GreenGiant

You're so right. Here's a little secret - keep it to yourself..... What you have to do is work out how much you could sell it for (but don't use your own judgement, pay for someone else to tell you what they think), then deduct your expenses, anticipated prep and overheads, then work out how much of a profit you want and take that off the total. Slice off a bit more just in case and what you have left is the actual buying price you should be aiming for. All cars will be available at that price with no competition or adjustment for spec, condition etc. This revolutionary way of buying stock is all the rage, don't you know? I think we should call it "Retail Less" or something... Anyway, I'm right, you're wrong and that'll be £2k per month by Direct Debit with a 90-day cancellation period, please. You're welcome.

I get packets of them from Ebay - 20 for about five or six quid They do the job, no complaints yet.

Yep. You kill him - your fault. And I bet he gave you the finger as you passed.

I haven't had a pop at pedestrians for a while, so it's time to move them up the slapping order. This week, chugging along, minding my own business, window open, I saw a family group starting to cross the road: Mother (I assume) pushing buggy containing infant. Child aged about 5 on a scooter. Another child aged around 10 chatting on her phone(!). As I approached (slowly) the mother started to go in front of me (pushing the baby out first, obviously), realised that it wasn't safe and pulled back. Unfortunately, the other 2 were just following blindly and on they went..... Panic ye not, dear friends, as I had anticipated such an outcome and stopped without any harm coming to anyone. As the window was open, I remarked to the child on the phone that perhaps she should pay a bit more attention to the traffic whilst crossing. OMG. The mother exploded with rage. Who the eff was I to tell her effin kids how to cross the road? Its her phone and she can use it if she wants. It's eff all to do with me. Well, I said, if and when your child does that again and it doesn't end quite so well and she has to be scraped off the front of my car and the police are knocking on your door giving you the bad news, whose fault will you want it to be? Because if you want it to be my fault then it has everything to do with me, because I'm trying to help save her life. Which is clearly more than you're doing. In an ideal world, she would have taken a moment to fully reflect on the situation, appreciate the issues and thank me for the words of wisdom and also for being vigilant enough to have prevented a tragedy. We don't live in an ideal world. I was reminded of the film 'Scanners' as I watched the colour of her face reach the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. Then I just shut the window and did as she suggested I should.

cartotrade.com Trade only, not anyone with a scrapper to sell. Run by the same guys that started ATM, until they sold it to the greedy, greedy boys, who, naturally, bled the subscribers dry, ruined the product and ignored complaints because they knew best.

I feel for you bro'. If you want a guest spot on Ranty Friday, just let me know.

I'm glad you find it funny, Umesh. In reality, it should worry the hell out of us. This is how low the bar is (see what I did there?) and I don't see it being raised any time soon.

So. Popped into the pub on the way home the other night with some of the guys from work. Bought a round (Not a rant about the price of beer - gave up on that around 1998). The total was £17.33 and I gave the barmaid £22.55 to get rid of a bit of shrapnel. You have no idea how much of a problem that caused. You see, the till was on the fritz and didn't tell her how much change to give, so she had to work it out herself. Well that was a whole world of pain I didn't know existed. I got given the £2.55 back to start with "'cos that's too much, luv". After trying to explain that I was helping both her and me as I didn't want to lose my trousers on the way home because of the excess weight and she wouldn't have to use a load of useful change (both reasons were greeted by a look so vacant I could have rented it out), we ended up with the manager, two barstaff members and an interfering twat of a local all deciding that the best thing was to tell me to keep the £2.55 and then have an additional £3.67. I kid you not. This is worthy of a rant on so many levels I don't actually know where to begin. How in the name of all things sacred did Great Britain end up here please?

Desmond

Name and shame, James! In fact, this could be the beginnings of either this week's rant, or a whole new thread of 'outing' rip-off merchants - punters and suppliers.

Oh. Got a rental car booked at Alicante airport in a few weeks' time.... ...with Goldcar... May rethink that now. However, I booked through doyouspain.com and filtered out the full/empty fuel policy bandits and selected full/full. Needless to say, that costs more up front, but they can't stiff you for the 'cost' of the fuel. And I have an Annual car hire excess policy for waaaay less than they try and strap you up for. This obviously means they have no additional income from any bolt-ons so will be looking to find any damage they can when I return so they can try and charge 600 Euros for a small chip on the bumper. I always take great care when collecting a rental car and take many many photos of all blemishes and also make sure the damage report is FULLY completed before I even leave the car park. Needless to say, the holiday car rental business is constantly being cited as a major tourist scam that needs sorting. Shame other governments in the EU don't give as much of a toss about conforming as we seem to.

So. Woman emailed overnight Thursday about one. Rang first thing in the morning and said would be coming over in the afternoon from 45 miles away. Wanted to pay cash and no px. Told her we closed at 6 and, if lucky, the journey would take her an hour. She rang at 5.15 to say she was just leaving... I would like to see this car gone so I said I'd wait (error #1) Pitched up at ten to seven and then asked all manner of daft questions about the car - why did someone sell it? Why are the brake callipers rusty? How much would a new windscreen cost? What happens if the plastic bumpers start to rust? Then wanted to test drive it. I agree (error #2). 40 minutes later return and then decides she wants to px her 04 plate Meriva. 135k mls, 20 minutes MOT, 2 different shades of silver, all wheels damaged and inside like Shrek's underpants. Offered £300 to get the deal done. Then she wants finance. And wants to take it straight away. Go through the HP vs PCP presentation (error #3) and we get to an agreeable monthly payment. Produces driving licence for ID - expired last month and wrong address anyway. Nothing else available, so is it OK if finance is in her partner's name? 8pm gave her a finance prop form to take away to fill in. Haven't seen or heard of her since. Didn't ring her either (correct decision #1).

Seriously?This is an online system; the Internet doesn't close.I just bigged you up on here then you do this to me and bugger off for the night whilst I'm right in the middle of dealing with a PX in front of a customer.Cheers for nowt. GOV.UK Buying a vehicle into tradeBETA This is a new service - your feedback will help us to improve it Service ClosedThe supporting systems for this service are currently unavailable. The normal hours of operation are Monday to Saturday - 08:00 to 18:00. Please complete your transaction during these hours.

Ladies and Gentlemen. Here is the news. Auto Trader have been informing their 'customers'* that their current 'packages' are coming to an end and new ones will be coming into effect shortly - At increased prices. But this is being disguised by the Greedy, Greedy Boys as a removal of this year's discount against last year's increase, so not an increase at all. Or something equally duplicitous. Words have officially failed me. Almost. They really, really are on some kind of Kamikaze mission, aren't they? *For clarification, especially for the hierarchy at AT, this is a technical term for those who pay your ***king wages! You could do worse than to remember that.

Yeah, there is that, if you want to smoke around in the swapper. But for a quick end to a long Cherished Transfer process, the online 'Pass to Trade' thingy seems like the way to go. And also to get cars into trade at month end so they don't keep hold of the next month's tax.

And you don't even have to send the yellow slip away either- that can be done online too.

May I suggest my learned friends obtain a copy of the film 'Suckers' from their local DVD/video emporium. Highly amusing up until a poor ending (jeez, I'm even doing film reviews now!), but some excellent tips on dealing with problem customers and quite a few familiar scenarios for some of us to reminisce about from days gone by. favourite quote: Manager to customer trying to cancel... "Is this your signature?" "Err yes" "£*#k off, you're an owner" Maybe not wholly suitable for those in a customer services type environment, but bloody funny.

Here's what the original notice from the FCA said to us a couple of months back: Dear Sir/Madam, FCA rules[1] require all firms that carry on credit broking where a fee or charge is or may become payable by a customer in connection with the credit broking activities to notify the FCA quarterly of their web domain names. Currently, this should be done by email, fax, postal return or by hand, setting out the required information, within 30 business days of the end of the relevant quarter. Therefore, your first notification is due on or before 15 May 2015. We are also allowing online submission using the attached ‘survey tool’ to help facilitate compliance. If customers do not pay you a fee or charge then you do not need to take any further action. Except you do. So that was nonsense. Good start.

My vote is: No They're off to buy the deathtrap parked in the layby down the road. Don't forget two of the main KPIs that you should concentrate on: "Best Price" = Worst Profit And the customers that give you the most aggro are the ones you make the least out of. (The reverse of that is also true)

...ahem...

There's probably a flaw or two in this, but i'm just thinking out loud: So, if anyone's interested in one of our cars, we should really just give 'em the keys and let them smoke it for a month with the agreement that if nothing breaks, they can pop back and pay us for the car at the end. If, say, a brake light bulb blows in the meantime, we'll just have the car back and try again with another one. Saves on invoicing and VAT returns I suppose, so should work perfectly! Sounds like this Friday's rant is already sorted.

Hmmmm. *twiddles ends of handlebar moustache*

I too am sad to hear that Wheelerdealer1 is leaving the Trade - he cannot compete with the fly-by-night home traders that are sucking the lifeblood out of the industry. His story here It is, indeed, a sorry situation when any old bandit can pretend to be a Motor Dealer, buy a snotter out of the auction, stick a few hundred sovs over the bonnet and 'retail' it, without any consideration as to Warranty, VAT etc And yet they get away with it because there is no Official Registry of Bona Fide Motor Traders. No Licensed Motor Retailers and Repairers. No Society of Proper Blokes Selling Proper Cars. You get the drift. Am I in favour of having Official Licensed Traders? Well, I'm not so sure. For one it would be difficult to police, as there are so many levels within our business from Super Duper Franchised Megastores to the One Man Band and who would do the policing? As long as all Traders do the job properly, we should all be able to co-exist and earn a living. There will always be the chancers who see it as an easy way to make a few quid, but this has always been the case. So I'm not sure that having Licensed Traders would change anything. We can do a bit about it by making it difficult for them to get cars, although I don't expect any help from the Auction Houses on that score. I had one of these 'Home Traders' pop in this week (like most weeks, tbh) seeing if there were any 'choppers' he could buy to sell on. I asked for his VAT No. He didn't seem to have one. We had a brief chat about the moral and legal responsibilities of running a business these days and then he left. That was 10 minutes of my life I'm not going to get back, but it won't stop him. You see, I don't think the problem lies with us. It's the punters. As Wheelerdealer1 says, there are vast numbers of people who don't care about the quality, they just want it cheap. They have the VoucherCode mentality and for them profit is a 4 letter word (especially if they spell it prft). They're the ones you dread when their first question is "what's your best price?" before they've even seen the car. They don't care that you've prepped it properly, because you don't want them to die screaming in a ball of flame on the way home. They don't care that the Warranty you give will actually cover the parts it says it will, for longer than an Australian innings. They certainly couldn't give a monkey's willy about your overheads. They want your car, for the same price as the deathtrap they saw down the road, or they're going to buy that one. And they do. Maybe we need 2 separate categories of businesses and customers. The properly-run, legitimate ones can only deal with reasonable, sensible people and the greedy, scuzzy numpties can all just bugger off together.

I is back, innit. What do you want me to rant about tomorrow?

Ok, I have it sorted now. This is the place to keep abreast of the new vernacular: http://www.gizoogle.net/tranzizzle.php Just copy & paste the full address from the bar above in to the box and hit enter LMAO