Rogue Traders Who Prey On The Motor Trade

There was a piece of rough ground at the end of my pitch and as part of my agreement it was supposed to be tarmacked, two years into our agreement and it still hadn’t been done, every time it rained dirt splashed up my cars and anyone wishing to look inside trampled mud into the footwells, I was getting a little fed up by now and I told the landlord that if he didn’t get it done, I would, and then knock the money out of my rent.

I called a couple of friends and they gave me a quote, to do the job properly it would cost £1000, my landlord went green when I told him and he said he would find someone cheaper, as luck would have it a couple of days later some guys called asking if we wanted any Tarmaccing done and the landlord asked for a quote “It would be at least £2000 subject to any complications” The Land Lord went greener then refused.

Later that week there was a knock on my Portakabin door, and a guy asked me to move my cars off the forecourt so they could begin tarmacking, I recognised him and refused, I told him that I myself wasn’t allowed to make any alterations and neither had I received instructions that there was any work going to be carried out,  he made all sorts of threats saying that his tarmac would go cold and be ruined and that I would have to pay etc, etc , I had more important matters to attend to as my bacon butty was going cold too, so I ignored him, he marched off to protest to the LandLord who had seen him arrive and had now made himself scarce, the Tarmaccer finally cleared off and never came back during working hours.
Shortly after the incident, I arrived at my car lot to find a brick through the windscreen of one of my vehicles, coincidence? I think not, but even so I was a lot luckier than some of the other Motor Traders I’ve heard about, and it didn’t cost me as much, perhaps the Gypsies curse was finally wearing off!

The owner of one of the garages where I used to buy cars turned up for work at his £2 million pound prestige dealership, the place was a typical Gin palace showroom, it was immaculate and there was never a thing out of place, so as he drove on to the forecourt he was surprised to see some guy in a string vest swinging a pickaxe at his pristine used car display area, he saw two other areas of the pitch had also been desecrated.

Without even bothering to park his car, keen to stop the perpetrator before he did any more damage the Owner ran across and said “for God’s sake what are you doing, is there a gas leak or something?” “No,” said the guy with an Irish accent, “Someone from here rang my Boss and asked us to repair these 3 holes” exasperated the owner replied “But there weren’t 3 holes until you dug them, I’m calling the Police”
Un phased by the threat the Rab C Nesbit look-alike said, “You do and I will Rip you a new Ar**hole, you have a lot of really big glass windows in here and some very expensive cars, I bet it costs a fortune to insure” the penny dropped and knowing he was fighting a losing battle with someone who had no fear of the law,  the Owner gulped and asked Ok, How much is it going to cost me, for you to go away and never come back?

No one knows the exact figure but I was led to believe it was in excess of a thousand pounds! not a bad wage for digging 3 holes.
One of the Dealer principles of a group I worked for had the same experience, however, he was actually expecting workmen to arrive, so the workman’s story hadn’t struck him as odd and he didn’t put 2 and 2 together, the story goes that he had even asked the “Tarmacer’s” to carry out some more repairs that he had noticed before these new holes had appeared

In order to pay the Tarmaccer in cash as they were now demanding, the Dealer Principle had got to get clearance from Head Office this was when the scam came to light as the “Real Workman” hadn’t actually been instructed to start the job yet, The DP wasn’t a well-liked man in the Group, but we all liked the people at  Head Office even less, and they refused to sanction a cash withdrawal, the Tarmaccer’s made it clear what would happen if they weren’t paid  and  although I don’t have first-hand knowledge I believe that the DP was escorted to his own bank where he handed over £3000 of his own savings.

Barrie Crampton