My mate Fintan - who stays and works in the States - went all the way to Barcelona (no, not the one in Spain, that would be far too easy
) to oversee its transport from there to NYC by road, on the back of a vehicle owned by his company in fact. When he arrived at the address from which the car (OK, so 80% of a car but how else do you obtain a genuine BL-sanctioned GRP mini shell?) was to be collected, it wasn't there. He recognised the place it had been as the original pictures showed certain distinctive features that identify it but no rolling shell, no sign of the vendor, who by the way has $**** US of my money and nobody willing to offer any insight as to its current whereabouts.I've been in touch with the British Embassy along the coast in Caracas, I've also been in touch with Hague, since he's supposedly developed a keen interest in Venezuelan affairs since the election and I've been in touch with the shipper to ask whether they'd mind holding the container only to find that - quite reasonably from their POV
- they can't as its remaining contents (an American car and several chests full of parts to go with that) have to be in the UK by the end of this week regardless.The shipping company have at least confirmed that the car was booked to go on the boat and that the part of the payment for that had been received by them but the mini itself is AWOL somewhere.
Has anyone been shafted this way before and if yes; how did you resolve the situation?
I'm a wee bit pithed off about this as the amount I've thrown at the thing would have bagged me a usable MK1 automatic within the UK and that wouldn't have been missing its engine even though that's the least of the problems with this one. I just always wanted a glass mini and thought that I'd have one by now, back in the UK being fitted with the auto front subframe and engine/gearbox unit that I've been stashing away at work.
Is it just me, or.....
