Phil H

have you got the full V5?, did you HPI it? Was it from a dealer with premises, roadside trader or privately? The important thing to do is don't panic. send me a DM with your phone number and I'll advise you the best I can

this deal was announced today but Lex are closing their 2 remarketing sites and have signed a 5 year deal for all of their vehicles to get sold through bca. Wonder what manheim's next move will be to strike back?

not convinced about the paragon deal as they've bought Stobart automotive and ambrossetti which combined do more or less what paragon do. But you never know as they do like to buy their competitors out to have a bigger slice of the cake for themselves. They must be making a lot of money from retailing their own cars to fund all of these acquisitions.

have the big just got bigger and even more greedy or have Lex seen sense and realized what this deal would do for the industry? http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/fleet-industry-news/2015/11/29/lex-ready-to-outsource-80-000-defleets-to-bca I was informed the other day it's a done deal but we all know what this industry is like for rumours can anybody either confirm or deny this please.

scum. I'm sure the customer will understand. Have you checked Ebay to see if it's for sale on there? Good luck with it

Bethany, do you visit this site often? Do you listen to the podcasts? Do you read you own dealer edit portal's forum? If you do then you'd realize how much Dealers are becoming unhappy with you. Does AutoTrader care about the lots of unhappy customers amongst it's paying dealers or just about price increases and pacifying the shareholders? IMHO Auto trader is a bit like marmite you either love it or hate it and with your endless price rises more and more dealers are switching to the later, not because you don't have a good product because you do, but times are hard for dealers with margins getting squeezed from all angles, wouldn't it be nice to reward your loyal customers who have made you the company you are today, with something nice like for every 3 months you advertise you get 2 weeks free. It would cost you a little in the short term but really would be a nice gesture to help those who pay your wages in times of need, after all how many millions are you saving without sending your copy collectors out every week and printing a magazine. Do something nice today help the dealers and they will continue to support you when a viable alternative comes along.

Whats profanity sounds a bit painful to me?

Lack of Balloons maybe?

What really peeves me off is the way everybody looks down on us in the motor trade as if we are scum of the earth and we'd sell your mother for a fiver. I've been speaking to a hell of a lot of Dealers from various parts of the country and of varying sizes explaining what I'm doing and the reasons behind it and I tell you what I have never spoke to so many Polite, Courteous, Respectful and Welcoming people for years. It's amazing how many of them share the same views as me, but what I really find encouraging is they all say enough is enough and instead of fighting each other are prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder to protect their livelihoods before it's too late. Speaking to them brought back the good old days where you could just chat for ages, build relationships, swap opinions everyone's head was between their bum's as they've had to lay staff off and take on more duties themselves to keep there head above water due to ever decreasing margins but they still had the time of day and respect for me. When they picked up the phone and I introduced myself the first thought that probably went through their head was "oh no not not another telesales call" by the time the call ended we'd laid the foundations of a long relationship to come. So IMO the days of "A True Gentleman or Woman of the Trade" aren't dead but instead making a comeback and I look forward to having a close prosperous close working relationship with you for many years to come.

I can sum their business ethics up in 1 word GREEDY

I'm speaking to a lot of dealers at the moment and it really is a bit hit and miss out there, one dealer I know has 70 cars, works from home 4 full time members of staff, stores them on a farm, doesn't sell them cheap and puts a good chunk across them, does the job right, he did 10 last week, another has 2 pitches, 300 cars does the job right over preps them but only did 4 last week but 35 the week before which was his best week of the year so far. If only the job was consistent rather than boom or bust. The only difference's between the 2 is the first one is based in the north west and is still lucky enough to buy direct from the dealers and the other is based down south and relies heavily on the auctions and auto trade mail for his stock.

These people claim to of been doing it since 1999 on their website but this indicates differently. http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://sellyourjamjar.co.uk but not every page on every website is captured by wayback time machine depending on whether robots are switched on or off on the website settings. Good luck with yours the more of us who can help stop the greedy middlemen from ripping off the public and pushing up stock prices the better. Are you still owned by the same man who has had it since the start I think his name was Charles?

I would have to disagree and here's why. If you go by date alone then you could argue that the cash for cars market was created by the very first newspaper advert many years ago by a dealer simply saying in his advert "we buy cars for cash". Now in 2001 your website did advertise that you where the UK's number 1 buyer of quality used cars and that you had clients waiting from all over the UK. Correct me if I'm wrong but that sounds to me like you were buying off the public and selling to the trade therefore being a middleman. IMO for the cash for cars market to be truly created there came a moment when something happened that was a game changer and that was when the concept of cellyourcar, a concept that your own website chose to adopt in 2013 when you went from the UK's number 1 buyer of quality used cars to helping members of the public find a trade buyer for their car, something cellyourcar was doing back in 2005. Cellyourcar had the vision of the market for us all to have a piece of the cake but sadly it introduced the big boys to it who were not happy with a piece of the cake they wanted it all for themselves and had the huge budgets to start up their own cash for cars websites and make it the unfair place that it is today by creating even bigger middlemen than ever before. The next game changer in the cash for cars market is just around the corner I wonder how many more will try and copy the concept?

And then when the hammer goes down the doubts set in, why was it so cheap? what did I miss? and 2 days of anguish until it gets delivered. Any wonder why our industry has a high level of strokes, heart attacks and lots of grey hair (if you're lucky enough to still have some).

I had some fun earlier this year by sending the head of marketing at WBAC an email from change@wbac, with the subject Line WE BRING ABOUT CHANGE, wonder what he thought as it landed in his inbox but then again his computer may of just seen the wbac and automatically put it in the trash bin. sent one to senior management at wwac as well. As GG says It is quite clear that the peasants are revolting and I couldn't agree more. Never got a response from either can't figure it out for the life of me, I used my best English and didn't swear so I guess it could only of been something that I said.

I've often wondered if they do it on purpose just to wind you up and they get a kick out of the thought you screaming and shouting at your computer, playing with your emotions and causing your stress levels to go through the roof.

yes very fair, they couldn't of wanted it that much. Sod's law says you'll sell it to someone else then they'll phone up wanting to leave a deposit and you'll be unable to duplicate it.

not for long, listen to last Fridays www.motortraderadio.com podcast and hear about what us dealers are doing to combat this.

it's called greed, and that's what auto trader has become about, let's fleece the dealer for as much as we can so our staff can write on classic cars in our office's.

There's no doubt about it but the cash for cars market has certainly changed the way that members of the public sell their car, and IMHO not always for the best, but my question to you is where do you think this market came from and is the cash for cars market severely harming your business or have you embraced it and it's improved your business? Many of you will say WBAC created the market but I disagree I think It started here http://web.archive.org/web/20070609085343/http://www.cellyourcar.com/index.asp most of the industry's biggest players registered to buy cars from the public via this site before going on to set up there own websites that dominate the market today http://web.archive.org/web/20070617094733/http://www.cellyourcar.com/public/public_about_us.htm including the big one. Also where do you see the cash for cars market heading in the next 2 years are the big going to get bigger or is a backlash from the independents just around the corner. Would love to hear you're views. If you want to hear mine listen to Friday's podcast on motortraderadio.com

Can't wait for you to get GG on as a guest, but make sure he keeps his disguise up by making him wear a green giant suit and paint his face green. Why don't you get him to interview someone from AT's senior management about their price structure, now that would make interesting TV. Good luck with it hope it all goes well for you.

I'm sure cap have a future values department have you tried calling them to see if they can help

well done bca at least they've done the decent thing. If you do end up sending it back please publish the reg so that if it goes back through without an assured report no one on here gets stung with it.

contact bca's press officer I think he's called Tim Naylor you'll find it in bca's website and tell him about all of the negative publicity you'll put his way unless they do the honourable thing

welcome to the wonder full world of auto trader where everything comes at a price. You've got to explore all avenues and don't think that if you ditch auto trader your sales will dry up. Speak to Jim Reid about Facebook he and others are doing very well from it for a fraction of the cost of at. Try using this one carsnip.com it's free and Alistair who runs it is a really nice guy and he understands what us dealers want and need. If we all back it this could be the one to really dent autotraders dominance and greed.