WAR ON CAR BILKERS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 250, 18 July 1931, Page 23

WAR ON CAR BILKERS

Garages Losing £200,000 a Year

War has been declared by British garage proprietors on motor-car bilkers who every year rob them of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

They are people who arrange for the use of a garage, leave their car there for months, run up a bill, and then decamp to some other garage. “We estimate that the aggregate annual loss directly due to these bilkers is soraewherfe In the neighbourhood! of £200,000,” the manager ot a large London garage told the “Sunday Chronicle” recently.

' “This figure is increasing year by year as the number of people of small incomes who run ears grows. >

“We are the sufferers. In. theory credit is not given to any but old ‘customers or those who give references. Actually, motorists often succeed in getting credit. “For instance, a man brings a sec-ond-hand car which be may have bought for £2O and places it in the garage. He pays the first week or two aud then he lets payment slide. When he cannot. clear off the deficit he transfers the car to another garage and repeats the procedure.” Steps are being taken to form an organisation, controlled by members of the motoring trade, so that information that will put garage managers on their guard can be circulated.