Good bye tax disc hello new rules

From October we shall be saying good bye to our old friend the TAX disc. On this article I shall go over the new rules WHICH I stress are a MUST read even if you think you know about the tax disc going you might not know the new rules!

TAX Disc

Well Lets start off with one thing most people should know by now from October the 1st 2014 you will no longer have to display the little round disc on your car.
However this has caused huge confusion for a lot of people.
Now your still have to pay for road tax just as you do now, either via the postoffice, online or via the phone. However now you won't be given the little round disc to display there is talk from the DVLA that if you tax via there online system they may allow you to print a kind of tax disc rather to remind you when its due rather than to display for law.

The other major change which many think is a NEW DVLA money spinner is that when you sell you car with remaining tax rather than the new owner getting to keep that tax it will be automatically refunded back to you this isn't optional, its in effort to stop the thousands of illegal vehicles on the road without insurance. However this adds a few problem 1 being that your only get refunded for months not weeks meaning if you have say 2 weeks left of road tax your get nothing back, and the new owner has to then tax from the start of the month meaning there also losing 2 weeks meaning the DVLA make 4 weeks extra revenue.
This change will also affect car dealers like our self's as we will no longer be able to sell cars with any remaining tax and also meaning now we will have to register more cars in OUR name if we wish to tax them for temporary pool cars.
The most important thing to note is if you buy a car YOU and YOU alone have the responsibility to tax your car as soon as you purchase it, as if caught by the police you will be fined for driving without tax because as soon as you purchased the car the old tax was VOID.

I myself feel there is some good points and some terrible points from scraping the tax disc first it will save the DVLA 10 Million pounds per year, however it makes things more complicated for elderly customers and people moving home or just non tech savvy people from checking when there car tax runs out meaning millions of innocent drivers could face fines.

What do you think about the new changes? let us know via out facebook page.

Car Fraud Help buying a car via the internet.

Well the amount of people getting caught by this old scam still shocks me. It gets a range of people from all walks of life and from a different degree of education and backgrounds. Yes even I was narrow minded enough to think only the less educated part of the public would be caught out by this scam, fact is I've known a good spread of people who've all been Had and come to ask me for advise on trying to get there money back.

I best explain what this scam is first. It typically starts out with a very genuine advert on a car selling website and as I've found out it can be listed as a private seller or even trader. You agree by phone, email or even some times text you want to buy this car send over the money in hopes to collect it or have it delivered, then you hear nothing and you can't reach the seller anymore and well you come to the sinking feeling you've been scammed and your moneys gone!

Now this normally happens with high ticket vehicles but its not limited to them! We've seen it happen with £40,000 cars and £10,000 cars so if your buying a car you could be next.

These con artist are very good at what they do, they lay the bait and let you bite and reel your self in they are typically offshore so once you send your money its gone! Police can't help you and neither can your bank as you sent cleared FUNDS!

Firstly lets explain how I spot these adverts, they normally steal other traders adverts or private punters adverts they take the photos and reuse them sometimes WEEKS or MONTHS after the original advert. They typically offer the car as a MASSIVE discount in one example a £40,000 car was selling for £10,000. Now if you see this walk away now there's no more investigation you need to do its a scam follow the old rule "if its too good to be true then....."
However the discount price can be smaller for example a £10,000 car for £8,000 slightly possible but highly unlikely, first thing to ask you self is would a dealer buy the car for more than the asking price? use one of the well known buying any car services, if yes RUN AGAIN!

Now so far these adverts have followed a pattern but what if the price is pretty much the same as other cars of the same year and mileage and the advert looks genuine, well the other give away is the advert stating an email and asking you to email them rather than call, when you do try call them the number either doesn't work or goes to a fax number. Now that in it self doesn't mean its a scam they may have used the wrong number or they may be sick of getting calls while there working.

So you've gone threw all the following and your 100% sure its not a scam, well this is where most people trip up and why it even sucks in the most savvy of people, Until you've seen the car, sat in it and checked its HPI clear while sat in front of it then it could always be a scam, always HPI a car why your with it as anyone can send you a reg of another car its another thing checking your self and checking the VIN number on the vehicle, HPI report and logbook all match.

My rule of thumb to not get caught out by these scams was never buy a car privately without viewing first that includes leaving a deposit for it. However these scam artist now have been placing adverts using trade ads and using a fake dealer website so how do you protect your self now? sometimes a dealer may have a car you really want at a great price and you can't make it down till weekend but you want to reserve it or pay for it in full. Well first check the site out see how long its been registered using what's known as a WHOIS search. If the website has only been created a month ago but the company site says they been trading 10 years I'd wonder if the age of the internet why they didn't have a site even 4 years ago. Google the company try find some reviews on websites like google and freeindex there's many other review sites out there so see what comes up. Your safest bet is to leave a deposit using your credit card make a payment of £200 and your covered under the credit protection act. What's more is your covered for the FULL AMOUNT of the car so if you then pay a further £9000 by bacs your protected. As long as you make a payment of £100 the whole transaction is protected this doesn't cover DEBIT CARDS however please check with your card issuer.

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Bye OFT & FSA and Hello FCA

As anyone in finance or insurance is aware the industry is going into the largest change in a lifetime.
We are fully updated with what's happening but do people like yourselves in the general public domain know what it means?

Firstly lets give you some back story, the OFT is the office of fair trading which has been in charge of licencing firms to provide finance or financial advice. This was done by applying for a licence for a set fee which was renewed every 5 years. This system applied to firms not taking other peoples deposits to lend out cash for example finance companies or loan companies. Anyone acting as a third party also had to have a licence so all car dealers who provided finance had to hold a licence and also any broker.

The FCA was in charge of everything else finance wise including banks, they were also in charge of insurance activates, unlike the OFT they had more power and control over people signed up to holding a licence.

Now both these system worked fine for everyone, however they also worked fine for miss-selling, and the new type of online loan sharks we call pay day loans. The government decided it had enough of all this and decided to merge OFT and FSA, which is what they called FCA, they have also given it more powers and control. They made a new department called PRA (Prudential Regulation Authority). The PRA will just deal with banks making sure they hold enough capital its not something which concerns the car industry so I only have limited information.

Now why am I writing this article now and why is it important? Well come the 1st April 2014 the FCA and PRA will take over full control of all finance dealings in the UK.

The first thing more than likely to happen will be pay day loans, which on a personal level is about dam time. I think everyone knows payday loan companies charge people in need HUGE rates of interest and massive penalties for failing to pay. The FCA will more than likely put a cap on the APR rate charged and cap on charges.

They will then more than likely start looking at the car industry as its about time we had a shake up and clean out of the muck that trades in our industry.

GAP will be under review with some main agents automatically adding it on to finance agreements and charging huge amounts of profit on top. The FCA will more than likely force dealers to prove that customers are getting value for money on these products and the product was explained correctly before being applied without consent.

After this I suspect car finance will be looked at. As honest dealers when quoting finance figures even over the phone I fully explain acceptance is subject to credit scoring. Then I explain monthly payments and any admin fee's and cost's involved in the HP agreement. I then move onto the rate explaining the base rate and then the APR rate.

APR and Base rate is where lots of car dealers make huge profits from finance on customers by knowingly misleading them by not supplying full information. I've seen this happen at nearly every used car dealer and more shocking at main agents even on NEW cars. I've had customers not see this shock until months or years later.

Firstly base rate is always LOWER than APR. Car dealers system work by using a set base rate, the APR is calculated after the term and amount are entered. the APR will be more for 2 years than a 3 year or 4 year agreement for the same amount as the base rate remains the same.  The big issue here is loan companies and credit cards all advertise APR.

The typical miss selling I see is like this.
Customer: I've been looking for loans and I know what I can lend and the rates what rate do you charge.
Dealer: We charge 8%
Customer: Ahh that's great I've been approved to get 9.1% by my bank

The problem here is the customer has more than likely been approved for 9.1% APR where the dealers is base which could be 17% APR. Now the dealer might argue that he thought the customer was meaning base. However when this happens to me I say to the customer the APR and Base rate stating both and if they give me a figure from another dealer I tell them to check if his figure is base or APR.. If this was done more often people wouldn't feel they have been mislead into a higher rate.

However its not all down to the dealers anyone signing finance paperwork should read the PCE before signing and recheck the documents on the day of signing stopping this happening.

Toyota FT-1

Wow how did I miss this car? this morning while reading my trade magazine I saw the Toyota FT-1, it has to have the best rear end I've ever seen at first I thought this has to be a pininfarina design for alfa great looks and lines with great scoops. 

When I started to look for more info on this car I found the sad truth no car fan wants to hear... Yes that's right its just a concept car. Most amazing the designer of this great car wasn't Italian no they were part of Toyota's Californian design team. What upsets me is they have titled this 'future Toyota' meaning it will be put back into the design draw never to be seen again.

The only way to rescue it from that draw? Start calling Toyota and tell them you'd buy it if they made it, I sure know I would, in fact if Toyota won't make it I'd like to beg every car company to buy the design from Toyota. I'd even buy it with Skoda badge on it.

The problem is now is if someone does decide to build it am sure they will ruin all our dreams by putting an electric motor in it or worse yet some silly under power 1.6 litre engine, come on Toyota make it and give us at least a 2.0 Turbo charged engine.