The story was sent to us by John Lance

My favourite ED experience dates back somewhat - to the days when you made payment for your vehicle at the delivery center at Munich/Freimann.

I was also a regular visitor there, collecting on average two cars per month which, following exporting them from Germany and then after importing them, I then proceeded to sell on to official BMW dealerships who were happy to pay me less for them than BMW was charging them!
They were considered "grey imports", much the same as these days electronic equipment, mainly cameras, is directly imported and re-sold through discount outlets undercutting the prices of the appointed retailers. After numerous purchases my name was getting quite well known and I was black-listed by BMW and dealers everywhere were ordered not to sell to me! After collecting dozens of vehicles rom Munich and having a great time in the process, not to mention the useful amount of money I made in the process, to be firmly told that I was no longer welcome as a customer kind of hurt my feelings!

Anyway, I was at the delivery center on one extremely busy day in July to collect a 5-series that I had ordered a couple of months previously. I went through the usual routine of checking in at reception and then waiting for assistance. My name was called and I was shown through to where the car was waiting for me. They handed over the car registration book, the insurance certificate, the export paperwork (which in those days had to be stamped on leaving Germany for the first time) a fuel voucher (there used to be a filling station at the delivery center) and my gate pass to exit the compound. But they had forgotten one important thing - to collect payment from me for the car!

As a regular customer I knew full well that this part of the transaction had been forgotten and it was not in my nature to try and get away with paying for my purchases, let alone a new car, but I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for me to, for once, have the upper hand with the company who had, in my opinion, treated me with such contempt.

And so I did.

For, a couple of days later, once their accounting department had found the error, I received a phone call. They were oh so nice and requested me to kindly check my records as they didn't have any record of a payment. I said I would, as "I thought that I had handed over the cashier's check when I collected the car but how could I have got out of the compound without having paid" and duly called them back to give them the good news that it was somehow still with the paperwork and that I would be willing to bring it to them in person but only if they would accept a new order from me. At first they said they couldn't do that but when I told them in that case I didn't know how long it would take for me to return the check, they changed their attitude. I drove to Munich, handed over the check to a very relieved cashier and gave them an order for another fully-loaded 5-series which, as promissed, was duly processed even though I was on their blacklist of customers forbidden to buy cars from them.