A dodgy Fife secondhand car salesman could face jail, after leaving his customers thousands of pounds out of pocket.
Alexander McTavish, 68, once sold a four-wheel drive vehicle that a mechanic condemned as a “death trap”.
A Fiat Doblo at McTavish’s garage, in Sea Road in Methil, with 57,069 showing on the clock and described as having had one previous owner had actually travelled more than 100,000 miles and had six previous owners.
Appearing in civil proceedings pursued by Fife Council at Dunfermline Sheriff Court on Monday, McTavish admitted 10 breaches of an enforcement order imposed in 2010 under the Enterprise Act 2002.
The order was served to prevent him from breaching sales contracts by retaining a vehicle without refunding the customer or selling cars that are not as described.
In January last year, Laura Brown from Orkney phoned up about an advert for a Mitsubishi Shogun placed by the Methil car dealer. When she spoke to McTavish on the phone, he told her the vehicle was “immaculate” and was set to have an MOT that month.
McTavish agreed to have the car delivered to Aberdeen ferry terminal but said the full payment of £1,950 would be required before it left Fife.
Having paid for the car, Ms Brown also ended up having to pay for the sailing fee, despite the fact McTavish had agreed to cover that cost.
After a ferry company employee drove the vehicle off the boat, Ms Brown was told there were warning lights on and there was a problem with the gears.
The car had to be towed from the terminal to the garage. A mechanic who examined the vehicle described it as a “death trap”.
An examiner from the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency also inspected the car and found it to be in poor condition with no MOT. He said he could not test it fully because the brakes were in poor condition.
McTavish refused to refund Ms Brown’s payment or repair the vehicle.
Among the other breaches admitted by McTavish was the sale of a Mitsubishi Shogun described as being registered in 1997 when it was actually registered in 1991. McTavish took back the car but never refunded the customer.
He also sold a Honda CR-V for £2,275, which had 123,606 miles on the clock but had been falsely described as having done 88,000 miles. The Honda was described as having had one female owner, but had actually been registered to the Scottish Ambulance Service.
Representing Fife Council, solicitor Neil Macdonald said: “All of these consumers lost money. Many of them put out as much as they could reasonably afford for the vehicles in question.”
McTavish, who was sent to jail for four months for fraud in 2011, will be sentenced next month and could face imprisonment.
Sheriff Colin McClory called for a social work background report and deferred sentence until October 14.
Solicitor Nigel Cooke, for McTavish, said his client was “slowing down” as he approached 70 and it was likely he would have to give up dealing cars at some point.
He said McTavish, who had a farming background, had run a Ford franchise in Burntisland but it burned down in the early 1990s and he went into secondhand car dealing.
In 1999, McTavish was thrown out of the Scottish Motor Trade Association for bringing the trade into disrepute, after he was jailed for clocking cars. At the time he had two previous similar convictions dating back to the late 1980s. He was sentenced to community service in 2003 for selling a vehicle with the wrong registration plate.