Hi, I have just spent the last two weeks looking for a 5 berth caravan to replace my much loved 9 man tent for our annual 2 weeks in Newquay and numerous summer weekends after getting swamped out most of last year in the tent.
Eventually hit gold - Got a Abbey Piper 14.5 in nearly mint for just over £2000.
But have an issue with CRIS as this costs ~£15 each time to carry out an HPI check.
So I looked at over 7 vans all around 1990 - 1994 due to the age of the vans none of current owners had bothered to carry on the CRIS registration but as they were fully marked I felt obliged to check them out.
So why do CRIS penalise buyers and not sellers? Why can't they just publish a free searchable database of stolen numbers? I am sure they would locate more vans this way than charging us £15 a hit to check out a potential purchase as I am sure that for older vans people do not bother.
Seems to me to be a money generating business rather than a genuine attempt to minimise caravan theft.
Love to hear your thoughts and as a newbie to caravanning I am probably going to get shot down as an idiot but Hey Ho!
I know what you mean but the reason I suspect that some owners probably don't keep the cris up to date is because new owners also have to pay £10 to change it over. So I reckon cris must be making a bit of money which I would assume pays for the running costs of the company who do the checks. Why don't you just do a check on the van that you definately want cause surely then the only reason you might not buy the van then was if it was stolen. Best to only lose £15 and not £2000
------------- -x- Diane -x-
May 13 - Cala Gogo, St Cyprien (didn't go, hubby too ill to travel)
May 14 Ranc Davaine
August 14 Les Sablons
August 13 - Camping Playa Brava, Pals
Quote: Originally posted by Warwick Gates on 17/5/2008
Seems to me to be a money generating business rather than a genuine attempt to minimise caravan theft.
correct you answered your own question right there
they are a buisness out to make money
just tha same reason that caravan manufacturers dont fit the best door locks on the market or all have their own version of chris marks or fit cheap trackers just 3 things manufacturers could do and only add about 1 to 2 hundred pounds to their costs for all 3
chris are a buisness thats what they do make money so i dont realy understand why your upset about it?? is it because you carried out so many checks instead of just one on the one van you decided to buy??
i mean i look at many cars when i want a new one but i only pay for 1 hpi check thats on the car i decide to buy, so why did you pay for so many checks?
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never argue with an idiot, they will bring you down to their level and beat you on experience
not to be rude but it is your money you will lose if you do not check.£2000 takes a lot of saving.the caravan you buy could have money owing or stolen,or worse it could be a flood damaged one,which in turn is contaminated with the unknown.it may be a write off after an accident and repaired with a big hammer making it unsafe to use.
------------- the only silly question is the one you do not ask.
One reason that this registration is not kept up is that there must be others like me, that knew nothing about this scheme. I had owned my van for over 3 years before I joined any of the popular caravaning forums and first heard of this system, by which time it was to late as I could not remember the name of the previous owner. They emigrated, that why I got the van cheap in the first place.
we have just bought another van , ours was written off on the 27 june in the floods on a storage site and it has took us nearly a year to find a replacement , we had looked at nearly 40 vans , advertised in freeads , newspapers , preloved. viva street and ebay . most had damp, knackerd floors or stunk of fag smoke . we went back a second time to about 18 .some had no cris nos, 14 were cris checked at cost to us of £14.95 each . 6 were cat d insurence write offs 2 were knicked but the owners didnt check when they bought them one had its id removed off the windows and chassis . now 4 were registered with there first owners and one couple bought it 6 years previous and never re regstered it
now what is the point of the scheme if people dont re register them and waht puts them off is why charge the buyer £12 for a admin charge to do this , we payed £210 for all the cris checks and the info that we was given for 7 that were not write offs or pinched was so crappy and vauge , they wouldnt even tell us who the previous owners were , all they would tell us was that "nothing recorded"
i got more infomation from avondale cus services that cris
Like Steve W, when I purchased our van in Sept 2006 did not know about the CRiS (since read about it), just happens in the last two weeks have sent a cheque to them for £12 (dicount with the Caravan Club)to have the caravan checked, they will get back to us in upto 8 weeks (think they contact the previous owners), must admit I want to know it's okay as I have done a lot of work on it (and spent money on it) and want the peace of mind it will bring.
Can you imagine having to give it up because it was stolen and loose the money you paid for it? Is ignorance bliss?
The alternative of course is registration, numberplating & MOTing of caravans like most other EU countries. CRIS is all we have, part of HPI, a company that exists to make money(like any other company)
Its just a voluntry system so its never going to be 100% effective.
------------- Sell my camper? I'd rather eat school semolina!
Amazing family weekend with old steam engines, classic car displays, market stalls, and full catering and bar. And camping on site - Save £25 by booking in advance.
Topic: CRIS is it worth it?
