Mrs MINI

After reading all the above comments on this thread, I am thinking my business model may be all wrong - perhaps I should be buying retail & putting them through the auctions ??

Oh My, I have just discovered that Motors can not only send my feed of cars to Ebay, etc but they can also send it to AUTOTRADER & the best part - ITS FREE OF CHARGE..... Yes unlike Autotrader who charge to send a feed anywhere else, Motors are doing it for FREE.... That is one way to save some money off your Autotrader account costs. The power is shifting.... and for once its in the independent dealer's favour....

If its just the edges that are marked and if you are near me, pop it round and we can fit a set of Gators - Hides the edges, and is a protector for the customer for the future - £150.00 inc vat retail for 4 wheels, but I am sure I can work out a deal for a fellow trader.

Well I sent you my info and got a cryptic response over a week ago and I've heard nothing since - seems I wasted my time Umesh.

Been with RAC for 9 days and had 3 leads in total, 2 wanting viewings (shame its on the same MINI mind!) So far, so good... I have high hopes...

Ha Ha Bethany - I sent an e-mail to my account manager John, I knew a response was unlikely so I posted in the forum too. I copied his boss in on the e-mail and she did respond saying she would come back to me - but alas so far she has failed to do so! As for taking longer than usual Bethany, I have lowered my expectation dramatically & now consider myself fortunate to even get a response from Autotrader Bethany - do you think Chris Robinson may respond in writing anytime soon? Worth asking??

I do so hope RAC or Motors outpace AT!! Since Bethany from Auotrader appears to responds here more than on her own company forum - I will post here instead?!! Autotrader - do you treat all your paying customers with such contempt.... or have I been specially chosen for the privilege? Post being ignored on AT forum as follows:- Chris Robinson – can I just check my understanding? I used to get deltapoint valuation tool included in my package. Are you telling me that from 1st July this will no longer be included? Are you telling me that you need to lock me into Autotrade-mail to access trade valuations from here forward? If so – either way you are forcing a cost on me over and above my package price – either Autotrade-mail or Retail Checker – to be in the same position as I was before? If that is what you are telling me, then my account manager John Higgins has told me an untruth, as he said deltapoint would be available as the alternative, and so did Sarah Shaw, in fact I think I have it in writing from John somewhere – will check past e-mails. If you are removing this from my package (without my agreement) then what decrease in my package costs are you proposing for this reduction in service you are giving me? I take it that it will be the same amount it would cost me if I were to take this new Retail Checker product of yours? I really wouldn’t mind but your retail checker is just a load of old tosh….. as I posted following my experience this morning…. BEARING IN MIND THAT I DO NOT WANT TO BE LEFT BEHIND & before I made a final decision, I decided to give it a proper go this morning – benefit of the doubt etc etc & So my trial took place on a bog standard MINI One – not to tricky a test…. Retail checker says…… AX63LBU 2013 (63) 15,000 miles, 1 owner Retail guide: £10,669 – would rank it 3 out of 8 with a level of desirability at 3.5 stars!! Part-ex guide: £7,690 This MINI One changed hands this morning in a TRADE Auction at £9,055.00 so that makes the PX figure £1,360.00 less than the actual live value today of a bog standard MINI One. So Chris Robinson, perhaps you can see my point – you intend me to accept that I will get less for my money, yet you want me to pay handsomely for rubbish valuations on Retail checker …. I would dearly love to hear your explanation as to how any of this is helping me – your paying customer…. Why do I feel like I am being shafted by AT – YET AGAIN

Ah, but if you have a financial interest in the vehicle (for what ever reason) then HPI will set it up for you - well they did for me when I explained my set of circumstances. Helped me prevent the car from being moved on until a debt was cleared.

I think I would be putting an HPI security alert on the MPV he has, just in case he tries to move it on & convert everything back to cash... just a thought to protect you in the short term, as you can’t recover the MPV if he’s moved it on.

Autotrader’s misleading valuations, along with missing models are (in my opinion) driving down the price of MINIs I have an 07 MINI Cooper S with JCW conversion - a 210 bhp . I can only load this as a standard Cooper S with 175 bhp since AT swapped from Cap to Glass Guide, so potentially misleading customers with inaccurate data. (In fairness AT said the missing model will be corrected BUT not until the end of February some 9 weeks away from now - not very impressive) Autotrader’s valuation systems say Part Ex £5,320.00 Glass Guide Say £6,590 (but give the option to add extras which would bump it for the JCW to £7500, more realistic of the market place) Autotrader Private Sales value is £6,650 if you are selling but if you are buying it says to expect to pay a Dealer £7,570 - £8,370 Glass Guide Retail is £8,010 + the JCW addition Autotrader Retail Price is £7,968 and I have it advertised at £9,000 What is going on? Please someone tell me how AT can value a car at £5,320 to a member of the public if they are selling it/px it, when I have it at 9K when I am selling it - that’s a difference of 3,680 which is more than 50% of their PX value. Customers are not stupid and whilst I would love to draw three and a half grand from a MINI, clearly that doesn’t happen or we’d all be dipping our toes in our pools in the South of France !! On one hand Autotrader price it at £7,968 for retail (when I am in the actual car on my dealer portal) yet they tell customers who go to the valuation page something different when they click "buy". Exasperated with Autotrader’s valuation systems doesn’t even come close!! Be interested to hear other people’s exercise and thoughts.....

Well Motors have today delivered me their first lead after just 7 days live. Same volume as Autotrader, but cost per lead is a tad different! Autotrader Motors £1200 £170

Met Motors rep today Very professional Never met a rep from Autotrader,despite having paid them over £26K since I started advertising with them. Signed up to Motors - 3 months contract then rolling - not the snare that AT trap you with Reasonable deal from Motors & few extra features included - with none of that extra cost lark from AT. Notice served on Autotrader to reduce me back down to the minimum from 1st February Wheelerdealer1 - do the maths - that will give you the answers I’ve sold 1 car this month (so far) from AT, so that lead cost me approx £1,200.00 Didn’t make that on the car so will be out of pocket with them again this month ! I can’t possibly be any worse off kicking AT into touch......

So, I take time when photographing my cars to hide the registration numbers of my stock. Prevents cloning, prevents duff info being added to Hpi reports where muppets get digits muddled etc & protects consumers property if I have a car on sale or return. (No helping criminals here!) Then I discover that any Autotrader account holder, & I'm not convinced Autotrader can identify specifically which one, can, without my knowledge click onto my Autotrader advert of a car & click value & go as far as the cost page, & even if they do not proceed further & do not spend the £19 or £24 to purchase a valuation, can get access to the registration number of any vehicle I have advertised. Within an hour Autotrader actually send out an email asking if you want to proceed with a valuation on xxx999 registration. Tried raising it with Autotrader & 10 days later ZERO response. Tried chasing them, not interested, usual black hole job! So, do I own the data of my reg numbers, since I own the vehicle & have the v5? What about a car I have on sale or return? How is the consumer's property protected? By Autotrader using the reg numbers without my permission are they stealing my intellectual property? Does this activity that Autotrader practise breach any data protection legislation? Should I A) go to the police & report it as theft? send Autotrader a bill for use of my data (would so love to do this - darn expensive my data you know!!) C) shut up & put up (really struggling with this option) D) wait for someone on this forum to come up with a better solution? E) actively seek out a journalist to take up the baton & introduce the topic into a more public arena What are your thoughts & views?

So on 12 November Autotrader re-do my packages (price increase as always) & at the end of that week send me this Mrs Mini: Mon 10 Nov - Sun 16 Nov Total Weekly Statistics Calls From Mobile Answered Missed Engaged Average Time to Answer Average Call Duration 0 0 0 0 0 0s 0s Answered / Missed / Engaged All credit to them - you’ve got to have some b@lls to be that arrogant to actually put in writing - that you are charging more and delivering nothing, nada, rien, zip - yup diddly squat for my money! Wonder if they think that I am blonde? I’ll be re-visiting my options when the uncapped stock offer ends thats for sure. Motors Rep coming to see me Monday. Motors didn’t do much for me first time around, but things change and they may have stepped up a gear. Lets face it, it would be cheaper to pay Motors less to do nothing than Autotrader!!