trade vet

Excellent advice Justin.Lifestyle,I know a trader who is the tightest guy I have ever met.Nice house but low personal drawings from his business.His books are spot on but they were suspicious.They actually went to his home and went through his wife’s wardrobe.This was a long time ago...Sounds like your friend is in deep shit.

You are wrong guys,VAT inspectors are OK in my experience.They take notes and ask a few questions about your business but if you are unsure of the answer just say ‘I will have to get back to you on that one’.They may have some flavour of the month to charge you extra tax but you don’t find that out until a few weeks later.Someone told me it is presently ‘de minimis rules ‘ which I fail to understand.If you declare everything,you have nothing to worry about.I would suggest that you should get the inspectors direct contact details on commencement of the inspection for record keeping purposes ( However it is if you need to query any additional assessment you may be unhappy with ).They sometimes try it on.I recall being assessed on negative equity finance deal balances and the inspector tried to avoid me when I contacted his office. ( which is within the 2nd biggest office block in the world,DSS Longbenton and less than a mile from our house).I was told it was not open to the public.I subsequently followed procedure and complained to Southampton or somewhere and met him later.The assessments were dropped.

No Rory,definateley not.Infact he could probably buy you at one end of the street and sell you at the other.Forget it.

If any of you guys are interested I could introduce you to a highly respected independent buyer ( ex BCA management) who acts for BCA account holders.He does Ingleston and several other Scottish auctions and organises delivery and stuff at reasonable prices.

Shotts,what a place.Have not been for years,Big Ian and Anne lovely people,no bullshit with them.( story coming up )In fact the last time I was there this well dressed big black guy ( in Shotts ?) politely asked if I could give him advice about some car.I did,but then I said excuse me but do I know you.He said possibly and I went away.I then remembered went over and said Norwich,goal of the season way back when.He said yes,times have changed I am now part time for Falkirk or somewhere.It was the late Justin Fashanu,very sad. I agree about Kinross aswell,there was a lady who I would leave bids with and when you rang the next morning not only would you have bought one or two it was often for less money and best of all she would say ‘they are on their way’.

Amazing.It should be compulsory viewing for school teachers,college lecturers and those civil servants who claim to be over worked and stressed out and need more holidays etc.Mind you I think I would prefer to do that than have a 400 grand stocking loan which appears to be norm these days.( cannot do a smiley)

I think I do enjoy the view Noacross,I am part time,very part time.After 50 years I now enjoy the chat more than the actual trade.As for our local Trading Standards,I am probably still on their watch list.To give you an idea I recall at noon one Christmas Eve and the TS guy comes in looking for me to tell me that the size of the APR was not consistent with the size of our advert.It was one centimetre too small I kid you not.I think I will try again to see what happens but firstly I will take your tip and do a quarter page car buying ad at £50.It can run for 6 weeks for the cost of one BCA buyers fee.

Going back a good few years,I have ‘previous’ with Trading Standards with this sort of thing in AT mag days.We used to list stock like this. cost new.....cash price....no deposit......£25p/w.....48 mths etc. It worked very well and I used to argue with the Trading Standards guy that it was diffinitive advertising for those consumers not capable of calculating their commitments.I think we eventually got some final warning and had to change.The thing is the likes of Evans Halshaw and Trade Centre Wales still appear to get away with it advertising on line but they are not trading in our area.

Thank you Rory,I think you are right and will give it a go.The only thing is there can be FCA restrictions using words like weekly payments,no deposit,real APR rate and its correct size and placement.I have been there before with our local jobsworth Trading Standards guy, Thank you again,what a good idea.

Hi Noacross Excellent post.We are also with Click Dealer but we found that their SEO for our online car buying site has been below expectations.However on the retail side and everything else,they are good and I would recommend them.I now know from a another local car buying site who do well,that they spend £3000 per month on SEO stuff to get noticed. Interesting you are still doing a bit with newspapers,they are so cheap,there a couple of pitches up here who never miss a week in the local rag.Maybe,I should give it another try,it’s £50 for a quarter page and 16000 paid for circulation. Last week we were buying one in at the door as they were getting a Motability car.She then says I can now buy that Micra CC for my mother.She did,it was £2000 and in Southampton about 350 miles away and she was going to drive it back.I tried to explain it was not a good idea.

Hi Del Boy Are you new to the job,if not and you are worried about a CRV,some people might enquire if you are of a nervous disposition.Others might say,is this the right job for you.....ONLY JOKING !.......With swappers,I always say it is about protecting the down side.In this case,the worst way round is that you will always get £2950 for it,so there is no need to worry...Good Luck.

Thanks AD,you are right,but I have been into this search engine optimisation stuff and these guys are wanting big money for no guaranteed results which these geeks say is the industry norm.I don’t buy that.So we are buying one or two every week at the door from passing trade and that’s OK.I would have done all the stuff years ago but not any more.

I am out of date alright.I was watching the pitch the other day and the easiest punter comes in and walks round a Quashqui and says ‘ I will have it’and ‘I will just pay you now and collect it tomorrow.So he gives me his debit card and I couldn’t work the machine.

Yes AD,I agree,but my understanding was that there are still a lot of over fifties ( cash punters and debt free )who don’t use the internet but buy newspapers, so for £50 it was worth ago.It wasn’t just sales it was a car buying add also and I thought we would have a least bought one car from it.

If you want to look like a tourist,do the PCH in a Mustang Convertible....How many Mustangs do you see in LA ,not many.

We tried the local paper.The rep said sales were now down to 25000,so I checked and it was nearer 16000.Anyway we were getting a quarter page for £50 ( would have been £500 in 80s ) so we gave it a go for 2 weeks.The ads looked really good..... We never got a sniff.

He may have to pay up with an accompanying recorded delivery letter boldly stating that the payment is under protest.Then he can do something about later.

Walsall...Northerners........???

I am referring to doing basic stuff yourself.Jet washing,machine polishing,wet vacs,inking and touch ups etc etc .It can become an addiction.

Spec check is good.We bought a Convertible 3 series at the door lately for top money and it did have a lot of extras.Like Nick’s ML,we did a spec check and it had 14 grand of extras,does help the job.

Thank you Nick,they are charging us £3.21 on our new and larger account but as an extra when they said it was included........... ......game on.

You work on your own and don’t do any minting...? .It is different for you internet,appointment only traders.With pitch hopping punters your stock has to be mint at all times because they might buy something else to what they came in for.I do believe you about jet washing engines,let’s face it there are a lot of punters now who buy without looking under the bonnet.However,us old guys like it mint under the bonnet.

It’s not fair,it’s just another hurdle in the obstacle course.Theft of prime chucky punters is even worse. Out of interest Nick how much are they charging for spec check and is it included in your overall deal.They told me it was included but it wasn’t,infact they told me a few things and charged more despite us having another account with them from many years ago.

You can never do enough on the appearance.I used to spend hours valeting,minting and transforming stuff.You can go back to the same car time and time again and find something else to improve it.I still know ‘prep stars’ from years ago and they still command top retail money from transforming stuff at minimal cost,such is their skill using machine polishers,touch ups,printers ink on bodywork and their work on interiors and under the bonnet is something else.

I bought a few at Newcastle yesterday and managed to collect one but the others were blocked.So we go back this morning and they were still blocked in.It is really annoying when the yard guys are in no hurry and when you tell them that you expect an easy collection because you have paid £300 in buyers fees per vehicle,they just look blank.Other than that, Newcastle is very good ,friendly and efficient compared with the southern auctions.We stopped doing Enfield years ago because the transporter got a ticket while loading near the rear gate so they refused to lift from there again.Wimbledon was another one,the transporter was chased away at 4pm because they would not pull 4 cars because they finished at 5.