Car dealers in court
Herefordshire car dealing brothers, Mark and Shaun Peplow, have been fined a total of £2,000 and ordered to pay compensation of more than £3,000 after they sold a car whose mileage had been clocked.
The brothers, trading as TPG Autos, at Bredenbury, sold a Peugeot estate in November last year with an odometer reading of 50,000 miles, when the car had actually done more than 131,000 miles.
The pair appeared before Hereford Magistrates yesterday, Tuesday, December 13, and pleaded guilty to two offences – offering to supply, and supplying, the Peugeot.
They were fined a total of £2,000 plus £434 costs and were ordered to pay compensation to the purchaser of £3,194 – this being the difference between the selling price and the true market value of the vehicle.
Speaking after the hearing, Herefordshire Council’s Principal Trading Standards Officer, Tim Thorne, issued a warning to car dealers to make sure vehicles they were selling had not been “clocked” by unscrupulous middlemen.
“High mileage ex-company cars such as this are often ‘clocked’ by disreputable middlemen and used car dealers should always carry out checks to verify the mileage on each vehicle they sell.
“In this case a simple call to one of the companies who operate mileage databases would have immediately revealed the true reading.
“Dealers who fail to take precautions against selling ‘clocked’ cars are liable to find themselves in Court.
“It is very encouraging to see that the courts take such matters very seriously and award appropriate compensation to the victims”.
