​Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­tributer

The T&T Au­to­mo­tive Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTA­DA) and the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try are warn­ing po­ten­tial cus­tomers to be on the look­out for fraud when im­port­ing or buy­ing for­eign used ve­hi­cles.

TTA­DA head Visham Bab­wah claims the prob­lem is com­pound­ed by the min­istry’s fail­ure to deal with peo­ple who have li­cences to im­port cars as deal­ers but al­low­ing oth­er en­ti­ties to il­le­gal­ly use their li­cences. He claimed in­di­vid­u­als are al­lowed to im­port a for­eign used car every four years.

How­ev­er, he said some peo­ple act like deal­ers and end up de­fraud­ing con­sumers.

Bab­wah said the best bet is to pur­chase a car you see in the lot from a rep­utable deal­er and not pur­chase a ve­hi­cle that can on­ly be viewed on a com­put­er mon­i­tor.

He said, “We are ad­vis­ing the pub­lic to be cau­tious, be­cause this is not some­thing that has re­cent­ly start­ed, this has been go­ing on for a long time. In the con­sumer’s quest to save mon­ey, they go to all kinds of peo­ple claim­ing to be deal­ers, give them a down pay­ment and end up with some bro­ken down or stolen cars and then com­plain.”

He added: “There are deal­ers who do not trade, but they sell their li­cences to the high­est bid­der and these peo­ple in turn op­er­ate un­der the name of the reg­is­tered car deal­ers and swin­dle peo­ple. This is il­le­gal, and we have spo­ken to the min­istry about this. To com­pound the prob­lem, some peo­ple us­ing a per­son­al im­port li­cence start call­ing them­selves a car deal­er.

“They ad­ver­tise, and they take a down pay­ment. Peo­ple have been los­ing their mon­ey through this third-par­ty deal­er who ends up rob­bing them.”

Bab­wah said bo­gus deal­ers claim to get cars as much as $30,000 cheap­er in a bid to at­tract peo­ple.

“Buy the car you see on a lot, not a ve­hi­cle you see on a com­put­er screen.”

Bab­wah said some reg­is­tered deal­ers are al­so not ad­her­ing to the war­ranties stip­u­lat­ed by the Min­istry of Trade.

In a re­lease, the Trade Li­cense Unit (TLU) of the Min­istry of Trade al­so ad­vised the pub­lic to be vig­i­lant and get fa­mil­iar with all the re­quire­ments and pro­ce­dures to im­port or pur­chase a for­eign used ve­hi­cle.

It said while mem­bers of the pub­lic are al­lowed to im­port for­eign used ve­hi­cles for their per­son­al/ com­mer­cial use, the MTI strong­ly rec­om­mends that per­sons utilise, as far as pos­si­ble, the ser­vices of a reg­is­tered for­eign used car deal­er, as such en­ti­ties have un­der­gone strict com­pli­ance re­quire­ments and are ac­tive­ly mon­i­tored by the TLU.

The re­lease ad­vised that con­sumers en­sure that the deal­er is reg­is­tered with the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try through the TLU at 701-1440 or 623-2931 ext. 3014, 3016, 3017 or vis­it the min­istry’s web­site at https://tradeind.gov.tt/reg­is­tered-deal­ers-tnt/ to check the cur­rent list of ac­tive reg­is­tered deal­ers.

The TLU re­quires all reg­is­tered deal­ers to have the fol­low­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion: a Cer­tifi­cate of Reg­is­tra­tion, a VAT Reg­is­tra­tion Cer­tifi­cate, a Board of In­land Rev­enue Cer­tifi­cate, a Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board Reg­is­tra­tion Cer­tifi­cate, and a Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit Cer­tifi­cate. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, all reg­is­tered deal­ers must have an of­fice space with a re­cep­tion or wait­ing area, a ve­hi­cle stor­age area and ac­cess to garage fa­cil­i­ties for the pro­vi­sion of au­to ser­vices to clients. Deal­ers are al­so re­quired to have records of ve­hi­cles in stock and those sold. In ad­di­tion, deal­er­ships must pro­vide war­ran­ty agree­ments for all clients.