Illegal Alien

Hey! What am I doing back here again?? Well, it seems like only a few weeks ago that I wrote a column about selling my grey import Nissan Skyline R33 GTS ["Guest Column"].

So why write another? Well, I didn't tell the whole story. You see it goes much deeper than importing, respecting, enjoying and then selling car: here is a tale of drama, woe, stress and very nearly murder! Sit back, relax and let me tell you about it.

A Long Time Ago...

A long time ago, in a Melbourne port far away from my home, I picked up my new car. It was relatively clean, even after a long trip from Kobe in Japan. In beginning my own little business - with a partner - to import the odd car, we had built up a few contacts to get the process seen to. We had an agent in Japan, who still operates and seems to be doing well. We had a customs agent who never put a foot wrong, and provided excellent service. We had a compliancer/mechanic back in Melbourne to prepare the vehicle before sale... and it is with this compliancer/mechanic where the tale of treachery begins....

Once it had arrived, the car was left in its virginal state at the mechanic's premises to get complied. It took a week or so, during which I occasionally dropped in unexpectedly to see the vehicle in various states of 'undress'. Once I had to rouse the mechanic from my rear seats positioned at the side of the workshop in which he seemed to be rather comfortable, drinking cheap beer. At least I knew that the car was having the proper items for compliance fitted; but at the same time, the mechanic was a smooth talker - and this always has me slightly on edge. Then again, I had no reason to distrust the guy. He had performed servicing before and seemed fine.

I picked up the car, and it was registered with my new plates. "Where is the compliance plate?" I asked, looking feverishly about the engine bay.

"Well, we got around that for the moment by importing this as a 'test and evaluation vehicle'," said the mechanic smoothly. "We don't have our compliance plates yet but they are coming and when we get them in a few months, we will put it on the car. It's fine! You can drive around for 12 months with the car like that but that doesn't matter because within 3 months Canberra will give us the plates."

Well, I wasn't too impressed, but naivety played a role in my trust, and I believed that everything was indeed OK.

So I went on with life for a while. The newly complianced Skyline was a truly impressive 'Grand Tourer' and always brought a smile to my face. Little was I to know that the grey import I so adored was going to cause me so much stress and anger 12 months down the track.

Then the time came a year later when I thought about selling it, and buying a new car. The scary depreciation of imports had me a little concerned, so I thought maybe I should 'get out' while I still had a good economic chance. I rang the mechanic.

"Hey, I need that compliance plate! Where is it?"

"Oh," he said, "I can't put it on, an engineer that we use has to sign for it. I will have to get him to do it."

So I waited. I called again. I was given excuses. I called again. Again and again and again. Three months later, with phone calls weekly, I was beginning to get worried that I not only had a car that I may not be able to sell, but I'd been 'done over' on the compliance. I did some investigation, and it turned out that a "Test and Evaluation Vehicle" had to be de-registered, proper compliance had to be paid for again, and then re-registered in order to then sell the vehicle. On top of that, in its 'Test and Evaluation' status, it could only legally be driven for three months, not twelve.

In fact my car was supposed to be off the road.

Bloody hell! What was this going to cost me? Would I be left with a car that I couldn't sell, depreciating faster than I could imagine? What if I had an accident in an improperly registered vehicle? Maybe my dream of buying a car to compete in Targa Tasmania had in a strange twist already come true? But not now! I need the money!

More phone calls to the mechanic. "I can't do it," he said. "You will have to call Mr X, he is the one that does the plates."

So began my dealings with Mr X. Mr X was supposedly the engineer that my mechanic was using to sign cars. I got some mixed messages talking to Mr X and the mechanic, and it started to seem like they were conniving together. I called MR X many times. More than I care to remember.

Serious Anger Momentum

Now for those who don't know me, I am a reasonable individual. I give people a chance. I am fairly polite, sometimes firm, but always reasonable. But those who do know me realise than when I start getting very angry, I talk to people in a very different way on the phone. 'Rather commanding' was the comment once.

I spoke this way to Mr X after getting stuffed around for months on end. He started calling me "Sir". "Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full sir, I can do that for you sir, please let me look after that for you sir." Do you know what pisses me off more than people giving me the runaround? It's people talking to me like I am a bloody idiot. I may have been a little naïve, but now I was gathering some serious anger momentum.

During this time I had begun working at AutoSpeed, primarily on the eCommerce side of things, but more and more on business orientated tasks. In these various activities I got to meet and liaise with a number of importers and workshops, and I'd found one that did seem somewhat trustworthy. He even offered to help me get my car compliance as he claimed he knew of Mr X, and could exert some pressure. Fine.

Eventually, after more controlled anger on the phone, and some loosely veiled legal threats, I got a green compliance plate on the car, and a '0-4-5 Inspection Certificate' signed by a Mr Y, NOT by Mr X. What???

Who the bloody hell is Mr Y?

"Oh, he is the engineer that signed the vehicle off. It's fine. According to the law, the car is complied and registered. So, if you want to sell it you can," explained my trusted importer.

Happy days! Life went on, a weight was lifted from my shoulders, and I enjoyed driving my car without the stress of knowing I was being taken for a ride. And, as some of you may know from my previous column, I recently had the opportunity to sell the car to a friend. The timing was right, I wanted the cash in my savings account to help buy a property, and I knew the buyer. We negotiated a price, got a roadworthy, signed the transfer form and did the transaction.

Then my friend went down to the vehicle authority VicRoads with the original of the ownership transfer form to transfer the car.

"Sorry sir, we cannot transfer this vehicle as a VicRoads engineer has 'flagged' it; you will have to get the owner to call our engineer and sort it out."

The news was relayed to me by the slightly nervous buyer. I got on the phone to the Vicroads engineer, hoping for the best.

"Have you got a 0-4-5 certificate and compliance plate on the car?" asked the engineer.

"Yep! Plate is on, and the certificate is in my hand," I replied - hey this was just a normal admin stuff-up.

"OK, you just have to fax that to me, and I can 'unflag' the vehicle."

Phew! That was all it was.... Good stuff - thought I would have to go through compliancing dramas again, this time with the road authority involved... God knows what the outcome might be for me, and I didn't want to stuff my friend around who had paid for the car in full - and in fact had been already driving it around...

So, I sent the fax off.

Two days later the phone rang.

"Hi, it's the engineer here. Look, we have reason to believe that the certificate you provided is a forgery organised by Mr X. You have to ring the engineer whose (apparently) forged name and details appears on the form and get him to re-sign it - if in fact it was him."

OK, so there has been some woe, an awful lot of stress, a lot of drama. But what about the 'near murder' you may ask? Well my friends, upon hearing news that Mr X apparently (and soon after verifiably) forged the import certificate, this is precisely when a murder could have occurred. I was livid. Enraged. I was sizzling with ferociousness. "Not again!" I screamed.

'Huh?' Said Mr Y

I called Mr Y, whose name appeared as the signatory on the form. He asked me some questions, and confirmed that it was a forgery - he knew nothing of the form that he was supposed to have signed.

Then I rang Mr X. I don't know what I wanted to achieve. Maybe to see if he knew that government officials and the regulating roads authority knew he was forging certificates in order to register vehicles. I don't think he did. I hinted at it. He called me 'Sir', and offered to 'fix it up if you can fax me the forms'. I told him I would, and never did.

In the end, my trusted importer said he could get his own engineer to sight the car and get the paperwork redone. The VicRoads engineer was happy with that, so that is where it stands. I have to organise to get it 're-certified'. It may cost me money. I don't care. Mr X may end up getting a huge fine, or going to jail. I hope he does. The import industry in Australia is changing, and some dodgy proprietors are being forced out. Great.

So here ends my story of woe, of sadness and of very nearly murder. Take care when buying an import. I used to be more trusting myself, but too many people have told me that in the Australia aftermarket industry, around grey market imports you can never be too careful....

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