Fast cars and unhappy customers: Who is Paul Hoeper?

Saturday, 5 July 2025

Thousands of people have seen his videos. He is known in the Christchurch car community, once drove a Lamborghini with his name plastered on the door and was even interviewed by Guy Williams on New Zealand Today. But, it appears Paul Hoeper does not want to be linked to his car sales. BRETT KERR-LAURIE reports.

On the internet, Paul Hoeper lives a petrolhead’s dream.

His Instagram was flush with Lamborghinis, Maseratis and Porsches. His YouTube account documented overseas car meets and the motoring antics he and his mates got up to around Christchurch. He once told TV personality Guy Williams he had over $1 million worth of cars on his property in New Brighton. For a time, the tagline on his YouTube page captured his joie de vivre: “Living life my way.”

In reality, Hoeper is fending off customers seeking thousands of dollars from disputed car sales involving at least two companies he is linked to. Several of those people claim he used fake names when selling them faulty vehicles and, when they alerted authorities, that he responded with excuses and stalling tactics.

Meanwhile, Hoeper has not responded to several requests for comment on the allegations.

The same day The Press linked Hoeper to several disputed sales involving one of those companies, Christchurch car dealership Affordable Autos, the influencer scrubbed his online footprint.

Meanwhile, Affordable Autos changed its name to AANZ on Google, removed its phone number and website, and deleted all its vehicle listings on Trade Me. The dealership had been ordered to repay nearly $30,000 to a customer for not delivering their Volvo earlier this year and is currently involved in another dispute with $6500 at stake.

Hoeper’s exact role with Affordable Autos/AANZ is not clear. He was named as a “sales manager” of MYLL Holdings Ltd, the company behind Affordable Autos, in a Motor Vehicle Dispute Tribunal (MVDT) order for the Volvo case and some of his Instagram posts displayed a Maserati that Affordable Autos was trying to sell on Trade Me, before it removed its listings.

When The Press contacted the company, a general manager who identified himself as “Todd” insisted that Affordable Autos was abiding by the law. Todd did not reply when asked what his last name was. When The Press visited Affordable Autos’ non-descript car yard in Wainoni earlier this week, a friend of Hoeper’s seen in his YouTube videos emerged, said Todd was away, and requested to not be filmed.

Following the article on Affordable Autos, several readers contacted The Press claiming Hoeper was running the business, and that he had a history of disputes.

Monique Lau, the director and owner of MYLL Holdings, cited privacy concerns when The Press asked who Todd was. She said Hoeper had actually been a consultant and was not employed by her company.

Lau previously said she was unwell and unaware of the disputes The Press had raised but expressed confidence in Todd.

Lau and Hoeper did not respond to requests for comment.

‘He studies in Switzerland’

Blake Lindsay and his partner believe ‘Josh Andrews’, who sold them a 2013 Ford Kuga on Facebook Marketplace for $9000 last year, was actually Paul Hoeper.

The car’s head gasket blew the next day, requiring uneconomical repairs.

After the sale, Andrews blocked Lindsay’s partner on Facebook. Lindsay said he linked Hoeper to the deal after asking a friend to pose as another buyer and confront him.

Lindsay and his partner took the matter to the Disputes Tribunal (not the motor vehicle-specific MVDT) and repeated their claim that Andrews was Hoeper.

In his decision, tribunal referee Shaurya Malaviya noted, “I offered the respondents a further opportunity to conduct this hearing in person or via video conference so matters of identity of the seller could be resolved.

“However, Paul declined as he says he studies in Switzerland and will be away for most of the year.”

Malaviya made no finding on whether Andrews was an alias, but found Hoeper was the likely seller of the vehicle. Hoeper received the payment for it and Andrews supplied the same address as the one listed for Hoeper’s company, PFH Ltd.

Malaviya ordered Hoeper refund the pair $9000 in May, after two rehearings. But now, following an appeal application, a meeting is scheduled for July to decide if a third rehearing can be granted.

Lindsay said he had made no appeal. He was fast losing faith in the system.

“The issue is all he [Hoeper] has to do is not answer the phone and then it drags out for another month because they have to reschedule the hearing. He just says, ‘Oh, I didn’t get the email’.”

‘It’s quite disheartening’

A similar story unfolded when a Christchurch woman bought a 1996 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado from “Brodie Matthew” on Facebook Marketplace in January. She paid $5500.

The woman, who asked not to be identified, alleges the person she met at the sale who identified themselves as Matthew was in fact Hoeper. She linked him to the deal through a vehicle report, which listed a different car dealer company ‒ $1 Cars Ltd ‒ as the previous owner of the Land Cruiser.

Hoeper appears on behalf of $1 Cars in several decisions for other car sale disputes. The company is owned and directed by his father, Heinrich Hoeper.

Like Blake Lindsay, the woman took the case to the Disputes Tribunal. The first hearing was in May. Another is scheduled for July.

“It’s quite disheartening,” the woman said. “We’re quite a young family as well, we have children, and $5500 isn’t exactly chump change. We had to get a loan to be able to purchase a vehicle that was usable, so it’s put a lot of stress on us.”

She was aware of other disputes Hoeper was involved with and believed she was “probably not going to see a cent”, regardless of the tribunal’s decision.

“How do you get justice when you know how much is going on?”

‘Where’s the justice?’

Chelsea Frew knew she was dealing with Hoeper when she bought a “recently serviced” 2018 Ford Ranger XL for $27,800 from $1 Cars on Trade Me last year.

She did not know it had a “rat/bird” nest growing in the engine bay, 300kg of silt in its cavities, illegal parking brakes, rust and other undisclosed issues.

The problems were highlighted in an MVDT order from December, which said the ute had likely been used in the mining industry and was at the end of its life. It ordered $1 Cars to pay Frew and her company $3600 toward some of the repairs. Frew said she heard “absolutely nothing” from Hoeper.

Hoeper claimed he paid, and supplied Frew with photos and text messages proving he delivered the cash to her letterbox one night. But Frew said she has never received any money and that text messages Hoeper supplied were falsified. The Press heard similar claims from another customer while investigating Affordable Autos.

Frew has enagged a bailiff to help retrieve the money. A financial assessment hearing between her company and $1 Cars is scheduled for July.

“It really, really pisses me off,” Frew said. “Especially when you look him up on YouTube and stuff and see he’s in Hawaii and Japan.”

Frew hoped publicity might “scare him straight”, but was not counting on it, or the system to deliver. “Where is the justice? Why can’t they force him to pay it?”

‘Living life my way’

The Press saved some videos from Hoeper’s TikTok account, which had 12,800 followers. Those videos are no longer visible.

In one video, Hoeper said, “We’re gonna dress up in some very appropriate cultural attire which hopefully doesn’t offend too many people”. The video then showed men wearing traditional Arab thawbs carrying toy assault rifles and driving through a river.

Similarly-dressed men were captured by The Press driving around the Waimakariri River on Crate Day last year.

In another TikTok video, Hoeper found a car he said was stolen from him and in a third, he kept an eftpos machine after paying at a KFC drive-thru ‒ returning it at the second window.

Hoeper had about 5000 subscribers on YouTube before his channel was scrubbed. At one point, the channel description said Hoeper was “living life my way”.

His videos dated to at least 2020 and include vlogs of Hoeper monkeying around with his mates (one title: Smashing a Rockmelon Over My Mates Head), looking at boy racer culture and, recently, travelling to a car meet overseas.

One of Hoeper’s most popular videos ‒ ‘I CAUGHT A METH HEAD TRYING TO STEAL MY CAR’ ‒ had 90,000 hits, according to a snapshot from 2023. Others did not break 500.

In 2022, Hoeper featured on New Zealand Today ‒ the wry slice-of-life series presented by comedian Guy Williams. In the video, Williams jokingly describes him as a “notorious underground Canterbury car dealer” and, Hoeper told Williams he had over $1m of cars at his property.

“What’s your dream car, what’s the ultimate car?” Williams asked.

“Well it used to be a Lamborghini Superleggera, but I’ve got one of those now,” Hoeper replied.

In 2021, Hoeper’s orange Lamborghini with Youtube branding on the door was impounded in 2021 as part of a crackdown on burnouts and drag racing. He told Stuff at the time that someone else was driving during the alleged offending.

Hoeper told the reporter he used the car for charity events and offering experiences to children with disabilities and terminal illnesses, as well as community programmes, and that the person facing charges was not associated with the YouTube channel advertised on the car.

Hoeper did not respond to text or email requests for comment. He was not home when The Press visited his address last week.