What does it take to rip someone off?

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@Mackers , I think you should start a thread on your fight for good over evil. In all seriousness, it might be very useful to other potential buyers of anything on eBay and give your fellas their comeuppance .
This comes back to the threads on other forums regarding "Decent Britpart Sh*t" etc. The more noise that gets made the better the chances of something changing....well, we can only live in hope! o_O
 
So you think. You need to do your research and send someone who knows about specs to check em out, cos actually, specsavers is a rip off. The average cost of a frame they sell for 80 quid cost less than 2 quid to make. The quality of their specs is %$&t, they con people into buying bifocals becaus eit's cheaper, and because (i ASSUME) they want the entire population to walk around nodding their heads up and down
Actually Spectacle frames cos pennies to make, and are a massive rip off especially when a designer brand label is attached ie the label costs less than pennies, the likes of Spec Savers are akin to double glazing salesmen and ladies :D:rolleyes::D
 
Landy_versus_Jeep.jpg

Here's what you get for your money, mate and, actually, it makes all your trials and tribulations worthwhile...:p
 
As I like to do when I've posted a quandry, I sum up. I try to only post threads I want proper answers to by having a debate. So:

It is very important to have a vehicle, especially an older vehicle, checked thoroughly by someone who knows what they’re doing before you buy it (I know, it’s on this site a million times, but I want to endorse it with the millionth and oneth :0) An MOT, just done on a vehicle, doesn’t mean you’re not buying a pig in a poke. Not only does an MOT not attend to lots of part-costing necessaries. There are hundreds of extraneous variables (including not just seller naughtiness, but possible third, fourth, fifth party … naughtiness in a chain running up to the selling or retaining of a vehicle, that even an expert can’t retain a conscious awareness of). For example, think about this hypothetical scenario:

A local entrepreneur has a little earner on the go. He takes owner’s cars into an MOT centre for them for a 40 or 50 quid back-hander. The entrepreneur has a discrete partnership going on with a rogue employee of the MOT test centre. The garage owner knows nothing about it (the local chap is giving the rogue employee half the backhander to get a car through its MOT illegitimately). The local car owners get an MOT, they save money because they’re not paying for extensive work to be done before ‘getting shut’ or keeping. The car remains on the road with seemingly legitimate insurance etc. Everyone’s happy, right?

No. The car purchaser won’t be happy, and if you have morals, you have a social conscience. Lives, livelihoods, physical and mental ill-health can result; criminal records, family and friend consequences, death, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. can be affected/occur. Even worse, it spreads a cancer, and it’s not impossible that your locality ends up like a hybrid of Royston Vasey and Wacky Races.

So. I’ve come to the end of working out my OP. If you are a seller, do the right thing. If you are thinking of being the link between a car owner and a garage, find another side-line like car-booting. If you’re the mechanic, you’re risking too much. Don’t do it. If you’re a victim. Well it seems, ultimately, that you’re just gonna have to get on with life and suck it up!
 
As I like to do when I've posted a quandry, I sum up. I try to only post threads I want proper answers to by having a debate. So:

It is very important to have a vehicle, especially an older vehicle, checked thoroughly by someone who knows what they’re doing before you buy it (I know, it’s on this site a million times, but I want to endorse it with the millionth and oneth :0) An MOT, just done on a vehicle, doesn’t mean you’re not buying a pig in a poke. Not only does an MOT not attend to lots of part-costing necessaries. There are hundreds of extraneous variables (including not just seller naughtiness, but possible third, fourth, fifth party … naughtiness in a chain running up to the selling or retaining of a vehicle, that even an expert can’t retain a conscious awareness of). For example, think about this hypothetical scenario:

A local entrepreneur has a little earner on the go. He takes owner’s cars into an MOT centre for them for a 40 or 50 quid back-hander. The entrepreneur has a discrete partnership going on with a rogue employee of the MOT test centre. The garage owner knows nothing about it (the local chap is giving the rogue employee half the backhander to get a car through its MOT illegitimately). The local car owners get an MOT, they save money because they’re not paying for extensive work to be done before ‘getting shut’ or keeping. The car remains on the road with seemingly legitimate insurance etc. Everyone’s happy, right?

No. The car purchaser won’t be happy, and if you have morals, you have a social conscience. Lives, livelihoods, physical and mental ill-health can result; criminal records, family and friend consequences, death, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. can be affected/occur. Even worse, it spreads a cancer, and it’s not impossible that your locality ends up like a hybrid of Royston Vasey and Wacky Races.

So. I’ve come to the end of working out my OP. If you are a seller, do the right thing. If you are thinking of being the link between a car owner and a garage, find another side-line like car-booting. If you’re the mechanic, you’re risking too much. Don’t do it. If you’re a victim. Well it seems, ultimately, that you’re just gonna have to get on with life and suck it up!

Your describing what happens here and probably in many other EU countries...
 
This is life, as we know it, Captain, and it's full of feckin Klingons. Stick to what you know, your gut-feelings, LR model research, HPI checks, MoT history via DVLA, bring a mate with a pair of overalls and torch, a screwdriver to further erode the bulkhead and a big pair of swinging balls that allow you to walk away if you get a whiff of leaking sewage from the direction of the very nice and well turned-out vendor.
 
This is life, as we know it, Captain, and it's full of feckin Klingons. Stick to what you know, your gut-feelings, LR model research, HPI checks, MoT history via DVLA, bring a mate with a pair of overalls and torch, a screwdriver to further erode the bulkhead and a big pair of swinging balls that allow you to walk away if you get a whiff of leaking sewage from the direction of the very nice and well turned-out vendor.
Brilliant! You put it far better than I did :D:D:D:D
 
I know every single nut and bolt on it but I would never dream of getting 9k for it when it's finished ,but if I was offered that I'd snap it off you in a heartbeat .

You are clearly not a sentimental type. I have completely rebuilt mine over my ownership, spending an unjustifiable large amount, and hugely more than it was worth, having bought it blind off ebay 10 years ago with an MOT which unsurprisingly wasn't worth the paper it was written on. I would estimate it is now worth 10kish but think if I put it up for sale I would struggle to get that as all of the value is in things you cannot see, so are only valuable to people who know what they are looking for and are familiar with the vehicles.
However, you could not offer me enough money to sell it to you. Even if you offered me an obscene enough amount for me to agree, I know I would regret it in the future. It was the first car I ever bought, I have had it since I was 18, and it is the reason I now have all of the mechanical knowledge I do. It is worth a vast amount more to me than the money I could realistically get for it.
 
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