Carjam spokesman Paul Osborne says: “Many cars are sold each day. Some of these vehicles are stolen, have dodgy warrants or have had their odometers wound back. Right now, at no charge, consumers can check if a vehicle is safe and legal on our website. Consumers will be denied this information if proposed government charges go ahead.”

Like many other websites, Carjam currently gets basic information for free from the New Zealand Transport Agency’s computers, and then passes this information at no charge to consumers. The NZTA is intending to end this supply of free data, which is widely used in the motor trade to check basic facts about a vehicle.

NZTA proposes to charge websites like Carjam every time it accesses the NZTA computer. Although the charges appear small (16 cents per transaction), due to the huge number of transactions involved (1.5 million reports per month through Carjam), these charges will earn NZTA millions of dollars every year.

“At these rates, we would have to charge to the consumer for each report that we currently provide for free. Also, many consumers still don’t have credit cards; therefore they would have trouble paying for an online report, regardless of how much it cost.”

“The information that the government proposes to charge for belongs to the New Zealand people, not the government. The New Zealand motorist already pays for this data through their motor registration fees. Now the government wants to charge twice.”

“Not only do the registration fees already pay for the information that is stored about their cars, but commercial users of other vehicle information already cover the costs of providing free information to websites like ours.”

Carjam has started an online petition calling for a halt to the proposed charges. This petition has gathered 7000 signatures in just 2 days.

“In the last twelve months our free reports have identified thousands of cases of vehicles with dodgy odometers, plus countless cases of vehicles with no warrant or rego and multiple cases of stolen vehicles being offered for sale to unsuspecting consumers. That’s a huge number of consumers who were protected thanks to our free reports.

Next year, thousands of consumers may end up buying illegal or unsafe cars, thanks to the government’s proposal. It’s not exaggerating to say that lives could be lost as a result,”

Thousands of consumers are likely to end up buying illegal or unsafe
vehicles due to a government proposal to charge for basic vehicle
information, according to the motoring website carjam.co.nz.

Carjam spokesman Paul Osborne says:

 “Many cars are sold each day. Some of these vehicles are stolen, have
dodgy warrants or have had their odometers wound back. Right now, at no
charge, consumers can check if a vehicle is safe and legal on our
website.  Consumers will be denied this information if proposed
government charges go ahead.”

Like many other websites, Carjam currently gets basic information for
free from the New Zealand Transport Agency’s computers, and then passes
this information at no charge to consumers. The NZTA is intending to end
this supply of free data, which is widely used in the motor trade to
check basic facts about a vehicle.

NZTA proposes to charge websites like Carjam every time it accesses the
NZTA computer.  Although the charges appear small (16 cents per
transaction), due to the huge number of transactions involved (1.5
million reports per month through Carjam), these charges will earn NZTA
millions of dollars every year.

“At these rates, we would have to charge to the consumer for each report
that we currently provide for free. Also, many consumers still don't
have credit cards; therefore they would have trouble paying for an
online report, regardless of how much it cost."

“The information that the government proposes to charge for belongs to
the New Zealand people, not the government. The New Zealand motorist
already pays for this data through their motor registration fees. Now
the government wants to charge twice.”

“Not only do the registration fees already pay for the information that
is stored about their cars, but commercial users of other vehicle
information already cover the costs of providing free information to
websites like ours.”

Carjam has started an online petition calling for a halt to the proposed
charges. This petition has gathered 7000 signatures in just 2 days.

“In the last twelve months our free reports have identified thousands of
cases of vehicles with dodgy odometers, plus countless cases of vehicles
with no warrant or rego and multiple cases of stolen vehicles being
offered for sale to unsuspecting consumers. That’s a huge number of
consumers who were protected thanks to our free reports.

Next year, thousands of consumers may end up buying illegal or unsafe
cars, thanks to the government’s proposal. It’s not exaggerating to say
Thousands of consumers are likely to end up buying illegal or unsafe
vehicles due to a government proposal to charge for basic vehicle
information, according to the motoring website carjam.co.nz.

Carjam spokesman Paul Osborne says:

 “Many cars are sold each day. Some of these vehicles are stolen, have
dodgy warrants or have had their odometers wound back. Right now, at no
charge, consumers can check if a vehicle is safe and legal on our
website.  Consumers will be denied this information if proposed
government charges go ahead.”

Like many other websites, Carjam currently gets basic information for
free from the New Zealand Transport Agency’s computers, and then passes
this information at no charge to consumers. The NZTA is intending to end
this supply of free data, which is widely used in the motor trade to
check basic facts about a vehicle.

NZTA proposes to charge websites like Carjam every time it accesses the
NZTA computer.  Although the charges appear small (16 cents per
transaction), due to the huge number of transactions involved (1.5
million reports per month through Carjam), these charges will earn NZTA
millions of dollars every year.

“At these rates, we would have to charge to the consumer for each report
that we currently provide for free. Also, many consumers still don't
have credit cards; therefore they would have trouble paying for an
online report, regardless of how much it cost."

“The information that the government proposes to charge for belongs to
the New Zealand people, not the government. The New Zealand motorist
already pays for this data through their motor registration fees. Now
the government wants to charge twice.”

“Not only do the registration fees already pay for the information that
is stored about their cars, but commercial users of other vehicle
information already cover the costs of providing free information to
websites like ours.”

Carjam has started an online petition calling for a halt to the proposed
charges. This petition has gathered 7000 signatures in just 2 days.

“In the last twelve months our free reports have identified thousands of
cases of vehicles with dodgy odometers, plus countless cases of vehicles
with no warrant or rego and multiple cases of stolen vehicles being
offered for sale to unsuspecting consumers. That’s a huge number of
consumers who were protected thanks to our free reports.

Next year, thousands of consumers may end up buying illegal or unsafe
cars, thanks to the government’s proposal. It’s not exaggerating to say
that lives could be lost as a result,”
that lives could be lost as a result,”

Breakfast team gets the lowdown on buying a used car from our consumer commentator Troy Churton.

Watch the Episode TVNZ Breakfast: Tips for buying a used car.

CarJam got a plug too!

What secrets is the bloke selling your car not telling you? CarJam got a plug too!

Watch the Episode: “FairGo: The secret life of cars”

The advice is: never buy a vehicle without a vehicle report. And you all know CarJam is the best and cheapest!

• Using CarJam it is not possible to find an exact address unlike using NZPost which provides the full name and street address. We only provide name and suburb which a seller should know in order to prove they are the owner
• The CarJam price ($9 or $7.4 for registered users) gets you much more information that just ownership history you get at NZPost of course!

Continue to read “Trade Me car thieves growing net savvy“ article at New Zealand Herald.

Thanks to seeing the article, I dug deeper and found out that the car had been in an accident and had been written off.  The dealer, posing as a private vendor, continued to lie to me when I asked him if the car had been in an accident.  When I asked if I could arrange for an AA inspection he offered to organise an “inspection” through another company for me… just like the guy featured in the article.  Buying the vehicle report from your website was the best $14 I ever spent!!

About Lance Wiggs
Lance is an independent consultant providing management, strategy, growth and valuation consulting to industrial, media and internet based businesses. More about Lance on his blog. His blog is a great source of useful information.

CARJAM (New Zealand’s number 1 source of vehicle reports) and the TSI group of companies (New Zealand’s number 1 provider of Dealer Management Software) are proud to bring to the public, for the very first time, access to the same information used by vehicle dealers nationwide to understand and assess the value of the vehicles they trade.

Ever wondered how dealers establish their pricing? Now you can find out exactly what a vehicle is worth in the eyes of the industry directly from CARJAM at http://carjam.co.nz, this is not a guess at the value from an uninformed source, the Dealers’ Guide is based on hard data sourced directly from within the automotive industry and compiled by TSI.

Not only is the data the most accurate guide to New Zealand trade pricing for the public, its the best value with an introductory price of just $5 when purchased as part of a standard CARJAM report.

Established in 1959, to provide Estimated and Actual pricing statistics for the Motor Industry, the Dealers’ Guide has grown to become one of New Zealands largest collections of Motor Vehicle Sales Statistics.

Click here : http://www.carjam.co.nz/cms/dealers-guide/ to learn more about the Dealers’ Guide and how it can help you assess the true value of any deal trade or private.

About CarJam: http://www.carjam.co.nz/cms/about/

About TSI Group: http://www.tsinz.co.nz/aboutus/

The Sunday Star Times ran the story “Car dealer conceals crash histories” on August 23rd 2009.

It includes the following advice to buyers in side panel of  the print version to check CarJam to look for any evidence in reports of vehicles being written off:

How to spot a car that’s been in a crash
Have the vehicles ownership history checked out by doing an AA LemonCheck or visiting carjam.co.nz. If it says anywhere on the history “registration has been cancelled”, that is a telltale sign the vehicle could have been written off by an insurance company.

Check how AA and CarJam prices compare.