British police are investigating complaints against a car sales operation based in the Netherlands which advertises significantly discounted cars in newspapers and the motoring press in Ireland and Britain. Autodirect offers discounts of up to €60,000 on new cars. Michael McAleer reports
The advertisements give a Dutch phone number and a hotmail email address but no postal address.
In Ireland, two customers who contacted the firm by e-mail were then asked to forward phone numbers so they could be contacted later by a sales person. One, Anthony Duffy, received a call a week later. Despite his initial impression that these were second hand cars, he was told that Autodirect supplied brand new cars, VRT paid and registered for below standard prices.
According to Mr Duffy: "(The salesman) said they were able to do this as they bought in bulk. He quoted the following prices: Porsche Boxster €29,000, Mercedes CLK 200 €25,000, Volvo C70 €16,000, so you can imagine my interest.
"He then said the procedure was that they took a booking deposit, generally 30 per cent, to be lodged in their account, and then they delivered the car within 1-2 weeks."
According to DC Martin Bingham of the Gloustershire constabulary, police are seeking to speak to those involved in the firm, but so far have been unable to locate them. At least two other British police constabularies wish to speak to the firm's owners in relation to complaints from dissatisfied customers.
Warning that car buyers should to use common sense in all transactions, Bingham said; "if an offer looks too good to be true, it probably is.
"Customers should also be wary of firms that only supply phone details and hotmail email addresses. Never send payment by money transfer or give out your credit card details until you have an actual address for the business."
In one of their advertisements, Autodirect offers a Peugeot 206 Cabriolet for €7,500, a BMW M3 for €25,000 and a Porsche Boxster for €28,000. The Peugeot retails in Ireland for between €23,000 and €25,000, an M3 will set you back €83,550, and Porsche Boxsters cost between €74,000 and €93,500. We attempted to contact Autodirect but were unsuccessful.