Graham Hill's Newsletter

& Deal Of The Week For Readers Of IFA Bonus!

Important! I'm being asked by clients what cars we have available immediately from stock as most people are aware that cars are difficult to get hold of with some deliveries now 6 months. I've therefore gone back to one of my popular cars, available from stock and listed a number of other cars that we have available immediately. Warnings are flying about regarding crooked advertisers on the Internet offering low priced cars that don't exist in order to secure your personal details or to take initial rentals on cars that will never be delivered. You must be much more vigilant! I also have a lead story in my newsletter showing that automotive fraud has increased by a staggering 35% this year. OK back to the car, we have a stock of these cars available for immediate delivery in solid Jet black only. As I always say if you are interested you must go for it quickly or lose out. Rates are predicted to go in one direction only. Don't put back the decision to finance a car, money is in short supply so we are expecting to see a continued up shift in rates across all finance products. Get your order in now!

BMW 116D 2.0 Sport 5Dr Hatch Manual

Business & Personal Contract Rates

Based on 3Years(3+35), 10,000 miles per annum and do not include maintenance

116D Solid Colour        3+35                 £259 + VAT per month

Please Note:

You keep the car for the full term. You pay an initial payment equivalent to three times the monthly payment followed by a monthly payment for each month to the end of the term, all figures are plus VAT. If you would like to fund the car personally or you are not VAT registered simply add the VAT to the monthly figure. If you exceed the contracted mileage you will pay an excess mileage charge at the end of the agreement.

Other mileages are available if you feel you will cover more than 10,000 miles per annum.

THE IMPORTANT STUFF

According to Experian, the credit reference agency, automotive fraud increased by 35% during the first half of 2010. 34 in every 10,000 applications were considered potentially criminal. The majority were recorded in the second quarter showing an upward trend. First party fraud overtook third party identity fraud during April to June as the most common type of attempted fraud. First party fraud is typically where individuals attempt to hide adverse credit history or misrepresent their employment status to try and secure credit and other financial services which might not be suitable for them. Third party fraud is committed against an individual by an unrelated or unknown 3^rd party and generally involves organised criminals and opportunists seeking credit and other financial services using the identity of others. “As our analysis shows, fraud within the UK’s automotive sector is rapidly increasing,” said Nick Mothershaw, Director of Fraud and Identity Solutions at Experian. The increase in can be partly explained by the high value assets that can be easily converted to cash. But the complexity of the sales process is also a factor. For fraudsters this makes it comparatively easy compared with other finance providers. Whilst automotive fraud has seen the biggest increase other types of fraud has also been increasing such as mortgage fraud and current account fraud. What the report hasn’t explained, because it isn’t well known, is that what often appears to be first party fraud, i.e. carried out by the person making the application, isn’t being carried out by the applicant at all but by the intermediary, making the application on his behalf, in order to secure the deal and his commission. Third party fraud is very easy if you are an online arranger of finance. Present a professional website and employ people with an ‘honest’ sounding voice and the next thing you know customers are falling over themselves to provide all the information a fraudster could ever wish for, including copy bank statements and even copy credit cards. So many people accept advertisers on the Internet without any checks being carried out at all. GHA Finance is a member of the National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers. We carry professional indemnity insurance and are also members of the Federation of Small Businesses. Lots of ways to check us out. It is shocking the way that applicants trust companies, they have no knowledge of, with their personal information then wonder why they have all their money removed from their bank accounts and debts run up on their credit cards. You could also lose out if you make a claim on your insurance or claim back the money removed from your bank account as you have been negligent and not taken sufficient precautions to prevent the fraud. Know who you are dealing with and don’t fall into the old trick of attracting potential targets by offering deals customers can’t refuse with an incredibly low rate. Have you been subject to fraud? Please let me know?

The last Labour Government made a big thing about toll roads, this was going to be the way forward if we were to make the roads less congested but according to research by the Campaign for Better Transport the showpiece M6 toll road has failed to meet its targets. The report claims that the operator, Midlands Expressway is losing millions of pounds every year. The cost of £5 drops to £4.50 at weekends and £3.50 at night but even with the incentives it doesn’t attract enough traffic leaving the old M6 clogged at various times of the day. Even though the road wasn’t reaching its objectives the Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond, said this year that the road was a model of how projects could be funded which isn’t borne out by the report. The CBT believes that the Highways Agency is to spend half a million pounds on congestion relief on the main M6, exactly what the M6 toll road was created to do. I have used it myself and think it’s great value, paying £5 to zoom along the 27 mile toll road without a sniff of congestion, or even HGV’s as the truckers refuse to pay the £10 charge for a truck on the M6 toll road. The report concluded that the road was ‘a colossal and expensive failure.’ Do you think this spells the end for toll roads?

I’m all for making roads safer, especially when we are talking about making roads safer for children but sometimes I thing we go a little too far when it comes to health and safety when actions seem to be taken for the sake of taking them. Some of my favourite country fetes have been stopped from taking place because, thanks to health and safety, the insurance costs would be more than they raised for their local charity. And all because someone was worried that a ball thrown at a coconut shy, might bounce of the coconut and hit someone in the eye and blind them. Not that it’s ever happened in over the last 100 years of running the fete but health and safety have decided that they know best. The same seems to be the case with the safety of children outside their schools where charity, Living Streets, is saying that there should be a car parking exclusion zone for the safety of children outside all schools. But where is the hard proof that children have suffered injury or otherwise in danger from parents dropping their kids off. Trying to drive past a school where parents are dropping off children can be a pain in the ass but are the do-gooders recommending something for the sake of making a stand over a problem that simply doesn’t exist. Or maybe you disagree? Let me know?

One of the last meetings I attended at which we discussed the state of the motor finance industry, we were told by one of the leading accountancy practices in the UK along with a couple of large leasing operations that the biggest problem faced by the industry was lack of liquidity or in other words lack of money to lend to you and me. This has been confirmed by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders who have asked the Government to step in through a letter sent to the chancellor, George Osborne. They have asked for more money to be made available to lenders in order to lend out money to people who are desperate to get mobile again. They were also wittering on about green vehicles but the important request is for the Government, or private equity companies, to step in and provided the desperately needed cash. It’s a fact that with no money to lend leasing companies are refusing credit to a large number of businesses that will be forced into liquidation because they can’t get essential new vehicles.

If you are a regular reader of my newsletter and blog you will recall that I announced that the Government was considering moving out the first MOT to 2 years and the annual MOT tests thereafter to be moved from annual to bi-annual as a result of pressure to do so by the EU. This has sparked some strong resistance from road safety groups. RoadSafe has said that the Government shouldn’t change the current arrangements as the changes would lead to poorly maintained cars and result in more crashes. In the UK we have the 3-1-1 system whereby the first MOT is carried out after 3 years and then annually thereafter as opposed to most European countries that have a 4-2-2 system in place. This means that a 10 year old car will have 8 MOT tests in the UK but just 4 in Europe. Whilst there is an argument that cars are much safer and reliable now RoadSafe pointed to the Department for Transport statistics that show a staggering 35% of cars failed their MOT’s in 2008 and continued to rise to 37% between 2009 and 2010. The debate goes on. What do you think, should we move to the European system?

The Graham Hill in depth review of a new car has this week focused on the facelifted Bentley Continental GT. It looks nice, as you would expect and frankly I would describe the differences in the look of the car as ‘subtle’. I’m told that every panel of the car is new but the door mirrors are from the Mulsanne. Great! OK when you get up close you can see that there are changes but they have kept the overall look very much the same but a bit sharper due to a new process called aluminium super-forming. The compulsory led lights now form part of the headlamp and light clusters and the inside has a few more features. They say that rear leg room has been improved by 46mm, in my opinion, having sat behind a 6’2” driver, in the previous Coupe they would need to add a couple of feet to make it anything like comfortable. The car will cost around £130,000 when available from October. A New 4.0litre V* will be available from the end of 2011. The 6.0l twin turbo has a top speed of 198mph and gets you from 0-62mph in 4.6 seconds, so can’t complain at the performance! Would I have one? Probably not as I’m still an Aston Martin man but it is certainly a nice piece of kit!

As if by some weird coincidence Lloyds TSB have carried out a survey amongst drivers asking if money was no object what would be your dream car? And would you believe it Brits would plump for an Aston Martin! More motorists aspire to own one of these quintessential English cars that still conjure up times when we led the world with our beautifully designed executive cars. Obviously following the same thought process the second spot was taken by Jaguar. Strangely, BMW was 3^rd followed by Audi, Mercedes, Porsche and Ferrari. No mention of a Bentley then. What would your choice be?

None of us can say that we like speed cameras but we have to admit that not all are simply there to generate income for the local authority, some have a genuine use in built up areas, near to schools and along stretches of road that had previously been an accident black spot. So whilst many of us are generally pretty happy that many local authorities are preparing to switch off many of the static Gatso cameras it’s a bit more shocking to hear that there is likely to be a cull of traffic officers. They don’t just stand by hedges with a speed camera they do an amazing job dealing with and clearing up messes left by either unfortunate or irresponsible road users. Just their presence on the streets makes criminals along with motorists think twice so I’m thinking this is a move too far. If anything, with many people becoming desperate as a result of our poor economy, crime is likely to increase rather than decrease so we need more police on the streets and in cars, not less. As for safety on our roads we have the lowest death rate in Europe, if the Government forces through the 25% cut in police costs that will affect the number of cars on our streets, that figure is likely to climb again, something none of us want. Do you agree that this is going too far?

Graham Hill’s gadget of the week is unfortunately only available on Ford cars but I have to say it seems like quite a good idea. It’s called a MirrorNavi and is essentially a sat nav built into the mirror – more like an extension to the left of the mirror with a 3.5” colour touch screen. It has no visible wires and can be installed into your car in an hour for £299 + labour. It will help to reduce clutter, according to Ford and makes the car less of a target for criminals looking for the tell tale sucker marks on the windscreen. The business bit is provided by Garmin and has all the garmin features including EcoRoutes which plots the most economic route to your destination.

Finally, Halfords owned Nationwide Autocentres has revealed the top ten 3year old cars and 5 year old cars to pass the MOT amongst the UK’s best selling cars. This information is normally very hard to find so Halfords have pretty much broken ranks by revealing the information that I print out below: 

The figures were based on the top 10 selling cars during the year of manufacture according to Halfords. One or two surprises there I have to say but it would be interesting to see stats for all cars, not just the top sellers, now that would be revealing! Are you surprised by any of the figures, drop me a note?

If you would like more information, a quote on a higher annual mileage 

or finance application form please contact me on:

ifabonus@ghafinance.co.uk

Telephone: 01444 235132

Do you understand all there is to know about car finance?

Is a personal loan better than HP?

Do you know where to find the cheapest guaranteed used cars?

Why can leasing a new car be cheaper than owning a used car?

Answers to these questions and many more are in my ebook:

Click the book title to link to the sales page

Thank you for your time, I look forward to hearing from you soon. Oh and feel free to 'forward to a friend'.

Sincerely,

Graham Hill

01444 235132