Why are scrap dealers portrayed as criminals?

[Wilko220]

That's not my question, but the BBC's.

 

Article is worth a look, if only for the old scrapyard pics like this:

 

 

and the easiest "guess the wheels" competition of all time:

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28982211

[Squire_Dawson]

You get arse holes and decent people in every occupation. Scrap dealers just happen to be at the bottom of the social pile, so are more likely to all get tarred with the same brush. Bankers, on the other hand...

 

Can't say I've ever had any trouble with scrap dealers, they generally seem to be reasonable and accommodating people.

[AlabamaShrimp]

Was that bottom cube a metro gta?

[Jim Bell]

What kind of scrap man cubes cars with the alloys on??!??!

[SambaS]

A 90s one when price of metal was lower. Lucky to get £30 for a car back then

[EssDeeWon]

Bottom one is a MK2 Festa XR2, Isn't it? Top one is maybe a Montego or Meastro.

[Junkman]

They murder nice old chod in cold blood.

During the Scrappage Scam, they turned themselves into accomplices of the biggest crooks and gangsters in the country.

They have a lot to answer for.

[Jimcit]

What kind of scrap man cubes cars with the alloys on??!??!

If I'm right, it's a picture of a car park wall in Digbeth, Birmingham, it's made of cubed cars with wheels on.  Not sure if they were deliberately left on so people could tell they were cars?

[Mr Livered]

Well, let's think about it.

 

If you had a quantity of stolen goods, or body, to hide or dispose of, where would you go?

 

There are several possible answers to that question, but if you had access to a scrap yard, that's perfect.

[Doctormop]

I think it started when a corrupt scrap metal dealer tried to crush Dempsey and Makepeace in a Mini circa 1985

 

http://youtu.be/H41pOssDVDU

[Jim Bell]

Well, let's think about it.

 

If you had a quantity of stolen goods, or body, to hide or dispose of, where would you go?

 

Cash Converters and a pig farm.

[Partridge]

Bottom one is a MK2 Festa XR2, Isn't it? Top one is maybe a Montego or Meastro.

Nah, Metro.

[vulgalour]

If you watched Scrappers on the Beeb you'd learn quite a few of them are/were criminals.  Good old stereotype reinforcement telly, that.

[Guest bangerfan101]

shall i just throw in the mix a good amount of banger racers are in the scrap business

 

free cars for racing 

[michael1703]

I think it started when a corrupt scrap metal dealer tried to crush Dempsey and Makepeace in a Mini circa 1985

 

Gold finger was first with that idea

[EssDeeWon]

Nah, Metro.

 

I initially thought that too but the wheels look too big for a Metro? If you compare to the pepperpots below.

 

They put the same style wheel but slightly larger on the early Montego, I think.

[Parky]

Biggest problem I ever had with scrappies was the suspicion that they had that everyone was out to rob them blind. Probably justifiable!!

 

I did used to hate the lack of help or service that the local places would give. No, we don't lend tools. No we won't lift that Chevette off the top of the pile. Actually that wing is better than I thought, it's not 15 quid anymore, it's 25 and you can fuck off if you don't like it. That sort of thing.

 

Or asking what you wanted, I.e Renault 5 door and be told they dont have one when you could see one sitting in front of you. I often wondered how they made any money at all?

 

My opinion of scrappies is they are huge fans of Tolkein and believe they are all, in fact, Golum. Any attempt to buy anything is viewed as an attempt to steal the preciouses

[EssDeeWon]

Well this thread is very timely.....

 

Just took the BM down the garage for a new rear exhaust section, it wasn't horrendous but pretty rotton inside and sounded blowey, anyway I just went to collect the car with a shiney new exhaust and asked just how bad the old one was.......The guy said "well I did leave it just over there to show you but within 2 mins a scrap man drove past and whipped it away without asking"

 

Obvs it aint the end of the world but watta cheek, he reckoned they were probably pikeys though.

[drum]

Handy for all the money laundering init.

 

We only have one local scrappy (Sandy, now retired) and he was a well known crim back in the day. He was a big strong bugger in his youth and had a fearsome reputation. I had a funny conversation with the arresting officer at a post office robbery Sandy committed in the '60s. It was a case of lamp him over the bonce with the truncheon and ask questions later. He was carrying a safe at the time...

[billy_bunter]

Biggest problem I ever had with scrappies was the suspicion that they had that everyone was out to rob them blind. Probably justifiable!!

 

I did used to hate the lack of help or service that the local places would give. No, we don't lend tools. No we won't lift that Chevette off the top of the pile. Actually that wing is better than I thought, it's not 15 quid anymore, it's 25 and you can fuck off if you don't like it. That sort of thing.

 

Or asking what you wanted, I.e Renault 5 door and be told they dont have one when you could see one sitting in front of you. I often wondered how they made any money at all?

 

My opinion of scrappies is they are huge fans of Tolkein and believe they are all, in fact, Golum. Any attempt to buy anything is viewed as an attempt to steal the preciouses

 

Sums up how I feel about them.

[sierraman]

I think they can be a bit wary of you initially bearing I mind the morons they must have to deal with. The breakers end of my road are absolute idiots though, silly prices and he goes out if his way to be abruptly argumentative with you. Thus few people use it and travel further afield to use somewhere else, which is a shame. Was enquiring about weighing in a clapped out mondeo a few years ago, his offer was £60 whereas I'd been offered £170 at another breaker.

[cort16]

They are the grumpiest fuckers to deal with ever. Every one if them. It's like they've got a major problem with you turning up and trying to give them money for stuff they're selling. I recon it's because you're getting in the way of their real and illegal activities such as making panda fanny liqueur and bagel bateing.

[lisbon_road]

I can see why they get fed up with dealing with the public.  Everyone wants everything for free, and they must have the same business overheads as everyone else.  It is an industry with all sorts of opportunities for corruption so they get tarred with that brush.

 

I've found once they get to know you, they're fine.  And many are ok anyway.

[Guest bangerfan101]

we've all had the pleasure of dealing with nobbers on ebay .

 

imagine half of them turning up at your work , with 3 datsuns full of taxi driving folk not far behind them

 

everyday .

 

you'd need to be thick skind or the sawn off that came out of the old p5 boot would soon be barrel first in your mouth

[Cavcraft]

They murder nice old chod in cold blood.

During the Scrappage Scam, they turned themselves into accomplices of the biggest crooks and gangsters in the country.

They have a lot to answer for.

 

Unless you're joking, that's a complete crock of crap.

It's their business and if they turned work away because they didn't like the scrappage scheme, then they wouldn't deserve to be in business. They have absolutely sod all to answer for in that respect.

[Wackeldackel]

My few local breakers that I frequented in Kent (Zens formerly Trices of Sandwich, Bobbing Car Breakers and LKM in Sittingbourne, Mollys in Strood and Reclamet in Manston) were all helpful and obliging. If you phoned up and asked beforehand, they would say either yes its on the shelf, or we're busy, you'll have to pull it off yourself, yes you can put this bonnet behind the shed till tomorrow and we won't crush it etc. Borrow a jack, no problem, lift a car down from the rack, no bother. Also Bobbing breakers had allsorts of chod tucked away in their yard, including at one point a Gilbern invader.

 

I did see the staff get the arse with people coming and expecting everything to be clean and pristine and sat on a shelf, and when people tried pisstaking haggling. The odd fiver is nothing but when you consider that scrap dealers are now becoming ever more tied up in health and safety and environmental legislation, you can understand that they do have overheads, not just dog food for the rottweiler and teabags for the portacabin / office. Plus now HM revenue and customs are cracking down on cash transactions, when I weigh in my carrier bags of copper wire collected from the crushed concrete at work, they want the ins and outs of a ducks arse, driving licence, car reg and full address and I get weighed out with a cheque instead of pound notes. I for one have sympathy with scrappers as they seem to be a dying trade and one that can potentially keep a lot of old chod roadworthy.

[Junkman]

Unless you're joking, that's a complete crock of crap.

It's their business and if they turned work away because they didn't like the scrappage scheme, then they wouldn't deserve to be in business. They have absolutely sod all to answer for in that respect.

 

Oh, I was dead serious, of course. And all of them are banger racers, too.

[fordperv]

There is good and bad every where, the scrappy I use is sound never ive had a problem and the folk who work there are friendly, where as another one a bit closer to me used to be run by a dodgy fella as a front, the yard I miss the most is one that was full of capris, cortinas and granadas, that used to be run by banger racers who were tough folk who didn't stand for crap off people but they were really sound guys, they used to lend me tools when I went down there

[forddeliveryboy]

Smaller, privately-owned yards gnerally seem(ed) to be run by very decent people, prices have gone up to reflect hassle and costs from the public and government alike. It's the old story, if you haven't clean hands and aren't dressed in a suit, then you're obviously some form of semi-criminal. Which is why suits get away with what they do, whether politicians, bankers or lawyers.

[pilninggas]

I had a mate at school, who's old-man owned a scrappy, a proper scrapyard, not a breakers yard.  They were fairly afluent, had a few luxury motors and a nice house.

 

The old-man though, was an arrogant old swine and used to talk his boys mates (i.e. us) like we were meat.  The funny thing was though, that it was well known, that my mates granddad had set the business up after the war by nicking motors and weighing them in.  The whole empire was legit (late 80s, early 90s) or mostly legit anyway, but it's foundations were as bent as a boomerang.  My mate ended up involved in drugs and got sectioned: the affluence didn't bring him happiness....