Motorhome dealers, no better than a second hand car sales

[Robinhood]

The attraction of an escrow-based solution, as opposed to an insurance-based solution, at least if one is only considering the issue of a supplier going out of business before the deal is completed, is that it should be a much cheaper solution.

 

In essence, there is no loss to insure, the escrow approach simply ensures that the innocent party in a non-completed deal retains the original deposit money. The on-cost should thus only result from administration costs.

 

In the case of a deposit being covered by an insurance scheme, then the cost of the "loss", which in the circumstances described above would be a real financial loss, and only be to the customer, would also have to be covered, and this would drive up the overall on-cost.

 

Of course, the escrow arrangement would not be appropriate for the circumstances outlined in one of the previous posts, where the customer might default on the deal due to death or injury, or some other such issue, and it is possible that an insurance scheme might cover some of these occurrences, but it wasn't really the underlying theme of the overall thread.

[postnote]

Brian Kirby - 2011-11-28 12:08 PM

 

postnote - 2011-11-28 2:55 AM

 

................................... And low and behold means a silly, weak-minded, or contemptible person. Is that you Brian? (^)

 

Anyway at the end of the day, in answer to my original post, Motorhome dealers, no better than a second hand car sales the answer must be a resounding yes as they know their company Discover was going down the pan and still they took customers money. >:-( >:-(

Good. Now that we've evened the score, I'll try to answer (kind of) you question. Is that me? To you, it seems it must be so. I am content with that. Amen.

 

To the question implied in your title for this string, I gave my answer, at some length, on the first "page". I'm sorry you found out the hard way that dealers are not all that they should be. However, that should not be taken to mean that all dealers are bad, or that, by extension, all of the motorhoming press, or even parts of it, are in cahoots with them.

 

I learnt pretty much all of what I know about motorhomes and motorhoming from people on this forum, and from MMM. The knowledge so gained has at times proved invaluable. So, rather than merely asking questions, as I learnt, I began to answer other peoples' questions. I saw, and see, that as a bit of constructive giving back, as a recompense for the freely given information from which I have benefited. A few years back I was asked, by its then editor, if I would be willing to contribute to MMM Interchange and, in the same vein, was happy to do so. So far as my connections with MMM go, that is about it. That is far more about me than you need to know.

 

I have met other MMM contributors, and a few of the writers, on about four occasions, at Warner's shows. From those few contacts, I know your allegations of bad faith on their part exist only in your imagination. A more independent minded, and less "corporatist", bunch you could not hope to meet. Stick around. Listen and learn. Most of us, when we can, try to help other motorhomers. That is mainly what MMM is about, and it is where this forum started out. Mutual help. Try submitting the odd post of use to others from time to time, instead of merely self-centred and destructive tripe, and who knows where it may lead? Somewhere useful, I hope. Go in peace.

 

Thank you for those words of wisdom Brian, ;-)

 

I have in the past place posts of information and asked questions. But as you know there is a disruptive influence within these Forums that not only are well established but seem to be able to get away with anything they want to say. Even verbally insulting people, that doesn’t apply to you I might add, only when goaded. Wow am I going soft.

 

I do read your posts with interest as sometimes you seem to have a very balanced view. But think we will never agree on MH dealers, although I must admit I do have two very good ones in my area. I think my initial experience buying a MH from a dealer and you know who that was has very much blurred my option on them. But my two local ones are slowly restoring my faith that they are better than second hand car sales men.

 

[LordThornber]

Robinhood, many thanks for the explanation re Escrow.

 

We still have the services engaged of the legal bods we had on tap in our business days and consequently about 15 property sales in the family.

 

So when the time comes I'll be having a friendly (i.e.free 8-) ) chat with them on this matter. I'm not giving our hard (ha!) earned away to any liquidators etc.

 

Martyn

[flicka]

I wonder if there is an alternative solution, that could work with little or no cost to anyone.

 

What does a Dealer do with a Customers' deposit ?

I guess he Banks it & benefits from a very small interest rate or more probably marginally reduces his overdraft ?

 

What if, the Motorhome industry adopted a system where Customers' deposits (together with their details) are passed on to the Manufacturer :-S ;-)

Then if a Dealer goes into Liquidation or Administration, the Manufacturer will not lose a Sale of the Motorhome already in the production process & the Customer does not lose their Deposit.

 

Then the Manufacturer would have the information to be able to contact the Customer & arrange another Dealer, to complete the Sale.

 

Obviously it needs more meat on the bones, but would it work (?) (?)

[Mel B]

flicka - 2011-11-28 9:44 PM

 

I wonder if there is an alternative solution, that could work with little or no cost to anyone.

 

What does a Dealer do with a Customers' deposit ?

I guess he Banks it & benefits from a very small interest rate or more probably marginally reduces his overdraft ?

 

What if, the Motorhome industry adopted a system where Customers' deposits (together with their details) are passed on to the Manufacturer :-S ;-)

Then if a Dealer goes into Liquidation or Administration, the Manufacturer will not lose a Sale of the Motorhome already in the production process & the Customer does not lose their Deposit.

 

Then the Manufacturer would have the information to be able to contact the Customer & arrange another Dealer, to complete the Sale.

 

Obviously it needs more meat on the bones, but would it work (?) (?)

 

Or what about a 'deposit protection scheme' (DPS), similar to the one that is run to protect rent deposits? The deposit could be paid into the DPS directly by the customer and confirmed to be in place by them to the dealer, when the day of the hand-over came about, it could be arranged that the deposit is paid into the delear's bank account once the customer had completed the rest of the transaction and taken possession of the vehicle ...

[Robinhood]

flicka - 2011-11-28 9:44 PM

 

What if, the Motorhome industry adopted a system where Customers' deposits (together with their details) are passed on to the Manufacturer :-S ;-)

Then if a Dealer goes into Liquidation or Administration, the Manufacturer will not lose a Sale of the Motorhome already in the production process & the Customer does not lose their Deposit.

 

 

........but, what if the manufacturer goes bust?

 

(As you own an Autocruise, I'm sure you'll admit that this is not an unknown event).

 

We've all become a bit motorhome-centric here; in reality, this is an issue that pervades all commerce, and many deposits are not trivial to those who make them.

 

The ideal resolution would be to put in place a legal duty for all deposits in commerce to be held in a client account, not in the main accounts of the business. This already applies in a number of commercial sectors, (I believe Law Practices and Estate Agents, where the arrangements have to be regularly audited). It would be (is) a criminal offence not to do so, and action could be taken against the individuals concerned if this wasn't done.

 

AIUI, in liquidation, money in a client account does not belong to the liquidator, and should be returned to the client(s).

 

(Of course, if someone does act illegally, there still may not be the opportunity to recover the money if they themselves are bankrupt, but there could be the compensation of seeing a decent jail sentence instead! :-S )

 

[flicka]

Fair point Robin, just me trying to think outside the box.

Your proposal re Client Account, would be the ultimate solution.

The only negative I can see would be the length of time taken to implement it.

 

[FairTrial]

Out of interest, have you seen the safe buying advice of the Metropolitan Police (www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/safe_buying_advice.htm#mpsjumpmenu).

 

FSA Authorised payment service providers offering low-cost secure online escrow already exist (such as Transpact.com), and are an effective way to provide the protection you are discussing, with the right conditions enumerated.

 

[Declaration - I work for Transpact.com, and this post is directly on topic and necessary to the conversation]

[HymerVan]

I am able to comment on solicitor "client accounts" having been involved with them in Scotland.

Although I can only comment on Scotland I believe that analogous arrangements would apply to Solicitors in England and possibly Estate Agents as well.

All Scottish solictors MUST segregate all money belonging to clients from that of the the firm or individual solicitor. The funds are deposited in a seperate and distinct bank account ("the Client Account") At all times the balance on the client account must be at least the amount owed to clients. In practice it is usually significantly more to provide a buffer for timing issues etc. With modern accounting systems the solicitor (or Law Society of S) can almost on a minute by minute basis establish the balances and consequently compliance or not. All firms are regularly and rigourously inspected by the Law Society of S. All sums due to clients are guaranteed and in the final analysis honest solicitors pay for any dishonesty through a levy.

Thus the "client account" system works very well and I believe in Scotland no client has EVER lost money as a result of solicitor dishonesty (although honest solicitors have had to cough up). Breaches of the rules are very serious and likely to result in loss of ability to practice

Although I believe that such a system has the potential to work well I believe it is relevant to a fully regulated environment where loss of livelyhood is a sanction and where sums held for clients will be large (sometimes very large) . Additionally solicitor accounting systems are designed to segregate client accounts but "ordinary" commercial systems are not. As you can imagine the cost of compliance and enforcement does not come cheap and every solicitor pays £1000+ for the priviledge of being allowed to practice.

In short I doubt if such an idea is practicable.

Sorry to be negative (again).

 

[FairTrial]

HymerVan,

 

That's why FSA Authorised and Regulated escrow services come into their own.

 

They are automated and protected by the UK's Payment Services Regulations 2009, and cost only £2.99 per party per transaction (€3.49 and $ 24.99 for Euro and US Dollar transactions).

 

They successfully handle both small amounts and very large amounts.

 

They seem to fully alleviate all the concerns you mention.

[derek pringle]

Hi,

Is there no perceivable case where more than deposits are at stake?

I agree with the idea of a industry based initiative but who is going to take that initiative.

In the case of holidays it seems more than deposits are protected, God knows a lot of people possibly had a near miss in the last week or two. A radical solution is what is needed as I would not care how I paid my deposit in principle as my concern would be that the sellers still have it whether it was by credit card cash or whatever. Codes should be in place that mean if everything goes normal then a satisfactory outcome between the two parties is reached [ a good fair deal ]. On the other hand if anything goes wrong then at least nobody should be in a worse position than before the deal was struck. In the long term this could have and some may say should have bad repurcussions to the industry at large whether people knew beforehand or not, it is the end position that counts particularly for the parties so badly affected. It seems this is the way business works thats partly why business leaders are getting stick at the moment.

cheers

derek

[Robinhood]

FairTrial - 2011-11-29 11:57 AM

 

HymerVan,

 

That's why FSA Authorised and Regulated escrow services come into their own.

 

They are automated and protected by the UK's Payment Services Regulations 2009, and cost only £2.99 per party per transaction (€3.49 and $ 24.99 for Euro and US Dollar transactions).

 

They successfully handle both small amounts and very large amounts.

 

They seem to fully alleviate all the concerns you mention.

 

....well, I can certainly see that the services your own firm provide are regulated, but I'm not so sure that they are "protected" in the same way as protection exists for other monies under the FSCS, for instance.

 

I will agree that, under the cited act, if the business is run in accordance with its licence, then the use of client accounts and the required insurance/guarantees should provide protection - and this may be as good as it gets! ;-)

 

 

[HymerVan]

FairTrial - 2011-11-29 11:57 AM

 

HymerVan,

 

That's why FSA Authorised and Regulated escrow services come into their own.

 

They are automated and protected by the UK's Payment Services Regulations 2009, and cost only £2.99 per party per transaction (€3.49 and $ 24.99 for Euro and US Dollar transactions).

 

They successfully handle both small amounts and very large amounts.

 

They seem to fully alleviate all the concerns you mention.

 

Derek

Thanks for your interesting post. I had started to prepare mine before yours hit the screen and only saw it after I had posted mine.

I will look at your material and post any comments I may have.

[postnote]

I was interested to read in Octobers MMM that there is to be a ‘New code of practice for motorhome dealers’. To be an approved dealer, amongst other things, they must be open, fair and honest.

 

I think this highlights how true this original post was and at last the dealers are trying to get their act together. There always seems to be more stories of deals gone wrong than right.

 

It will be interesting to see how many dealers register for NCC approval and up their game and change or just hide behind the logo as stay as they are convincing themselves that the past problems don’t apply to them. (?)

[Keith T]

postnote - 2012-10-12 10:05 AM

 

There always seems to be more stories of deals gone wrong than right.

 

It will be interesting to see how many dealers register for NCC approval and up their game and change or just hide behind the logo as stay as they are convincing themselves that the past problems don’t apply to them. (?)

 

Yes, it is true that you will read of what goes wrong , and very rarely of those that go through without any problem...that is human nature, and applies in all walks of life. However, given the number of people who have bought motorhomes, I suspect the vast majority have purchased without any problems, and indeed it is quite likely that the majority have been equally satisfied with after sales service.

 

As far as we are concerned, we have purchased some 5 vans over 20 years from different dealers, and in all cases, have been very satisfied with the purchase arrangements, and though we have had matters subsequently which required resolving, these have been done wihtout any dispute and not only to a very high standard, but often well beyond the expected call of duty.

 

Perhaps we have just been lucky.Maybe we've been successful in doing research, both on what we wanted and on the dealerships, and to be fair, we have never bought from 'multiple' dealers.....even though we have had better offers from them in some cases! However, we also have never puchased specifically from 'local' dealers, mostly since where we have lived over the yeasr there hasn't been any! And, generlaly we haev returned to the original dealer for subsequent service and warranty work, so in each case we have built up a working relationship with them. Equally, and in latter years particularly, we have always ensured that any work need has been both discussed with them and confirmed by e-mail.I susepct that all barring on (n longer in business) will sign up for the new approval rating.

 

What would be intersting to see would be an independent unbiased survey of ALL motorhome puchases, and the level of satisfaction both with the product and the dealership!

[postnote]

An independent survey just won’t happen. I have suggested this before and been shot down in flames.

 

For an approval to have been initiated there must have been an industry agreement that not all is right with some dealers or in fact the retail industry.