Making money from the poor - Pt 2

Following on from the visit to the car sales outlet the company has now made two telephone calls. The first of them tried to sell the car they'd originally gone to look at by trying to convince them that they were getting a good deal.

Our hero asked what the 'book price' of the car was and were given a figure that was quite a bit lower than the price it was being offered at. They then asked how much they would receive for their current vehicle and were told that this would be something lower than the book price. Adding the differences meant that they were effectively paying about £2,000 more than was warranted using the figures given in the trade valuation guides (which are of course only guides and not set in concrete).

When this was pointed out the salesman accentuated the fact that they would have a newer car and that it would cost them less as they'd reduced the interest rate for the purchase as well.

"How much is it now," asks our heroic would-be (or perhaps not) purchaser?

"It's 48.5%, gone down from 49.9%," comes the reply.

So let's stop for a moment to consider what we have before us

Let's say the car is going to cost the customer £6,500 and they're going to pay over five years at 48.5%

This means that paying around £300 a month will result in them handing over almost £17, 400.

This in turn means that they will be paying almost £11,000 for the privilege in interest rates.

Now, were our hero to go to a bank or some other reputable (that's if we still consider banks to be reputable) finance provider we would find that the rates ate somewhere between 6.1 - 7.9% and staying with our car priced at £6,500 (but from a more reputable dealer I would hope) the same car over the same period at 8% would run out at a total outlay of just under £8,000, a measly £131 a month and interest of under £1,500.

Those of us who have been 'collared' or work with people in our community need to get a bit savvy to companies who specialise in CCJ and poor credit history operations such at the one discovered here.

I never realised how much the poorer (and sometimes just merely unfortunate in terns of redundancy and other impediments to paying) side of our community is preyed upon by others and just how much they pay for the privilege of being abused.

The car salesman was working hard to get the would be customer so desirous of having a 'new' car that they'd sign up just to fill the craving that had been created.

What a disgrace and what an opportunity for us to come alongside and work to protect these people.

Pax