*** DIRTY TRICKS be careful who buys your Marina *** **

[The original northen boy]

About three weeks,i received a phone call of a very pleasant young lady called D*****,who was very interested in buying a Marina/Ital for her husbands 50th birthday as a surprise present for him,she told me he had had one or two of them in the 70's and 80's and would like another as a hobby car (but money was in short supply) and would love to attend shows in it and generally become involved in more "affordable classic cars".She had got in touch with me via spin off from the Radio Sheffield programme with Howard Pressman and any information about cars for sale would be very appreciated,i simply pointed her to fast marina,Marina and Ital club Ecosse and BL Classics as a medium to acquiring cars as well as Flea-Bay,thanked me for my help and said good-bye.

Then earlier in the week the same lady phoned back,again she was very pleasant,and said she was desperate to find the husband a Marina,as there was nothing that suitable at the moment,the only thing i can do to help is if you are that desperate to get a car i have a red,K reg MK1,1300cc Deluxe Coupe,It's a tax exempted,the synchromesh on second gear has gone and the mileage is well over 90,000 miles,but the car is really sound overall,the body condition is pretty good and the underneath has never been welded (southern car) it even has the original optional extra Pye radio (still working) in it,and nylon seat covers from the 70's,"well how much do you want for it?" she said " i don't know i answered,how does £250 cash sound?,well i can go to £200 and that's it i don't have any more,well i said "if your that keen and the car is going to a good home we'll do a deal as long as it's cash,ok came the reply when can i get it?

I said well you'll have to give a few day to recover it from the back of the garage,blow the tyres up and do the bits and bobs it might need,oh don't worry she said can i come Sunday,well what time because i'll be working,so i'l need someone to be there,about lunch,twelvish is that ok? yes if i can get someone to be there,great was the reply,"do yo want some photos sending by e.mail to see what you're buying" i asked," no i'll trust you" she said.

Well i asked young Alan (Alan The Exocet) to do me the honors by waiting at my house and letting the new buyer collect the car and the log book,a simple arrangement,cash for car you might think,well you'd be wrong.twelve o'clock came and went as did one o'clock as well i gave the contact number a phone but it just told to try again later,i told Alan to give it as long as he could,and wait he did at about twenty past three,a blue Nissan Shogun arrived and a fella gets out,and Say's to Alan "is this it then?" yeah Say's Alan do you want a hand,the fella Say's no i'm ok and starts to assemble a study bolt together A-Frame style dolly transporter from the rear of the Shogun once assembled and put onto the rear towing hitch he attaches the steel rope to the Marina and starts to winch on,as Alan said in more or less time it took to boil the kettle and make him a cup of tea,by the time he had brewed the Marina was all strapped on.

Well Say's Alan "if you want to do the cash part,and signing the transfer document you can take the car",don't worry bout that mate,here's your money give me the log book and i'll get off "came the response,at that moment a cheque for £180 is handed over,and a hand is held out and with fingers flexing backwards and forwards in a "give it here" motion,But The Exocet stood his ground and said he needed to phone me to ok the deal,as he was told it would be cash.

When i answered the phone,i told Alan to tell the bloke collecting the car the deal was for £200 cash and not £180 in a cheque,can you put him on the phone i said? i was greeted buy a very weary voice on the other end of the line who told me,he was only doing B**** a favour at really short notice and he wasn't getting paid for it either,if i wanted cash i couldn't have any as (as his cash card was acting up) and he had been told to pay by cheque and hadn't come up all the way the Midlands to get this s***t,all he was doing was his job to collect a f****d Marina to break for parts,YOU WHAT!,i answered,break for parts......"yeah mate B**** has a garage,there striped and sold off for Moggies,and the like,the c*** that's only good for Marinas gets sold on Flea-bay or on your website,didn't ya know? NO that' not what she told me,well the deals off unload it i'm not selling,take the car off,It stays put.The marina was removed and the collection bloke was sent on his way,and not very happy either.

I have tried all this afternoon and this evening again to contact D***** but still her phone seem put me through to voice mail,very strange,now if they had not chosen to try and bring down the price by using a cheque the car would have been on it's way for breaking,i would have never known.Be warned this woman is very convincing liar. D***** and B**** are both members of this site but hide their true intentions under the cover of anonymity *** Names withheld on legal grounds***

Russ

Beckett Bros "you live and learn" :roll:

[The General]

it really doesn't surprise me at all russ, after all he goings on over the last few months, nothing surprises me anymore.

[tigon20]

bloody moggie drivers, why dont they bugger off, some of em are just as bad as top gear!!!!

[JubileeNut]

OK Russ,
To get over the legal side Just post their names like this now -

*!!!!!! (replace the ! with the letters) Then you have not told us their names but we can all guess

I would not of let them load it until I had the cash and it was a done deal, you were lucky he did not just drive off!

[ado28]

Déjà vu :roll:

Anyone selling a Marina who cares for the car should always be aware of the people (not known in the Marina circle) who suddenly have a burst of interest in the car. We were lucky on this occasion as the person tried to pay by cheque but had he presented the cash then it was going to be "goodnight Vienna" for the coupe and a tax exempt one at that!

Sean

Beckett Bros "No Candy, no can do!"

[XER905L]

Glad to read that the fate & common sense has saved another Marina from a bad end.Are members here sitting on so many extra Marinas that they are prepared to sell some for less than the spare parts value to strangers? Its up to us not to let cars go for less than Cortina prices unless we are doing a deal with friends we know will cherish the car. What other decent running tax exempt car could be found for under £500?
I agree,its up to us as sellers to make an effort to ensure good cars go to good homes, and not to let them go for less than ebay spares breakup prices which allows Moggie owners to profit while driving the Marina ever closer towards extinction

[Uncle Frank]

Once again we find ourselves fending off Minor "specialsts" , trying to break up perfectly repairable cars to keep their jelly moulds on the road :roll: , this latest tactic has to be the lowest yet!, good job you were on the ball Russ, i fear as others have said here before me...that we really need to be careful who we sell to if we can, so that this sort of thing does not happen, i know there are decent people out there with Minors but they really do themseves no favours when they stoop to such tactics, and they wonder why we have a dislike for the Moggie!

[Alan The Exocet]

I thought it seemed odd that the guy who came to get the car was really professional with the car dolly and how it only took minutes to assemble it,the dolly was all nicely painted too.Russ had asked me to arrange the collection with the new buyer,so it was on the face of it jut a case of waiting,and i had spoke to the woman on the phone twice before for direction and things,so i was a bit surprised when a man turned up.The collection man,was in a real bad mood and kept going on about the time it took him to get here,and how much diesel he had used coming up the motorway,and go really stroppy when he couldn't have the car and said it would serve Russ right if he billed him for his time and fuel,because of a wasted journey.He told me he only worked sometimes as a favor for the bloke who was buying the car,and this one was gonna be broken but didn't say if it was to be for a Moggie thou,but i got the idea of the mobile calls he kept making that he was a kind of car dealer.before he sped off i saw a sticker in the back window of the Shogun that said something about Moggie thous.if he had paid cash the car would have gone,cheeky sod triad to knocked 20 quid of and paid by cheque.Russ felt sorry for the woman and tried to do her a real favour,but i spoke to her on the phone and she seemed really nice.i got the impesion that this guy had picked up lots of marinas before this one,and he did say that Moggie people were on the site selling stuff back,

Alan

[ado28]

I bet the Showgun driver was a fat sweaty B*****d! When he made the comment saying the journey was wasted and that Russ ought to pay for his wasted time, I would have told the twat that the "Cheque" will be in the post!

Sean

Beckett Bros "Ice cream with jelly"

[ayrshirelad32]

Will the guilty parties have the guts and courage to put their hands up and admit who they are???I think not somwhow or other.Well done russ and alan for managing to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.Does make you wonder thoughn how many spares offerd actually came from Marinas that were sold complete to Minor owneres on the pretxet that the Marina was going to a loving home?

[Alan The Exocet]

Hello Sean,he was a right miserable sod who looked like the bloke who had the Spit the dog puppet,can we put the name of these people on here as i'm sure other people know who they are and if they don't to warn them about them?

Alan

[ado28]

Posting their names probably wouldn't make any difference Alan as they could just be imaginary names. We just have to be more vigilant, that's all!

Sean

Beckett Bros "we can see you :shock: "

[Alan The Exocet]

Sean i can't believe that people would go to all that trouble to get their hands on a car worth only a couple of hundreds pounds,but oblivious they will,the more i think of it the more the whole Sunday happening things seems odd,never seen a guy want to get going as fast as he did.I bet the woman i spoke to who called herself Debby was a liar,she was very nice and kept asking loads of questions that now seem very odd.

Alan

[The original northen boy]

I wasn't going to put this tale of caution on the forum,simply because it always seems to happen to me,and i didn't want any one to think (A) i was some attention seeking oddball (B) a person with an extremely creative imagination (C) these two plus being a northerner.

This really is the truth no mater how bizarre it my seem,what i'm still struggling with is the extent these people went,to acquire a car,the amount of cloak and dagger work here is frighting,but sadly the financial gains must be worth it or simply they would undertake such a complex venture.

But i'm sure many of us aren't really that surprised about what lengths and deceptions people will go to make money,as the saying goes in my profession "if there's money involved there's corruption" sad but so so true.

Russ

Beckett Bros "squeaky clean" :roll:

[1700HL]

I find it extraordinary that people behave in such a way! At one time caveat emptor only applied to the item for sale, not the buyer!

I haven't managed to purchase a Marina/Ital yet - family stuff, life gets in the way and all that jazz - but keep a regular eye on this forum. I think that it is a credit to you all that, despite jokers in the press and idiots like the one cited in the story above, regular users/members are keeping their chins up and are continuing to have fun with these unfairly derided models.

Fingers crossed I may find a nice one and join your ranks in coming months.