GARAGE “BILKERS”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18629, 26 July 1930, Page 10

GARAGE “BILKERS”

HOW SOME PEOPLE KEEP A CAR. With the motoring season now- in full swing an organisations is being, formed among garage proprietors in England, the “Sunday Chronicle” learns, to put a stop to the great amount of bilking which takes place every year. It was revealed that garage proprietors estimate their annual loss through bilking at £150,000. This is chiefly brought about through people running cars when they cannot afford to do so. Discussing the problem they are up against, the representative of a big London garage said that on an average each garage proprietor lost £SO a year through these causes. “It costs about £2 a week to run the average car, and many people cannot afford this sum. The frequently contract liabilities beyond their means. “In theory,” he said, “credit is not given to motorists; but, unfortunately, in actual practice, one month is becoming the rule. A man brings his second-hand car, which he may have bought for about £2O, and places it in the garage.

“He pays the first week or two, and hen lets payments slide, and when he cannot clear off the deficit he transfers the car to another garage and repeats the dose. This is continued until he is stopped. He then has to sell the car.

“I know of one man earning £3 a week who has a cheap car, and although it costs him £2 a week to run, he goes for week-ends to Brighton and Margate. Such a thing is quite common, and disaster is the result. “Again, quite recently a car was garaged at one establishment, taken to another for repair, and garaged at a third place—all within a few weeks, and the total indebtedness of the man which was left unpaid, was made up of amounts varying from £5 to £10.” Steps are being taken to deal with the matter, and it is proposed to form a mutual organisation, controlled by members of the motoring trade, so that information can be provided at short notice of such cases. The association will not collect debts, but its members should be warned against the bilkers, who go from place to place.