Trader - MBM March 2010 page 8?

MBM has been on a 'diet' of late imho.
However there has been some good content.
Fair play, it must be difficult to fill the Mag with interesting stuff, Month after Month ,Year after Year.
I too, questioned the inclusion of this Man's article and comments.

Especially after the Programne on TV about the Trader fiasco, Gludy's experience etc etc etc.

I don't like to see any Company fail but this bloke seems to be a right hard faced type!

Not as if it was/is the first time:rolleyes:

Is it for real, You ask Mr Frog
I doubt it!!
 
Words are cheap.
There is no regret there at all.
He told me clearly that if i sued the company I would not get anything as it had no assets and he was right - he ran it that way.

There were people that the BBC tried to get on the programme that were too badly damaged by TC to appear - their lives had been ruined. They only showed the tip of the iceberg.

I dealt with this man and c an assure you that any tears are crocodile ones. He is very lucky not to be in jail and it is beyond me that he is not being prosecuted.
 
One has to question why a platform was provided by the magazine, it almost seemed like a wierd sort of plug for the new operation (ie conditioning). Why be helpful? One would have expected a damming "watch dog" style piece rather than an almost sympathetic means of communication. Just misguided I assume, or perhaps I just picked up the wrong tone from the piece.
 
my first thoughts when I read this was why were MBM giving this crook space in their mag.... very strange indeed. Yes Trader going down the pan and resurrecting is news.... but not in a good way, and certainly that piece was a plug than man didn't deserve.
 
oceanfroggie said:
One has to question why a platform was provided by the magazine, it almost seemed like a wierd sort of plug for the new operation (ie conditioning). Why be helpful? One would have expected a damming "watch dog" style piece rather than an almost sympathetic means of communication. Just misguided I assume, or perhaps I just picked up the wrong tone from the piece.
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The boating magazines will never offend a potential advertiser. I think MBM are betting that Chappell gets back into the boating business again. Frankly it's a disgrace that Chappell's story was not investigated and broken by either MBY or MBM and it took a BBC news prog to do it. His history of failed companies and dissatisfied customers is common knowledge in the boating industry yet that didn't stop MBM/MBY publishing glowing test reports on his Taiwanese tat and taking his advertising money
 
Deleted User said:
The boating magazines will never offend a potential advertiser. I think MBM are betting that Chappell gets back into the boating business again. Frankly it's a disgrace that Chappell's story was not investigated and broken by either MBY or MBM and it took a BBC news prog to do it. His history of failed companies and dissatisfied customers is common knowledge in the boating industry yet that didn't stop MBM/MBY publishing glowing test reports on his Taiwanese tat and taking his advertising money
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Great summary Mike, dont feel you need to hold back though, just say it how you see it ;)
 
Deleted User said:
The boating magazines will never offend a potential advertiser. I think MBM are betting that Chappell gets back into the boating business again. Frankly it's a disgrace that Chappell's story was not investigated and broken by either MBY or MBM and it took a BBC news prog to do it. His history of failed companies and dissatisfied customers is common knowledge in the boating industry yet that didn't stop MBM/MBY publishing glowing test reports on his Taiwanese tat and taking his advertising money
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Mike,

Allow me to take your accusations one at a time. First off, apologies if there are mistakes
in this - am writing on my phone from the Birmingham Boat Show.

We are not 'betting that Chappell gets back into the boating business'. IPC was a
creditor when Trader went down, so I can't ever see that relationship being resurrected.

I think you'll find that the Trader administration was well covered in both MBM and MBY, but we can't possibly compete with the news gathering resources of the BBC. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the BBC is a massive, sprawling news gathering organisation with tens of thousands of journalists with a budget of hundreds of millions. MBM has news team of two - both of whom have other responsibilities on the magazine.

The last Trader test we published was in summer 2007, and I think you'll find we critiqued it fairly. The company even modified the design off the back of the test. Hardly 'glowing'. I believe it was the August issue. I invite you to have a read.

As for allowing Chappell a platform... Like it or not, we have a responsibility to those people still buying Traders to report the situation objectively and fairly and offer Chappell a right to reply to the many serious allegations directed at him - some
of which have appeared in MBM.

Am happy to answer any more charges directed at the article as I wrote it. You can email me on Stewart_Campbell@ipcmedia.com or respond here. Please forgive me if
I don't answer promptly as I'll be wearing the carpets thin at the NEC looking at boats.

Stewart
 
StewartC said:
Mike,

Allow me to take your accusations one at a time. First off, apologies if there are mistakes
in this - am writing on my phone from the Birmingham Boat Show.

We are not 'betting that Chappell gets back into the boating business'. IPC was a
creditor when Trader went down, so I can't ever see that relationship being resurrected.

I think you'll find that the Trader administration was well covered in both MBM and MBY, but we can't possibly compete with the news gathering resources of the BBC. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the BBC is a massive, sprawling news gathering organisation with tens of thousands of journalists with a budget of hundreds of millions. MBM has news team of two - both of whom have other responsibilities on the magazine.

The last Trader test we published was in summer 2007, and I think you'll find we critiqued it fairly. The company even modified the design off the back of the test. Hardly 'glowing'. I believe it was the August issue. I invite you to have a read.

As for allowing Chappell a platform... Like it or not, we have a responsibility to those people still buying Traders to report the situation objectively and fairly and offer Chappell a right to reply to the many serious allegations directed at him - some
of which have appeared in MBM.

Am happy to answer any more charges directed at the article as I wrote it. You can email me on Stewart_Campbell@ipcmedia.com or respond here. Please forgive me if
I don't answer promptly as I'll be wearing the carpets thin at the NEC looking at boats.

Stewart
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Good of you to reply, Stewart but I don't see how giving Chappell a platform has anything to do with 'people still buying Traders'. Surely they ought to know the man's history and, in any case, most Trader models are now sold thru a completely different company. The fact is that MBM/MBY has always shied away from addressing the really tricky issues in the boating industry and I would suggest that this has more to do with fear of upsetting advertisers than lack of journalistic resources. Yes the Trader administration was covered but I would say in an insufficiently critical manner and without reference to the very real human tragedies that resulted or Mr Chappell's past history of failed companies in the industry. I put it to you that had the BBC not done it's program, the issue would never have been addressed in this month's MBM. That's OK but it does mean that MBM/MBY are more coffee table cheerleaders for the industry in the same genre as Hello and OK magazines than serious journals covering the issues that boat owners want to read about
 
Deleted User said:
Good of you to reply, Stewart but I don't see how giving Chappell a platform has anything to do with 'people still buying Traders'. Surely they ought to know the man's history and, in any case, most Trader models are now sold thru a completely different company. The fact is that MBM/MBY has always shied away from addressing the really tricky issues in the boating industry and I would suggest that this has more to do with fear of upsetting advertisers than lack of journalistic resources. Yes the Trader administration was covered but I would say in an insufficiently critical manner and without reference to the very real human tragedies that resulted or Mr Chappell's past history of failed companies in the industry. I put it to you that had the BBC not done it's program, the issue would never have been addressed in this month's MBM. That's OK but it does mean that MBM/MBY are more coffee table cheerleaders for the industry in the same genre as Hello and OK magazines than serious journals covering the issues that boat owners want to read about
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I'm sorry Mike, but I absolutely challenger your contention that we are merely a coffee table magazine that shies away from the hard issues. We are a hard news journal as well as a source of entertainment. If we were so beholden to our advertisers we wouldn't have been so unflinching in our coverage of the dire impacts the recession had on some of our biggest motorboat builders. I can point to numerous other instances where we were the magazine of record, and where we broke news stories that had huge impacts on the British boater, from Peters Opal, e-Borders, drink boating, marine conservation zones, DEFRA and waterways budget cuts, lock keeper job losses, red diesel... There are plenty more examples but they escape me as I write this on the MBM stand in Birmingham. I will concede, however, that
perhaps we could have done more on the human impacts of the Trader administration, but for one reason or another - that have nothing to do with advertising - we didn't. I accept responsibility for that.

As for being critical, I don't see the news pages as the place to do this. The first responsibility of MBM's news pages is to cover the stories that matter, which we've never failed to do. I urge you to look back through the news pages of MBM. I proudly say that we never swerve the big stories.

You're right in that this latest Trader story may not have appeared had the BBC not done that piece, but the company would still have ended up in the news pages with the final publication of the administrators report, which, after checking last month, we're still awaiting.

I would say again - and it's something I've often said on this forum, but never tire of repeating - advertisers hold no sway over what we report. Nothing. Nada. The news team
respects its readers far too much to repeat press release fluff (much to the irritation of PR firms) in the news pages. Our stories are our own, and influenced by no one. OK and Hello! I've never been so offended!

If you're in the area, come down to the boat show so I can buy you a beer and we can have a proper debate. that invitation is open to all.

Stewart
 
I have to agree with a lot of what you're saying Mike. I assume all these people that were messed around by TC didn't just sit on their hands and cry, some of them must have tried to raise some awareness of what was going on, we know only too well on here that at least one of them did!

Surely MBM/MBY must have heard some of these stories? If they did, then they didn't really need tens of thousands of journalists or a budget of hundreds of millions to expose the scam, they just needed a phone.

It seems there's a fairly long list of organisations that didn't come out of this smelling of roses though, the BMF, RYA, Trading Standards, Companies House, and the Police, for a start.
 
Well said althoufgh I tfeel MBM could have said more there are plenty of organisations like the ones mentioned that are more to blame for the situation getting to that point.
Irs good of MBM to actually get involved in this discussion in the first place but I do feel that thry do have a bias to certain bost builders and traders (no pun intended)

How about hitting the phones now and putting togetther a follow up story on the human side of this story, have a good look at the real damage this man has done to people, many of us know so people and how much money they lost.

There must be a cautionary tale MBM could run to stop this sort of thing happening again.
 
Stewart,

I see both sides of the story, however I do agree with this idea
Kipper said:
How about hitting the phones now and putting togetther a follow up story on the human side of this story, have a good look at the real damage this man has done to people, many of us know so people and how much money they lost.

There must be a cautionary tale MBM could run to stop this sort of thing happening again.
Click to expand...

The idea that you get a few stories, "The darker side of buying a boat" would be well recieved.

Just a thought

Paul
 
Maybe make a point of referring to him as Tony Chappell and not TC or Chappell?
That way Google will be able to find threads like this if any new customers are thinking of doing business with him in the future. (No doubt this Phoenix will trade again when the dust has settled).
Linking to other threads isn't a bad idea either.
I would never use words like conman, rip-off, swindle, criminal, illegal, scam, con artist or fraud in case Google decided to use them as keywords ;). I wouldn't want to libel the fella. :D
 
adey said:
I would never use words like conman, rip-off, swindle, criminal, illegal, scam, con artist or fraud in case Google decided to use them as keywords ;). I wouldn't want to libel the fella. :D
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Don't worry he'd sue the forum owners not you personally:)
 
StewartC said:
from Peters Opal, e-Borders, drink boating, marine conservation zones, DEFRA and waterways budget cuts, lock keeper job losses, red diesel... T
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Nope, don't see any potential advertisers there:):)

OK enough already, I'll stop winding you up even though an ex editor of your esteemed organ once told me something different;)
 
Deleted User said:
Nope, don't see any potential advertisers there:):)

OK enough already, I'll stop winding you up even though an ex editor of your esteemed organ once told me something different;)
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Which ex Ed are you referring to? Emrhys? Kim? Jake? Hugo? Simon? Don't think any of these would have told you any different. Of course, you may be thinking of an ex Ed of a different mag :p
 
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