Used Car Dealer Scammed My Niece
 

My wife and I visited my niece and other in-laws, and I found out my 18 year old niece bought a used car and clearly was taken advantage of by the dealer. First off, I understand there is little recourse for being a sucker, but there is being a sucker, and there is clear fraud, and this seems closer to fraud. Pretty shocked she didn’t have me take her car shopping, but it is too late for that.

I’m going to go down to the dealer on Monday and try to see if we can return the car, but ai doubt that will happen. I doubt much will happen, but here is what I know.

2008 Chevy Malibu with leather and the 3.6 V6 with over 200k miles. She put down $4k and owes $3-3.5k. She drove the car off the lot and later that day the check engine light comes on. She asked if she should be getting copies of the paperwork, and he said no. He apparently gave her just check box non-legal paperwork. She doesn’t know her interest rate. She doesn’t know who her loan is through. She doesn’t have proof of smog. She doesn’t know if she paid a gap fee. She was offered a standard two day return for $500, which seems high considering the price of the car, but she didn’t get it and it has been 6 days anyway. The car price seems high given the condition, so I think he might have added on extra fees, but I don’t know because he didn’t give her paperwork. Like she knows nothing. He didn’t provide her credit score. She thinks payments go to him, so I don’t know if he finances against his business, but It seems sketchy. She didn't have a license at the time or insurance, and he let her take possession of the vehicle.

He probably saw a young girl and saw a sucker. It would be one thing if she just didn’t get a good deal, but this is sketchy.

Technically California law says the dealer has to disclose all extra fees. The law says the buyer can try to smog the car, but if it fails the the smog fee and the repairs are the financial responsibility of the seller. Any interest paid to the dealer in surplus of the interest by the bank can’t be greater than 2.5%. The dealer needs to provide a copy of the bill of sale to the buyer. The dealer has to disclose any problems; to me, they cleared the CEL then sold the vehicle. Apparently he said if it has problems that he would fix it, which says to me he knew something was wrong and didn’t disclose the problem.

I want to have him return the vehicle for a refund. If he doesn’t then I suppose we can get the repairs done and bill him or pursue him in small claims court. I can contact the Better Business Bureau, leave a Yelp review and have my mother in law write an article in the local paper because she is a journalist, but I would rather not go that route.

Is there any other legal recourse I am missing? I’m sure he will deny a return and take his chances with someone following through with legal action. I doubt he will be reasonable.

I would laywer up!

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First go talk. Be super super calm. See where that goes. Read the guy. If that doesn't work, then..

Lawyer will cost more than the car. If you have a good friend, or family member who is a lawyer and will do a favor and make an appearance, and write some nasty letters, that might work. If not...

Get the salesman name, and find out about him everything you can. threaten to call the media consumer guys, like 5 on your side, etc.. Post the business and guys name everywhere. And call every authority you can, and tell him you will be there every day, every time someone shows up at his place to warn them. Spend a couple days walking the sidewalk out in front with signs.

Or you can do what I've done. After he is well aware of who you are, Show up at his house as he is leaving for work. Find out his wife and kids names, and tell him as he is leaving your just going to hang in front of his house for a while, and you'll see him at the dealership later.

sounds like a "buy here pay here" place. shiesty places many times that prey on poor and unknowledgeable people...

while there's a potential for fixing this, i think the outcome is skewed in the 'dealers' favor. if she doesn't have any paperwork, he can generate anything he wants whenever he wants to justify whatever works to his benefit legally..

definitely calmly talk to the guy about it, see what, if anything can be done. being that it's throwing a code, and the laws in your area, it might work to her/your advantage.



i don't know how your family is financially--obviously, she didn't have the money, but if someone in your family is financially capable and willing to help with a no-interest loan, another consideration is to 'pay it off' (we can agree it's not worth it, but she made an agreement on it's worth, so it's past that point already), and then immediately sell it off at a loss, and she'll need to eat the difference...


i give her credit for attempting to handle things herself, now take the opportunity to teach her the proper way to handle it-- what paperwork she should expect, if she doesn't know much about cars show her a shop you trust that she can have a vehicle taken for a pre-purchase inspection--the vehicle she got is a perfect example of a vehicle that wouldn't have passed this step(many places around me that i know of doing pre-purchase inspections would have outright told her not buy it simply off the price and mileage, before they even got it into the tech bay), and walk her through the deal-- if a dealer outright refuses to allow for a pre-purchase inspection, or ever seems to start fudging numbers, or gets unnecessarily pushy, the best thing she can ever do is walk away. there's too many cars for sale everywhere that would suit her needs to ever need to deal with that.

contrasted with the expectations of 20 years ago, it's much more common for women to do the entire deal on a vehicle these days. some places respect that, some places still operate like it's 1960, she's got to find a place that respects her.

Despite how my tone may come off here, I am rarely anything but calm. I'm logical and analytical to a fault, so I typically don't complain in restaurants, for instance. I don't leave bad reviews. They just lose my business.

In this case, I plan to approach the situation by giving the guy the benefit of the doubt and an opportunity to explain and make amends. I don't plan to involve lawyers in the situation, but I wouldn't be opposed to taking him to small claims court if it came to that, especially if the CEL/smog repairs are substantial and if he refuses to pay them, as the law is clear.

At the bare minimum, I'm hoping to get her paperwork, and I want to see if he screwed her there. If he did then it needs to be corrected. If he doesn't have a smog then he needs to pay for that per the law. In the best case scenario, he takes the car back and refunds her. We will see what happens.

What’s really sketchy is that the dealer let her drive off without her license and proof of insurance.

I’m wondering how this car is going to slide through the DMV.

You might want to contact the DMV investigations Office and file a Record of Complaint.

Yeah, that is another concern of mine.

Ca Lemon Law
https://oag.ca.gov/consumers/general/cars



Aside flagrant issues of documentation, you could ask a lawyer advice to and their cost to send a strongly worded letter on her behalf. It doesn’t have to be an expensive lawyer or anything. I got one for a personal injury claim in an auto accident and only had to write the letter to get my settlement.

Personally, I would offer the dealer the 500 buy back fee and be allowed to walk away despite all the issues of documentation, smog (max 90 days before), her license/ins issue, etc.

Of course, don’t just walk away. That dealer sucks.

Attachment 192217

It doesn’t fall under the Lemon Law.

Yeah smog is dealer responsibility in CA as far as I know so that could be your leverage for negotiating.

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Well, the first thing I would do is find out what code(s) triggered the CEL. That might help to quantify the "damages".

There were seven codes. Bank 1 + 2 are lean, the catalyst is performing poorly, egr system malfunction, there is a solenoid in the transmission that was faulty, there was two pending circuit codes to the control modules.

It was obvious that they cleared the codes before selling the car.

We went down there, but the owner of the place was gone.

She paid $6k plus fees for something that isn’t worth $2k. $600 auction fee, which is ridiculous because the car wasn’t really sold at auction. He is like an auction dealer. No smog certificate, but charged her $55 for a smog fee.

I’m pretty pissed she never called me to help her shop for a car. Now I’m sitting in a town over an hour away from where I live passing time at the hope we can go back later today, and he will be there. I’m sure he won’t be there.

...when suddenly all his inventory went up in literal flames...

Oh wait, this isn't the "complete the story thread"... :iono:

Well, on the plus side, she definitely learned a lesson she's not going to forget any time soon. How did she find this place to begin with?