horrible dodgy mechanic in melbourne!!

horrible dodgy mechanic in melbourne!!

I have just been reading thru past postings and I thought I should share this bit of info with you....

My partner and i bought a car in Perth and had the intention of driving it back to sydney.....great car. Anyway we got to melbourne and loved the city and we were staying in coburg..in a top ten site, we ended up having to get the car serviced. It just so happens there is a garage next door to this campsite, loads of people seemed to be going there, convienently placed. So we took it in and started talking to the bloke...who was the best con man I had ever seen, weve been used to scams and been travelling for well over a year, he told us we would get better value for money if we sold it in melbourne...IF we got such and such work done on it. We were not sure what to do but he was showing us these pictures of other cars he had sold sayig that if we got the work done we could sell it for x amount. He had sold one last week just like it..blah blahblah... we ended up being sucked in as he said he would help us sell it. He said he did it all the time, and in fairness it looked like loads of back packer cars were being left there! so we ended up getting the work done, costing us a grand. We had to leave two weeks after this and convienently the day we left he told us he could only keep the car in his garage for a few days. He hadnt told us this before as he had said he would sell it for us. So we werent sure what to do. but he reassured us that he had someone coming too look at it the following day. So we left the car (we had no choice) we had booked flights back to sydney to meet my boyfriends parents.

We got back to Sydney, we had got all this paperwork signed by him, to say that llegally he had our car and that he would put the money into my partners account. Mobile on all the time, no phone call.....my boyfriend rang him the day we were leaving australia. And he claims he had been trying to get hold of us.......as guess what the car was smashed into outside his garage !!!!! And to get it fixed up it would cost us loads of cash. But the good thing was that someone had come along after it had been smashed and offered him 500 bucks.....so we should take it. My boyfriend thought this was complete bullshit....but what to do tell him this or get the 500 bucks off him. It was a loose loose situation.

Maybe we were stupid. But this bloke basically appeared like he was being so genuine (i know good conmen always do) and this wasnt over a period of a few days it was over weeks....i just wanted to tell u this story about the garage next to the top ten park in coburg melbourne. It wasnt nice ...... he ended up getting a grand out of us for the work he did and our car...which i wreckon he probably sold the car for a nice profit to another back packer....

Just crappy as we had been travelling for over a year and it basically meant we had to cut our new zealand travell a bit short as we ran out of cash. I know u are warned about mechanics, and im not saying they are all like this...what peed us off the most is that we bought him a bottle of scotch before all this to say thanks!!!!!!!!

Please no comments about how dumb we have been.

Sorry to hear you hadf a bad experience. I never trust mechanics! you should call the police in Melbourne and make an official report.

I would notify the police as well. They should be able to do a check to see whether the car was sold on to someone else rather than smashed up as the guy claimed.

Do the right thing by travellers - complain to the authorities.

if this has just happened recently, I would be asking the guy for a photo of the damage - also the person who hit your car is liable for repairs, ask him for the name and address of the person who hit the car also for paperwork to prove the car has been sold and to who.

I would also tell this person that you are far from happy and that he had agreed to sell the car at a particular price, as such he is responsible to give you the balance of what he supposedly received and the agreed selling amount.

I would also consider contacting Consumer Affairs - if he is dodgey as you suspect they will be happy to advise you how to make a claim.

From now on all communication with him should be in writing, all phone calls conversation keep a detailed record of, in particular time, date and who the conversation was between.

All the best.

naturally that is dodgy not dodgey or doggy