We have a good news for customers in countries which have difficulties to send payment by Telegraphic transfer (T/T). We have now started accepting payments by Letter of Credit (L/C).
For more details about the payment terms and acceptable countries and issuing banks, please check our How to Buy page.

Technorati Tags: payment, T/T, L/C

Recently we have noticed many incidences where the customers sends us the payment for purchasing car or towards auction deposit, and then they immediately want their deposit/payment back right after the remittance. We usually try to refund money as soon as we can, but this is a time consuming job because we have to line up in the bank, and many times the beneficiary give us incomplete information of the bank. Also we have to pay bank charges for receiving and sending money

Consequently, we have decided that we will charge 20,000 Yen as our processing fees for each refund. Thus, please be cautious if you just want to send money and get immediate refund.

Also, to prevent scammers doing money laundering in this way, we can not refund the money to a bank account which is different from the one from where the money was sent.

Technorati Tags: car

We are introducing a new rule about membership and deposits for used car  auction.  From now on, we will have various membership plans and benefits for our customers to ensure high quality service.

Once you enroll as our member, depending on the number of vehicles you purchased, you’ll be placed in a membership category. Thus, a new member stats as ‘Red’ member, and gradually progresses towards the ‘Premium’ status.

Our cost calculation is straight-forward. Our fees include our commission, auction fee, Japanese domestic transportation charges, and Forwarder fees (customs in Japan) and the fees vary depending on the membership type.

For example, if you are a Premium Member, and succeed in getting a car at JPY 500,000 at the auction,

your total cost would be JPY 500,000 (car cost) + JPY 70,000 (our fees) = JPY 570,000 (FOB price).

To arrive at the CIF price add the freight fee (from Japan to your country’s port) to the FOB price.

*.Please note that you will have to pay 5% commission charges on car costs exceeding JPY 1,000,000. For example, if you are a Premium Member and if you would succeed in getting a car at JPY 2,000,000 at the auction, then you’ll have to pay extra commission of  (2,000,000-1,000,000)x5% = JPY 50,000. 

Thus, the total price of the car will be 2,000,000 + 70,000 + 50,000 = JPY 2,120,000

Technorati Tags: used car, auction, auction, Japanese, transportation, Japan, car

We have recently stopped accepting payments by Paypal / Credit Card from our website. You may wonder why.Recently one customer who posed  introduced himself as “Michel D Harding from USA did money transfers dividing into several small transfers. This name was a false name. The telephone number given by him was also non-existing. He wanted the car to be exported to an African country. Thinking that he has sent the money,  we bought the car desired by him and carried it to the port. Then, suddenly we received a notice from Paypal that the transactions were under scrutiny.  The cards he used seem to be counterfeit ones. 

We, at our end, can not check which card is counterfeit. We came to know about this fraud one week after we purchased the car for him when we had already bought the car for the customer and had sent it to the port; so we lost lot of money from our side.  We have lost trust in such customers who try to take advantage using fake cards. We can see that there is a big risk by accepting payments by Paypal or Credit card.  Also the hackers’ attacks have became terrible on our website. So in order to strengthen the security of our website we have decided to remove the payment option by Paypal?Credit Card. We will accept money by T.T. or Western Union.

Technorati Tags: Paypal, car, fraud, fake, Credit card, Western Union

For those who wish to bid for used cars from auction, please note that you need a deposit at least  100,000 Yen for every car you wish to bid for. This is to protect our interest, in case you would not buy the car after we buy the car from auction for you.

We will honestly tell you about the start price at the auction and maximum price at which similar cars were sold at the previous auctions. You have to use your judgement andarrive at your bid price; also keeping in mind your budget. If you are lucky, you can bid for a price lower than average market price and you can still buy the car at that price if nobody bids higher than you and the seller is willing to sell at that price. 

Today we experienced a problem.  One buyer from Cyprus sent a deposit of 100,000 yen via T/T. He also called me to confirm the bank transfer and expressed his interest in buying a car from the auto auction. I was happy that we had a new customer. But several hours later, another man called claiming the same name and he said he wanted us to return his money immediately.

Of course we would return the money if the customer wants it, but in this case we noticed there was something strange. If I send back the money, and if the real customer surfaces later, that would be a problem. My real customer would lose money by my mistake. So this time I decided to keep his deposit for 2 months unless he buys the car from us.  Some developing countries have many regulations about sending money by T.T. and I have to be very careful if such requests arise asking for returning the money deposit.

Please do not worry. We always keep our customer’s money safe, and normally we return their money immediately if they desire.  We just charge the bank transfer charges to the customer. We have different bank accounts for customer’s deposit.

One more notice. I got a deposit from Mr.Richard from Aucland NZ on 19th May. But so far he hasn’t contacted to me.  Mr.Richard please contact us !!We are waiting for your contact.

Technorati Tags: used cars, auction, car, auto auction

Last weekend, I went to Tokyo Disneyland and stayed there with my family from Thursday to Saturday. My internet connection then was very slow and affected my replying to customer emails.

We had a nice view from the Hotel in Tokyo Disney Sea buy we experienced a typhoon on that day. We were lucky in that way, as there were few customers.  In popular holiday seasons in Japan, such as the Golden week, we have to wait for 2 hours just to buy a popcorn !! Can you believe it? That’s why I tried to go there in rainy season but I had not expected the typhoon.

Now we are having two problems about payment.

First incidence goes like this.  We received an order from a Caribbean country for 9 cars from one of our customners. But we just received the payment for 4 of these cars (90%). These cars have already been shipped to his country. We have a B/L for him, but we won’t send it unless we receive 100% of the payment for these cars.  Now we have a big problem.  The customer says that he will pay the money, but we can not trust him because he should have made the payment to us 2 months ago. We have already waited it for a long time.

Now I will be forced to sell these cars in Japan.  If we don’t return the deposit, the customer will lose a lot of money, and we don’t want to do this. We think it is our fault,too, because we should have been strict about the payment.  We thought he bought many cars, so we relaxed the rules, but it was not a right judgment.  Of course, we won’t send him the Bill of Loading unless we receive 100 % money. From now on, I have learned a lesson.  We will not ship the cars,  if the customer wouldn’t pay 100% amount within 4 days.  We will be firm with this rule.

One more similar incidence occurred.  We sold a car from USS auction to a Canadian buyer, but he wanted to cancel the order after he bought the car - because  he doesn’t  like the interior condition of the car.  Some parts of interior are not in good condition. He also said to he was not aware of this condition because we had not sent him the auction sheet. My reply to him was that we can not cancel the order. If he really wanted to see the auction sheet before buying the car, he should have mentioned to us before buying the car and we could have sent it to him. But he did not insist on it and we did not find it necessary to send him the auction sheet.

Of course we would buy a car with beautiful interior if the customer insists on it, but we can not read what is in the customers’ mind unless they tell us. Canadians can import only cars which are 15 year old. The car we selected for him had a grade “4″, so we had mentioned to him that the car was in a very good condition. It is very unrealistic to find a 15 year old car with perfect conditon and the customer has to understand it. Now I have no choice but  to take his deposit as I’d be forced to re-sell the car at USS auction again. I  can not cancel the order after buying the car -  that is the auction rule and I have to abide by it.  I really don’t want to cause trouble to customers, but if few cases like these occur, we may go bankrupt.

Technorati Tags: Tokyo Disneyland, USS auction, car

This week two gentlemen who were visiting Japan from New Zealand on a business trip came to our office. They were interested in buying a car from Japanese used car auction for their personal use. I took them to Yokohama used car auction with me.

One of them found a nice car which he liked, but the auction had already ended. He was lucky that car was not sold in auction, so we tried to buy the car by negotiation ( It is possible for a buyer to negotiate with the seller though auction staff).

My customer was happy that we could buy the car after the auction was over. However later we found out that the car had a problem with the air conditioner. The air conditioner had run out of gas. If it was just a simple problem of being run out of gas, we can fix it for just about 3,000 yen. But I think the problem was different and the seller knew it very well. So he just mentioned to the auction office that the air conditioner had run out of gas. And so the auction inspector didn’t realize that problem and was not mentioned in the auction sheet.

In short, we were cheated by the seller. If we buy a car during the auction process, and later find problems which are not mentioned in the auction sheet, we can market that I cancel our order.  But since we bought the car after the auction was over, we could not cancel the order. It was not my customer’s fault, but I took it as my lack of observation, so.I discounted my customer for 100,000 Yen. My commission is 50,000 Yen and it was a loss for me, but I must take a responsibility for quality for my customer.

It was a sad affair, so ladies and gentlemen, please take extra care if you buy a car after the auction is over through negotiation.

The two  customers from New Zealand are Kiwi but their nationality is Iraq. They have a very serious problem in their home country, but I found them very bright and of good character. Though I do not wish to mix politics in this blog,  I just pray that their family and friends in their homeland Iraq can live peacefully.

Technorati Tags: Japanese, used car, auction, New Zealand, Iraq

Today we received a call from a customer in South Africa. He wanted to bid for auction but he was skeptical of sending the deposit needed for bidding to our bank account. Well, such doubts are natural which could come to our prospective customers’ mind. So I need to share here about our various memberships.

We are a registered member of prestigious institutions such as  JUMVEA (Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporter Association),  Japan chamber of commerce, and various auction houses such as USS, CAA etc. Thus if we swindle customer’s money, we are liable for severe punishment under internationa trade laws. You can see here copies of some of our membership certificates.

Technorati Tags: JUMVEA, Japan, auction, USS

It’s getting hot here in Tokyo and in recent years heat in Tokyo is abnormal. Perhaps, the sultriness equals tropical countries like Thailand and the Philippines. Today’s temperature was 28 degrees.

The most farthest used car auction house in the north of Japan is in Sapporo, Hokkaido and the farthest one in the south is in Fukuoka.

Though Japan is a small country, the labor costs here are the highest in the world. Therefore, costs of transporting a car by land within Japan is considerably high.

Thinking Yokohama to be a central city, transportation cost of standard car is about 4,000 yen from Yokohama, 15,000 yen from Nagoya, 20,000 Yen from Osaka, 25,000 yen from Sapporo, and 35,000 yen from Fukuoka. So the distance is a disadvantage even though sometimes cars could be bought at cheap prices at auctions in the far off cities like Sapporo and Fukuoka.

Technorati Tags: Hokkaido, Japan, transportation, Fukuoka

Today I’ll share with you one incidence which was a mistake on our part.

One of our customers from a Carribean country placed an order for a car with us. He had transferred part of the money to our bank account. Trusting that he will send the remaining money I went ahead and shipped the car to St. Lucia. I however did not send him the bill of loading. I was planning to send it to the customer only after getting the full payment. However the payment did not arrive from the customer. So I decided to stop the shipment at the port of Jamaica and negotiated with a shipment company in Jamaica to ship the car back to Japan. It was not possible for us to selll the car to any other customer in Jamaica because of the regulations regarding year of manufacturing.

The transportation fee for shipping the car back to Japan was huge - around $50,000 because no container was available and ours was the only car to be shippped by LO/LO ship. Reluctantly I agreed to ship the car though the price was high.In the meantime, the buyer got in touch with me again asking for discounts. We told him that we have stoppped the car in Jamaica because he did not pay the full amount. He was surprised and immediately transferred the remaining money. Fortunately the ship to Japan had not left, so the buyer could collect the car at Jamaica but he had to arrange for the transporation from Jamaica to St. Lucia

So you can see that it causes problems both for the buyers as well as us when customers do not send full payment by the agreed date.

We as exporter have to take care of many financial risks - such as paying for the storage fee of the car at the port, fees for ship backs etc.  So please understand why we ask for full payment before we could ship the car.

Technorati Tags: shipment, Japan, container, Jamaica, St. Lucia, car