It's the new user settings before when you became a v.i.p you'd automatically become assigned as a 'v.i.p member' once you've reach 100 posts,now its a case of admin/mod changing the user settings to suit,its more to do with the for sale/wanted area why the changes have put in place.
Sorry for any inconvinece Dave its a case of either your user settings haven't been updated or i've done something wrong in the admin cp which hasn't worked,will sort it a.s.a.p.