Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

My racks been leaking heavily 4 a while and iv been buying 5ltr off ATF at a time from halfords. 

I top it up the other night, from a new bottle but It was dark and I didn't really pay much attention 2 the contents. Then the other night, I had park my car at a friends, the level was low so I went home in his car, and poured some off the 5ltr bottle in a 1ltr empty ATF bottle I had. I noticed it was an brown oily coulor rather then the transparent red, it was also a lot thinker and smelt off oil. My friend who had given me' the lift works in halfords and I was telling him I don't think this is ATF. He didn't believe me' as it was the seal wasn't broken. I thought it MIT have thinken up a little bit with the cold weather but not turned so dark. 

I went 2 halfords today brought a new bottle and cross refentenced the oil bottle against it. I returned the oil bottle and was refuned the cost off the one off the bottles. 

It would apper someone has emptied the contents and refilled with old used oil and returned for a refund. 

But my main fear is what that old used oil has done or can do 2 my power steering pump? 

That happened to me at Halfords, but with Castrol GTX engine oil. Fortunately I noticed as soon as I opened the container because the seal was opened and so didn't use any. I took it back and was given a new one with no problems or questions - which implies that they are used to it and that there are some real scum-bag thieves out there.

Where do people learn all these tricks from?

Quite a few years ago I worked at a supermarket as a supervioser while I was studying as it offer work hours after school hours. And at xmass time when the shops packed. Electrical items would get returned. There was this one time when my manger refunded a DVD player which was a shit brand but still £300 pounds and didn't even look in the box! I pulled him on it and he said u could feel that it was in the box, ??? I said u sure it ant just a lump off wood. He told me' I was crimealy minded! Don't think it takes much 2 work out a few scams. But once they get away with it the scam will get repeated again and again.

People will always try something to get a product or service for cheap. When I worked for Nakamichi, we havd a pallet of cassette decks all costing £450 pounds each.
Whenwe sold one and sent it to a costumer they returned it because the cassette deck had been swapped for a bag of bolts somewhere in transit. Never could trace where it was done though.

Most retaillers are expecting some loss through exchange and swapped products.

They're usually of a certain origin. There used to be a petrol station on the A556 that was putting additives in unleaded fuel and selling it through the red pump as 'lead replacement petrol' at the much higher 'lead replacement' price. They eventually got caught and shut down. They were of a certain origin too.

What really bugs me is the way Halfords (and other stores) run legalised scams putting 'sale' on items in their January sales - it's all bollocks. True story - One New Year Sales time I was looking at a car stereo at £99.99 'a third off was £149.99'. They had been selling it at £114.99 in November, then £99.99 from December 26th in 'the sales'. It had never been £149.99. I wrote to Halfords and to No10 because it's a scam. Halfords proved to me that it had been on sale for £149.99 in one store in Ireland for a four week period ending 26th December. No10 confirmed to me that all they need to do is to advertise it at a higher price for 28 days at any store anywhere they want to and then they can sell it at every store and call it 'half price'. If you read any sale offer it usually says 'previously sold at...' in the small print.

The other con is saying 'half RRP' - they (any store) don't even have to have sold it at RRP to make the statement. Usually they're only knocking 10% off what they usually sell it at - but you think you're getting a bargain. Argos do this a lot.

Just be careful out there!

Yep. They're all at it out there. My brother works in retail for a well known shop selling suits. He was telling me in October that the prices of the suits were hiked up. So when the 'sales' start in December, they sell them at the normal price! No such thing as a sale anymore, espically when they start them early in December!

Ben

Ahhhh, the sales, don't get me started. Did you know that the some of the stuff is made just for the sales, they also chuck all their seconds in. In the mad rush, and often with limited refund policies, the shops get rid of all their rubbish and the customer thinks they've done really well out of it! You won't catch me in the shops in January!

Nothing new guys, you all make it sound like its only just happened!!

Price establishment is law, retailers only need to offer a product for 28 days at an inflated price in some far flung corner of the UK. This product may well have been produced purely as a 'sale' item. The 40% off may well be off a spurious Suggested Retail Price in the first place and the discounted price be a 'usual' selling price of said quality.

There are some genuine sale items mixed in with the engineered items. Seconds have to be marked as seconds. Most of the 'Designer Outlets' create the sale product for these environments mixed in with the clearance. Some retailers are worse than others at these tactics. Its very easy to spot if you have some knowledge of how products are produced and offered for sale.

Been going on for years, and the big stores don't care because of the high mark up.

4ltrs Red Antifreeze from my local factor - £8
Trying buying that much from Halfrauds for that price!

Quick scam i found out by accident the other week, supermarket sandwiches aren't done by exact weight, so you can throw down some Fidge Raiders at the same time as the sarnie and it just charges you for the sandwich