The front runner for the role of David Brent at the offices of Yes Car Credit in Croydon is a former policeman charged with ensuring that an array of somewhat green second hand car salesmen do exactly what he wants.
He will not be pleased when he realises that his antics and those of his subordinates have been caught by a member of the BBC staff working undercover as a salesman.
to stamp on the staff’s mobile phones and bemoaning their apparent lack of success in boosting sales figures the former policeman told them: “I want meetings with my area manager to be sweetness and light but how can I” before blasting his staff with obscenities.
He also told his staff that they were like “a load of” James P Sullivans from the kids film Monsters Inc.
Urging them on ever upwards he told them that they are Automotive Ghostbusters asking “when all else fails who are the customers going to call? We are here to make money. We don’t do nice”.
The BBC filmed at Croydon after receiving a spate of complaints from Yes Car customers - over 1,000 to date - who say they have been lied to sold expensive insurance and finance packages as well as cars that are over-priced and not up to scratch.
The behaviour of the staff that were filmed veered from the highly offensive to the highly questionable.
The most obvious trick was to do a pretend phone credit check just to get the customer to come in for another.
On average. Yes added 2,000 to the recommended price of their cars. In some cases this doubled the price.
However after taking into account the costs of finance and insurance - as well as finance for the insurance - we found people who ended up paying four times the normal cost of the car.
The customers are some of the ten million people who cannot borrow from mainstream lenders in this country.
The BBC also placed a garage inspector. Martin Woodhouse at Croydon for three weeks posing as an mechanic.
Again the script was comedic although this time it wasn’t just people’s finances that were being threatened but their safety.
When questioned about the garage’s approach to servicing the man in charge of the workshops shut his eyes and waved his hands around saying “it’s Stevie Wonder services here”.
However when our inspector asked a colleague about this he merrily shrugged his shoulders and said he “just ticked anything”.
He was told that there was only a limited budget to spend on repairing each car most of which seemed to go on tyres and brakes.
On some occasions when he identified faults such as leaking shock absorbers he was told to wipe them down and try and get them through the MOT.
He was told that the company policy was not to replace cam belts even when they were way past their date.
The most startling behaviour was reserved for the clients and might go some way to explaining why some staff were happy to go along with the sales system.
One set of customers were described as “Wayne and Waynetta slob pond life single cell amoebas”.
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http://bankingfinanceinsura.120host.net/2007/11/20/news-car-and-finance-providers-target-poor/
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