Times Past: November 17, 1977

Allegations that people had been sold vehicles without good title were being investigated and reported in The Canberra Times on this day, 43 years ago. A Scullin man had lost $4500 because a car he had purchased was repossessed by a finance company. The fellow had bought the car with $2500 cash and traded his previous vehicle for $2000. He woke up one morning to find his vehicle missing, so he reported it to the police as having been stolen. Police advised him that the car had been repossessed by a finance company. Inquiries by Voters' Voice showed that the car's true owner was the finance company. Payments by a customer of the finance company were more than five months in arrears. More than $4000 was still owing on the vehicle. In most cases, the man would be have been able to take legal action against the dealer, but the dealer was no longer in business. The Canberra manager of a finance company said that consumers would "shudder in their boots' if they knew how many vehicles with bad titles were on the market.