you are this month. Congratulations. In the words of Young Mr Grace, you’ve all done very well. For yourselves. Since my last attempt to get you to own up to your mistakes, awful decisions and unjustified money-grabbing, a lot has happened hasn’t it? It seems my little outburst was perfectly timed. But not from your perspective. You didn’t need a buzzy little mosquito around you while you were all trying to stuff your faces into the trough. It must have irritated like hell when you were trying to show the City how your market dominance was generating huge profits to justify a (ludicrous) valuation, to have somebody pointing out how stupid and arrogant you were. I know it irritated because a couple of days after I wrote it one of your Directors tried to contact me for a private discussion. I declined. I believe you wanted to have the same discussion that you had already had with the large dealer groups a few days earlier. You know, the one where you admitted there had been a slight hiccup in your Data Provision (aka almighty cock-up), but you were on top of it and all would be well in due course. Trouble is, you weren’t big enough to admit it publicly. CAP have been laughing their tits off at both you and Glass, haven’t they? Justifiably, in my view. Although they’re out of pocket, they have more than made up for it in kudos and column inches. Have you seen the article they’ve been promoting? That’s you they are mocking for believing the nonsense that Glass told you. All in all, it’s a little bit awkward isn’t it? CAP contacted me too, wanting me to contribute to a press release and a podcast about the whole debacle so they could really rub Glass’ (and your) nose in it. I declined that too. Earlier this week, you got one of your poor overworked employees to PM me, inviting me to your HQ to “show me some of the things that you are doingâ€. I have no clue why you thought I would give a tuppenny toss about your wondrous plans for the future – you can’t get things right in the present. Again, I declined. I think I ended my reply along the lines of: “I'm sick of your Company and its cynical attitude. They pretend to care, but they don't really - it's all about the money. You'll see.†Meantime, you’ve been strutting around feeling very proud of yourselves. Also justifiably. Mainly because you have now managed to raise the not inconsiderable sum of £2.35Billion. Two thousand, three hundred and fifty million pounds. No wonder you couldn’t be arsed to answer a couple of salient points raised by a customer. Because I was right: It IS all about the money. You lucky, lucky, greedy, greedy boys