Trying to sell my car as I am, putting perfect pictures online with highly detailed descriptions and informative pricing and offer policy, you could only imagine my glee upon receipt of the following e-mail.

Hello seller.
Im  james Run by name ,I came accross your contact details through web directory concerning the used car you have for sale and im highly interested in purchasing it.I will like to know all the details about the car before  proceeding with the payment…..

1. How long have you owned it?

2. Why are you selling it?

3. Last Price?

4. Any avaliable photo?

So, your swift response to these required information would be highly entertained before proceeding to the next stage. The method of payment is Cheque. Kindly email back, if it’s still forsale. Hope to hear from you asap.HAPPY EASTER SUNDAY
Regards.
James

A quick check on the headers and oh yes, it’s our sub-Saharan friends apparently or at least the IP address seems to say so. So, the poor guy took time to write to me; the least I could do was write back:

Dear James,

I am so delighted to hear from you. I showed your e-mail to my doctor and he gave me the great news that your e-mail means that I should bill you for the sum of US$ 40,000,000. Unfortunately this money can only be delivered to me by carrier pigeon, such is the international treaty on the matter. I realise that pigeons are in short supply but I believe that you have the ability to get some being a person of great resources. The bad news is that if this money does not reach me in 3 days from sub-Saharan departure I will have to assign the matter to the international authorities to reclaim this money for me. I will await the first pigeon and inform you when all monies have been received. If too much money is received then I will send the overpayment by unverifiable money transfer to your account of which I do not have the details. However, the paperwork will look impressive. Naturally I will refund too much money as I am stupid and as such I must ask that you advance me £100 to cover this stupidity.

Kindest Regards,

Dyelook Stew Pidtuya

I’m checking the sky everyday, waiting for that first pigeon…

Sadly the time has come to part ways with my beloved sports car. I’ve reached that stage of life whereby I have to appear all grown up and sensible. My 2-seater, 150bhp, 2.0l straight 6, limited edition, BMW Z3 just doesn’t fit that description, no matter how much I would like it to. We’ve had our fun together and now it’s officially on the market at a complete bargain price for any enthusiasts out there who would like to get their hands on a future classic. Goodbye old girl – I’ll miss you terribly when you’re gone.

…since I had a good rant about insurance companies. Well, it’s a new year and there are two advertisements that are really getting on my nerves at the moment. The first is a radio advert by AXA who claim to be your “local” insurance company. Drop in and get your amazingly cheap policy with no fuss. Well AXA are far from your “local” insurance company so don’t let that fool you into supporting your own. In fact unless you live in Dublin or Derry you won’t be talking to somebody in the same county as you when you call them. On top of that, the great savings on offer, well I still haven’t forgotten that when I started driving and acquired my first policy through a broker who got me a policy with AXA without my immediate knowledge, they charged me over IR £3,500 to drive a standard, small-engined, of-the-shelf, family car. The next year their call centre told me that they had a blanket ban on my model of car even though I was still insured with them at the time I called for new quotes. I vowed then that I would never do business with AXA again and I never have. FBD is an example of a local company – you can actually drop into one of their offices in your county and say hello to them.

The second advert that really gets me at the moment is the Hibernian TV advert. You know the one that uses the footage of Charlie Haughy telling us to tighten our belts. I guess they didn’t think of this when they used that footage and that somehow highlighting the badness of the past would make us think that here’s a company that cuts to the chase and has no time for those who hoodwink and obstruct? Well just over 5 years ago Hibernian was the first motor insurance company to turn around and tell Irish drivers that the Irish driving test was worthless. Of course they didn’t say that exactly but in a roundabout way they did; they introduced the “ignition” driving test that placed a further obstacle in the path of young drivers with full licenses towards getting cheaper insurance and that somehow a half-day course would eliminate loads of the risk that their hefty statistics claim to otherwise represent. The biggest insult of all was that it completely undermined the official, government backed, Irish driving test by refusing to accept that drivers were qualified. The other thing that relates to that footage of CJ and the motor insurer is that for the last couple of years, while we have all been tightening our belts and getting ready for recession, companies like Hibernian were enjoying record profits in the Irish motor insurance arena. In 2007 the Irish motor insurance industry enjoyed profits of over Eur 357, 000, 000 but of course we’re the ones tightening our belts just like when CJ was buying his fancy shirts – the failure to spot the obvious similarity is frankly baffling and I for one would never hire the genius who came up with that idea for an ad.

Sigh… Rant over.

Well that’s not entirely true and it doesn’t have anything to do with Germans and “The Hoff”. The KIT in this instance is the Karlshrue Institute of Technology and Mercedes has teamed up with the IT to establish a centre for research into the area of electric car development. This is a great move by Daimler (Mercedes parent company) who are already pushing the bar in electric car development by launching a model for the hi-end executive market, in the S-class range, next year. To be known as the S-400 it will be the world’s first lithium-ion battery powered hybrid car. Exciting times ahead for all those green, carbon repressing sorts out there. Read more…

Those who know me will know that I’ve always been a passionate campaigner for the equal rights of the young, both in my youth and even now that I slip beyond technically being “young”. No more so has my anger against age discrimination been shown than against the ridiculous car insurance market in Ireland. I have shouted at the locked doors of the oppressive forces that uphold this unfair market; I have taken a case before the equality tribunal against a major insurer in Ireland only to find that they were retrospectively protected by a clause in the Equal Status Act despite their unfair practices; I have continued to contact ministers, motor industry figures and others about this matter. In all of this I have discovered one thing: The young will never get recognition in this country!

The first landmark case with respect to age discrimination and car insurance came about in the Ross vs Royal and Sun Alliance case in 2003. In this case a 77-year-old man took a case for discrimination against the insurer for their blanket policy of refusing quotations to the over 70s. He took the case successfully and created a landmark ruling in the state. This weekend I learned of another case, of a Christian Brother in his mid-70s who took a case for discrimination against an Irish car rental firm for charging him a supplement of Eur 25 per day because he was over 70 and informed him that once he reached 75 he would not be entitled to rent a car at all. Again this case was taken successfully and a ruling in the favour of the elderly gentleman was made.

Now, within the Equality Tribunal, in 2004, there was also another case involving a young driver and First Call Direct which was only ruled in favour of the young driver because the company decided to change their policy of refusing quotations to under-25s on the day of the hearing, thereby admitting guilt and showing that the practice was unfair. No scrutiny of an insurer’s figures has ever been allowed to take place in the case of a young person.

In the case that I personally took against one of the country’s big insurance companies whom I cannot name for legal reasons, I tackled them through a mediation process whereby I laid my cards on the table from day one and stated unequivocally that I did not want compensation, all I wanted was to view their figures. After over 2 years of back and forth letters and mediation sessions I eventually got to the stage whereby I was given a summary of the figures that were used to blanket refuse all under 25 males. I was shocked to discover that the sample frames in use to compare risk against under 25 females showed a ratio of approximately 9:1 (i.e. 9 times the number of females to males). How any statistician could allow such sample frames to be compared as mitigating factors in a blanket refusal policy for under-25 males, I really do not know. What’s more shocking when you think about it, is how a company with a blanket refusal policy on under-25 males can even have under-25 males on its books. I know the reasons, some are legitimate (Declined Cases Committee of the Irish Insurance Federation) and others are purely business which means that those on the books are immediately within the high risk category. This means that a condensed, high risk sample frame was being contrasted to a “normal”, organic sample frame of females – incomparable! Sadly the data collected was collected prior to the Equal Status Act and therefore admissible as a discriminating factor in their defence.

So, it saddens me greatly when I still see no cases that have demanded that the insurers of this country cough up their figures with respect to the young driver market. We see all the ads on TV and we hear all the propaganda and since we were knee high to a grasshopper, we have always been told that the young are reckless, without ever being provided with proof. However, when the elderly challenge a case the ruling is always favourable and whether it’s insurance cover or repealing a decision on medical cards, the elder citizen always seems to claim victory. The young suffer in muffled rage and nobody sees fit to help them, after all what are they going to do? Their lives are too busy to run around on crusades, chasing justice. They cannot afford to be without a car to get to work, their livelihood depends on their ability to pay up and get on with it – challenging the system is not an option?