Here at Lauda Finem we consider ourselves blessed when the net does as it was designed to do; bring information and education to the masses with a proviso.
It would seem that no one knew exactly how crooked Colin Giltrap is; and how he uses his staff to rip off New Zealanders. Well his staff all know because they commit all the crimes against their customers.
It would seem that when the criminal staff are caught red handed; he initially uses his contacts in the media and the New Zealand Government to stop the reporting and prosecution of the offending, and when the dust has settled, then promotes those responsible. Look at the rise and rise and rise and rise of the likes of “Odometer-Peter” Carleton.
We at Lauda Finem feel that we must bring this horrible bloke and his staff of criminal cronies to justice, and maybe get him to share a cell, or three given his girth, with the likes of Weal, Cunningham, and Miller.
BUT COLIN how powerless do you feel now that your reign as the most dishonest car dealer in New Zealands history will now be your legacy. This posting, amongst the many more that will follow, will insure that any google search will serve to warn consumers of what you are capable of, and have actually perpetrated to amass your fortune.
It also serves to prove to us that the franchises operate differently in New Zealand to the way that they do here in Australia, because if evidence like this was to come out in Australia Colin would be gone, gone, gone.
As a matter of fairness, the dealer below has, (in other contact with us), named another five big time odometer winders that are still in business. But hey those thieving pricks can wait. The biggest shark first.
We decided to run the whole version of the whistleblowing dealers story about Giltraps depravity as it indicates how easy Kiwis can be brought. It would seem that a hooker and a schooner, not necessarily in that order, will get Kiwis pulling their pants down to get done up the arse. Now for the rip, shit, screw, and apparently ball busting account from our intrepid whistleblower.
Colin Giltrap and his wealth, born of fraud perpetrated on a massive scale
“Hi again
Wow your investigation into Weal and Miller has been really successful. I really do congratulate you on your insight.
I cannot for the life of me see how Mr Miller and Mr Weal can be on ACC given their ability to work full time running a number of complicated websites.
It seems to me that the Takapuna bomber might not have received a fair trial because of the dishonesty of those guys.
Whilst Weal and Miller appear to be crooked, they do not come close to the way that Colin Giltrap and his employees over the last 3 decades have ripped off the New Zealand public in a systemic way. I must say that the picture of Mr Weal does not do him any favors.
We are talking about 10’s of millions if the numbers are computed right. I mean that’s how people get super rich; they have a “difficult to understand” advantages; or should I say in Colin’s case “difficult to prove”.
It would appear that you have got him and his boys at Giltrap City cold though. You must report the matter to the Police, or get it covered in say investigate magazine. That video footage is fucking damning. I have met Ian Wishart and know that he would love th story.
Anyway back to Mr Giltrap. In the early 1990’s Colin ran a Japanese wholesale yard down on the wharf near Victoria park in downtown Auckland.
The buildings been pulled down now. But what went down in that corrugated iron and asbestos clad wharf shed was probably the single biggest fraud perpetrated against New Zealand consumers.
Over three decades of dealing, I have bought cars from, and sold cars to, the Giltrap Group, inclusive of doing deals directly with Colin and his son Richard. Richard is just as bad as Colin, he is really a chip of the “crooked clock”. But Richard is a narcissistic little prick who could never have made it without his daddy’s dough.
Neither are very bright but how many bright crooks do you know that are bright. However the real issue is how have they escaped being charged, let alone convicted, given the apparent audacity of the offending.
I do know that Colin puts some distance between the actual offending and his “alleged knowledge”, but you seem to have solved that problem with the evidence that you have got.
I have thought about going public with the information that I have, but have always considered the outcome given my chosen career. I am now near the age where I do not need to work, and only do so to keep busy.
Colin and Richard may put one and two together but I don’t really care anymore.
Having said this there would be literally hundreds of dealers, managers, buyers, and salespeople, that would have the same or similar knowledge as me, but others in their employ may be in a better position to identify me especially given my attendance at various Giltrap “sleaze and grease” functions which I will delve into in a minute.
There is another callous character involved, and he is probably a “pawn”, or a “bit player”, very much like all of the other of Colin’s employees who seem to come under a spell of some kind and who would do, and do do criminal acts, for Colin’s singular financial benefit, somehow believing that because Colin’s name is attached to the act that somehow it “cleanses” and otherwise makes the act anything but criminal.
I mean look at how Peter Carleton, GM of Giltrap Toyota, states in the video on your site that the guy who reported the criminal offending to him “was now a part of it” and responsible for covering it up.
Peter Carleton - Odometer winding fraudster
Peter comes across as a nice guy but he is anything but honest. I had always wondered why Giltraps were so hard with their pricing to buy cars off me, but then I understood the reason; because of course they clocked their own stock.
The other character involved was named Trevor Hewitt and this scoundral was handpicked by Giltrap as the guy would sell his mother and first born.
Trevor was a member of the Redwood Golf Club and was known in the industry as “Colin’s chopper” as everyone knew that Trevor “chopped” thousands of kms off all of Colins imports, and it would appear also helped Colin “revalue” hundreds if not thousands of New Zealand new cars as well.
Trevor flew to Japan and attended the auctions handpicking the extremely high mileage cars, arranged to “refresh their odometers” and import the vehicles back through customs to sell to Colin’s fellow citizens at over 100% profit.
Import 5000 cars at an average profit of say $10,000 and you have a fraud of $5m. The shed at the wharf was massive and could hold 250 cars easily, and it was chockers with the clocked cars spilling out of the shed on to the surrounding wharf areas.
I had to buy cars for a large number of yards that I contracted to buy for and therefore visited the shed about once a week, and on the odd occasion twice a week.
I was often invited to what Colin had named “Poke Her” nights.
Colin is “all class” when you meet him. I laughed and laughed at the picture that you have of Colin. In real life he is actually worse.
Apparently, according to Trevor, Colin had invented the term in the eighties when Colin would send out facsimiles inviting dealers to “poker nights” and the dealers arrived at one of Colins fancy franchise yards to find over 20 “working girls” serving drinks, canapés, and other “tit bits” and “fishy fingers”. Get it; “Poke Her”.
Again I kid you not, the words from Colins own mouth. So in the nineties the term Giltraps “poke her” nights was well known. I am no angel though as I participated in several of these nights and know of many a car dealer that ended up divorcing their wives because their “mid life crisis” was awakened by attending one to many of Colins “poke her” nights.
The concept behind the night was simple and Trevor really took to it. Ply middle aged, physically past their best, car dealers with cheap grog and expensive pussy, and then get the dealers to show how much money they have in front of the “hired hottie”. The dealers left the event with flacid and empty cocks and wallets.
I can proudly say that on one occasion I had my way with three different girls in the same night on Colins bed in his massive Motor Home that was stored at the shed when it wasn’t being used by Colin at motor racing events.
This fact might give my identity away because one of Colin’s cronies was pissed and had let me into the bus, and she [yes I said she] still works for Colin.
I have sort of gone off the subject and I don’t expect you to publish a lot of the detail I have gone into, but I thought it worthwhile to let you know about the level of access I had to the “inner circle” and what it was like in those days. This should give me some credibility. As I say I have given you my real name.
How I knew Colin was involved in clocking odo’s was that I saw first hand the condition of the vehicles as they arrived in, before they were ‘conditioned’ to look a bit better.
On numerous occassion I discovered service books, oil stickers, and other documentation that evidenced the true mileage. On at least 5 occasions in the early days I discovered actual auction sheets and sales documentation that showed the true mileage when bought in Japan by Trevor.
On one ocassion I was present when an out of town dealer brought such documentation [I believe a service book and an auction sheet which showed that the vehicle was accident damaged as well], to Trevors attention [from memory the chop was about 80,000kms], explaining that he wanted a price reflecting the much higher mileage and the accident repair as he was to buy the vehicle for a friend who would be told of the higher mileage and accident repair.
Trevor told the dealer to fuck off as he could not stand people who tried to rip him off. Trevor turned red, started to shake, and warned the dealer that if he ever recounted the story that he, (the dealer), would be blacklisted by Colin Giltrap. The dealer was so taken aback, and felt so threatened, that he paid the asking price for the vehicle.
I was also aware of very very expensive cars being “clocked” in New Zealand as they were stored at the shed. On one occassion a Giltrap employee told me that he had returned after hours to change drive cars to find Trevor [drunk] with the odometers of four near new landcruisers on the wooden floor.
Apparently Trevor started to yell at a young Giltrap mechanic who was helping him when the employee dropped one of the odo’s as Trevor passed it up to him after the chop and the fall had damaged the odo requiring a repair.
As the Landcruiser was still there awaitng repair I went and had a look. It was locked up and parked in a dark corner.
It had a cloth over the steering wheel but the drivers window was open enough for me to put my arm through and pull the cloth off.
Sure enough the whole odometer nacelle had been removed. The cruiser was there for months as they [according to the same employee] had to get an odo from an accident test landcruiser in Japan as they could not prove the actual original odo had a problem and thus explain why they had taken it out.
According to the employee this mistake had cost Trevor about $10k as Colin was really fucked off at the problem.
Over the years a large number of Ferrari’s, Jaguar’s, Mercedes, Rangerover’s, Aston’s etc went through Trevors enhancement process and back onto the market on one of Colin’s franchises as a “much more valauble vehicle”; For Colin that is!!!..
When I have purchased a very expensive car I insure that it has never passed through the ownership of a Colin Giltrap franchise.
I am not saying that Colin was the only crook, as there were hundreds doing it. But what I am saying is that Colin was and still is the “BIGGEST CROOK” in the industry in this country and that he would be up to the same criminal activity in every other country that he operates.
I do hope that others will come forward as I really do believe that Colin Giltrap should serve at least a couple of years in a cell with other thieves and I hope that your work will get Colin the holiday he so “richly” deserves.
Note: The words clocked, clocking and clocker are New Zealand and Australian colloquial slang. They are used in describing the practice of (and those engaged in) unlawfully winding back a motor vehicles odometer, so as to fraudulently increase the price obtained at sale
So there you have it direct from an eye witness. We know that his account is accurate due to other information that we have had checked. But hey if you doubt what we publish and go buy a car off this toady then you deserve “the service” you will surely get.
NOTE: If anyone else can enlighten us as to what they know about the criminal activity of Colin “Clocker” Giltrap and his side-kick Trevor “Chopper” Hewitt, don’t hesitate to drop us an email us here at Lauda Finem; Sooner rather than later, please!