NZ New Director talks about company collapse

Page 1 / 2
kazbanz, Aug 27, 1:55pm
"The intention of this was never to happen,' Cassin repeats. "That is a possibility and if that happens I am prepared for it."

"It is very sad that those innocent parties have been caught up in this mess, it was never my intention," Cassin says. "We have put additional funds into the business but I could not carry on doing so.'

Cassin says for now his focus is protecting his young family. He has had people approach his home and is aware people have vendettas against him.

Receiver Peter Jollands was also questioning why the company, which had a turnover of around $700,000 did not have a trust account.

Jollands told AutoTalk he was currently trying to unravel the ownership of a number of vehicles, and paperwork and records for the company was 'substandard'.

Jollands says unverified accounts show that to the end of march the companyowed $722,000. It currently holds $41,000 in vehicle deposits.

He is expecting more than a dozen cases such as the one profiled on CloseUp.

Steve Brimblecombe, who formally owned the Christchurch franchise and until its closure on Monday managed the branch, told AutoTalk today he believed the losses were substantial, and that the liquidation followed many issues in the company, particularly between the franchises and Cassin.

Brimblecombe is still owned money for his franchise.

"I sold it (the franchise) back to the company about four months ago, on an installment plan, so I will not be getting the rest of that," says Brimblecombe. "I just was not happy with the way the company was being run. I lost a lot of

crzyhrse, Aug 27, 1:58pm
It is unacceptable that net funds from sales of "on behalf" vehicles were not kept in a trust account.

crzyhrse, Aug 27, 2:02pm
Perhaps of more interest is just who is this idiot 'journalist' who doesn't know the difference between 'owed' and 'owned'!

kazbanz, Aug 27, 2:11pm
The part that has me gobsmacked is that people are prepared to let their 50k vehicles go into the hands of people with no track history and no stock of their own.
Common sense surely says to check that there is financial backing before jepordising life savings.

crzyhrse, Aug 27, 2:17pm
Meh. People are stupid. That's not news!

franc123, Aug 27, 2:27pm
Yes exactly, its hardly the first time that this sort of thing has happened.

phillip.weston, Aug 27, 2:43pm
x1
Wow. I'm glad I got out when I did. Things have not been rosy there for a long time. Christchurch wasn't their strongest franchise - the three Auckland franchises were. Cassin has been telling vehicle owners that their money from buyers have been going into a trust account for a long time. I can tell you that they were very slack in paying the owners of the vehicles they had sold, some taking up too a few months to complete. It made dealing with clients very uneasy and I along with many of the other brokers were consistently let down by Cassin by his failed promises making the brokers themselves look like the bad guys. That's all I've got to say for now.

phillip.weston, Aug 27, 2:45pm
To be fair on them, NZ New had been around for about 7-8 years in Auckland, and regularly had their own stock usually purchased from auctions or trade in stock. Having said that I would say 75% of the vehicles sold by them were on behalf.

phillip.weston, Aug 27, 2:50pm
I particularly loved when the Hamilton branch had their trademe listings cut off presumably because they could not pay their bills to Trademe - either that or the Hamilton branch wasn't earning enough to justify the expense of advertising on TradeMe within the waikato region. To add insult to injury Cassin & co palmed it off as a technical glitch and laid the blame with their web hosting/managing company.

lowstijet, Aug 27, 6:19pm
come on phillip.weston spill the beans .wascassin as dodgy as andrew tuck!

elect70, Aug 28, 10:40am
Cant believe people stilllet dealers sell their cars on behalf . I thought the practice wasoutlawed .If the dealer went broke the finance company seized every car on the lot & owners had to go to court to get their on behalfcarback .

phillip.weston, Aug 28, 10:47am
Tuck got shafted by Cassin a while ago, that should have set off alarm bells in my head there and then.

trogedon, Aug 28, 11:33am
Didn't you say "That's all I've got to say for now." in post #8!!

kazbanz, Aug 28, 11:34am
IF the dealer went broke. I feel thats the whole point.Surely if you were looking to sell your 50k vehicle on behalf you would research and find a established dealership with a reputation for honest dealings not a crowd who could upstakes at a moments notice.

lowstijet, Aug 28, 6:35pm
phiilip, tell me more about the tuck shafting

phillip.weston, Aug 29, 12:12pm
tuck basically walked away from the waikato franchise because of all the promises cassin made which were never delivered.

lowstijet, Aug 29, 6:20pm
thanks phill, tuck must have enjoyed a taste of his own medicine, from a tucker who tucked the tuck.

phillip.weston, Oct 4, 7:38pm
thought I would bump this up as they featured on Target tonight - http://ondemand.tv3.co.nz/Target-Season-13-Ep-24/tabid/59/articleID/4315/MCat/21/Default.aspx

I haven't actually seen it myself yet (because I'm in Australia and TV3's website doesn't allow viewing from outside of NZ), but I can just imagine exactly what it's about.

neo_psy, Oct 4, 8:19pm
I felt a bit sorry for that bloke actually. Hope it all works out for him.

kazbanz, Oct 5, 7:09am
That utterly sucks.

mrfxit, Oct 5, 7:34am
MMmmmmm yea dodgy as hell, but easy to see why he was suckered.

elect70, Oct 5, 1:23pm
I thought it was mandatory that money owed toowners was put into trust accounts .Just like R e agentsselling yourhouseon your behalf . They obviously didnt .Commerce commisionmayprosecute them for that .

kazbanz, Oct 5, 2:38pm
prosecute who! and for what--the car hasn't been sold

neo_psy, Oct 5, 5:08pm
There isn't any money - the issue was the sales guy blatted around (and damaged) a car that he was meant to be selling for an absent owner

Had they sold the car and spent the dosh, well you'd probably be right.

phillip.weston, Dec 10, 5:12am
but that did happen to some poor people if you watch the first links of the close up segments.