In particular salesmen.

Specifically car salesmen.

I mean, all I want to do is buy a car (cash) - I don't want their finance, loans or HP agreements which I point out rather early in the 'exchange' but yet they insist in telling me about them. You can't even stop them once they've started - it's almost more important to them than selling the actual car!!! Yes, I know that's where they make their money but I can do without the old 'oooo, you don't want that type of finance' or 'ah but ours is cheaper'. Bollocks. I know that 'flat rate' and 'APR' differ and I also know that it doesn't concern me so why the need to tell me all about it???

OK, rant over. Back to what you were doing please.

Al

Might I make a suggestion?

As you are buying in cash, at the opening thing with the salesman, simply state that if he tries to mention any form of finance product you shall leave immediately.

how come you need a car? whats wrong with your vauxhall?

Yes, tell me about it... this annoys me too about car showrooms.

Call me old-fashioned, but when I change my car I save up for it and have a rough idea what my old car's worth, so when I walk through the showroom I know I have "X" amount to play with, assuming I get what I believe the old car is worth (rarely the case!). They always try to get you to sign up for finance, despite telling them you're not interested in paying that way.

Last time when I bought my Ford Fiesta from a main Ford dealership, the salesman looked at me as if I had two heads when I said I would be paying with cash (well, via a bank transfer, but as good as cash!). It completely threw him off his pre-arranged script to swindle, sorry, sign up customers to their overpriced finance schemes. There was a long silence before he went away "to discuss this with his manager" then reluctantly agreed to it. It was the look of shock on his face to find a customer that won't pay with finance that I found quite amusing! You would think I'd asked him if I could dip my knob in his coffee cup!!

I'm about to change my car again in the next month or two so will have to go through this farce again soon.

Plonk the cash on his desk, and then whilst he continues whittering on put a note back into your wallet every 5 or so seconds. See how long it takes him to figure it out.

A friend of mine was offered 0% finance for his car, so he figured he'd be daft not to take it and stuck the cash in the bank to earn interest. When the finance is up, he'll just pay the lot off in one go.

A few years ago, I would agree that the 0% finance, combined with reasonable interest rates for your savings, would be a reasonably way to buy a car - as long as you don't blow that cash on something else and keep it in the bank earning interest! Trouble is, you get hardly any interest on your savings at the moment so there's no incentive to do it that way really.

I bought a car with cash once. The look on the salesman's face when I plonked the four grand in used notes on his desk was one to treasure.

Now, I tend to buy cars with the credit card. The average is about £1500 per motor. The smaller dealers are quite happy with that, and don't worry about the finance rubbish.

I bought the IROC in cash. £4000, in twenties. Collecting that from the bank was fun (no £50 notes? Really? Cheers then) - then driving it down to near Dorchester. I'm glad I wasn't stopped by the Police with £4k in used £20 notes in a brown paper bag!
It was, however, a private deal and not via a dealer.

You can't even buy a console in GAME now without being offered finance deals or insurance

I always laugh at the women behind the counters' mood changing from miserable to perky when I put a serious whack of cash into my ISA, 'Oh, a young man with loads of notes, now that changes things!'

When that happens it's all I can do not to burst out laughing. Do these people not know that the public know they're following a script?

There’s your clue.

it was only a few weeks ago I drove past Al in his trusty? vauxhaull, looked fine to me I have heard parts are expensive for vauxhalls

I did the same for my GTA, took the guy I bought from a month of Sundays to count it!

Yesterday it was the turn of the Ford garage in Elgin to suffer our wrath. The salesman (Chris) snuck up on us before we could make a run for it - first question.... are you interested in this car sir/madam? Answer - no I'm looking at the car behind me, I've just got a very bad squint Second question, well more of a statement really, we do great finance terms! Answer - we don't need finance terms thank you and we don't want you to discuss them again. Accept our word we will pay cash but if you try and discuss finance terms again we will walk away, do you understand? Response - so you don't want to even see what we've got to offer - it really is a great deal? No Einstein, we want to buy a car - not enter into an agreement whereby the by-product happens to be a car. Now, tell us about this car.

The look of confusion on his face at this point was worth a picture but he quickly gathered himself together and said "We offer great finance deals on our cars".

We walked away - into the showroom and up to the sales managers office. I asked him if it was possible to buy a car for cash/bank transfer or credit card and he answered yes. Great I said, now...... is it possible for a car salesman (in this case Chris) to sell a car without finance and we got another yes. Cool, now can you instruct Chris not to mention finance deals of any kind, concentrate on the relevant points of the car and sell us the pretty blue one he showed us earlier? Answer - so you don't want us to show you our great finance deals?

We walked away

David - car is 8 years old, 90k on the clock and costing a fortune to keep roadworthy. Time to get rid.

Al