Dealers leaving sold adverts permanently listed

[GarageQueen]

Dear PH's,

It seems several dealers are leaving multiple adverts for 'SOLD' cars permanently in the classifieds section and therefore flooding the market in that section.
As a result a car I bought some time ago will be listed twice if I wish to sell it.

Is this right and can anything be done about it?

Edited by GarageQueen on Tuesday 2nd September 15:59

[GarageQueen]

RacingPete said:

I will get the dealer team to look at this... if you have the specific advert that will be grand.

Hi Pete, I've emailed you via your profile with the specifics, cheers

[GarageQueen]

any news on this, the adverts are still there clogging up the listings

[GarageQueen]

Monkeylegend said:

Check out Toybox in the Westfield classifieds, they have cars showing that sold up to 2 years ago.

ok but, if I decide to sell my car on every dealer knows what I paid for it!!

[GarageQueen]

RacingPete said:

GarageQueen said:

any news on this, the adverts are still there clogging up the listings

I have passed this on to the dealer team - I will chase up.

Thanks, but this is an issue all over Pistonheads, not just with the category I've highlighted. It doesn't happen on Autotrader.

The problem is the price is left on permanently, I'm wondering about the legality of it also.

Can you imagine if Estate agents were advertising your house as SOLD with the price and pictures for 6 months or more to the world?

[GarageQueen]

I've contacted the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) for their comments.

[GarageQueen]

I thought I'd take a look today at the current state of play on this.

One example:

4 Star Classics have 137 adverts listed in the classifieds and only 35 are for cars that are for sale, that's 70% of their adverts listed as SOLD.

in the M5 (pre-89) section they have pushed their adverts up to the top and, you guessed, it SOLD.