Update [take a deep breath first!].

Update, as promised

You may remember, back in January, when we expressed our need for a long wheel-based ‘G’ so we could carry out our work more effectively for the homeless.
We received words of wisdom from those who know more about ‘G’s than we ever will; many encouraging sounds from other GWOA members; and we promised to tell everyone how we got on.
It doesn’t make happy reading; others may correctly nod their heads sagely as they’ve maybe been there before; some may think we were foolish. But a promise is a promise, so here goes…

We trawled the ads within this forum and made contact with a few who were selling their ‘G’s. We then spoke to someone who told us that for the money we had to spend he could provide what we needed. In short, if we could find about £3,000 and our existing 22 year old swb ‘G’ in part exchange then he could get to work. More than that, he would refurbish it to a spec which we never knew existed. We thought his request for a £1,000 deposit seemed reasonable and that was duly sent.
We got fairly regular updates as to progress: he sent us a set of photos of ‘our’ ‘G’; told us he was changing the colour for us [he didn’t like Nautic Blue and a shiny black would be better] - and who were we to argue? To us paint is paint and if it prevents rust, then that seems reasonable, so long as it’s not too outlandish. Over time the vehicle needed a new wiring loom, which was sorted; and one of the pistons apparently abbreviated the engine when it was being road tested but it didn’t matter as his brother had a spare engine which would be fitted. Then it failed its MOT because of a chip in the windscreen, but that would be easily sorted, too.

There was then a delay of a few weeks - which we accept was not of our supplier’s making. A close relative developed cancer and we had to make many trips to and from Norfolk until she eventually died. When we reported this to our supplier he announced his father had died, too. Rather than a normal burial he’d had a Viking funeral [he lived in Sweden]. This was almost developing into a game of cards with one trying to ‘trump’ the other with a bigger [and better?] funeral.
We took a breath, proceeded and learned again the meaning of the word: Patience, with further delays to the fitting out.

We soon had to learn another couple of words: Reality, and… no, I’d better not say the other word. After further weeks of things going wrong and more seemingly plausible explanations we decided to make the trip further north to check out our ‘G’ for ourselves.
Oops. Just missed it. It was on a low-loader and on its way to us - we must have passed it on the way. Hmmm. If it was that good, why not just drive it?
Enough.
After quite a bit of research it seems that the ‘G’ never existed. Well, at least it never belonged to or was in the possession of our ‘supplier’. It was just a jpeg: a figment of the imagination. His ‘business’ was actually someone else’s [who was less than impressed at what he heard from us]; and the house where some new vehicles were kept on adjoining land didn’t belong to him, either.

Now, in my business of public relations I get to meet some very interesting people. They range from royalty to the sort of people you wouldn’t invite home for tea. Rather than call on the services of the latter [or, indeed, the former] I instead spoke to a friend [and supporter of this charity] who happens to be rather high in the Police force. He suggested we do everything we could to get our money back. So we did. It did involve us telling our supplier’s family what had gone on and, after a couple of weeks of phone calls every other day, we eventually got our money back. Clearly, the other members of our supplier’s family realise that things needed to be put right - the threat of legal action may have concentrated their minds - but they appear to be straight. Well, at least straighter than the supplier, but then maybe that’s not saying too much.

Do we feel foolish? Well, I do. You see, I trusted the supplier.
Was I naïve? Well, you decide. With hindsight [always a wonderful thing] I should have kept closer tabs on what was [not] happening.
Were we realistic in expecting a refurbished lwb ‘G’ for that sort of money? Generally speaking, probably not. But then others have, in the past, been most generous and it was not outside the bounds of probability that our supplier could have been one of those generous people, too.

From our point of view, the matter has to be now closed. Because we can’t afford litigation we really can’t say who our ‘supplier’ is. The fault is clearly ours/mine, but we do ask this question: Are all those who advertise on this forum members of GWOA? If it is possible for non-members of GWOA to advertise items for sale within this forum, hasn’t then the GWOA a duty of care to take reasonable steps to ensure its members are not going to be ripped off? Most would consider the membership fee of £25 is more than reasonable when dealing with vehicles as expensive as ‘G’s.
The least GWOA could do is to cancel the membership of any miscreants, but if they’re not members in the first place…

Fortunately, running an award-winning charity for 23 years doesn’t mean you have to be a soft touch so I was encouraged to use my terrier-like qualities to get back what we were owed. We still lost out, though. Apart from the 5 months of wasted time waiting for a vehicle to not arrive, we’re now less trusting, which is a shame. Our plans for expansion have been put on the back-burner for a while and we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got for a bit longer. Our disappointed children have also learned that all that glisters is not gold. Perhaps a harsh lesson, but better they learn it at someone else’s expense.

I did say this wouldn’t make easy reading [and it’s not been too easy to write, either!] but there you have it. As a postscript, there’s much more to this than I have so far related but my bet is that this will not be the last to be heard from our ‘supplier’. I’ll keep you posted.

John Tempest
Director
The Bradford Soup Run