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Shady Dealership!


ChiefScooter

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Have any of you seen this story yet?

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/10/chevy-dealer-errs-in-sale-price-has-customer-danny-sawyer-arrested-for-theft/

Basically, a man buys a car, dealership realizes they sold it for too little, has man arrested for theft when he refuses to sign new contract. Now he has filed a $2.2 million lawsuit!

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I hate to see the other side here, but if there is a mistake on the contract that has to do with the purchase price, there is a certain period of time BOTH parties have to make the contract void. If the dealership decides to exercise their right to void the contract and Mr. Dude doesn't bring the car back, it's stolen.

I worked at a dealership for a few years, and saw this happen - only once, but it does happen. The salesman AND the finance manager applied the same $1000 discount to a car. Salesman had to get the $$$ or have the people bring the car back. Does it look good or make for good business? Nope, but people are people and mistakes do happen.

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tell me again why people buy from dealerships? I know there are good ones out there but most of the time you are getting ripped off and paying too much for something BTS

I've bought 1 used vehicle from a dealership and although it wasn't a bad experience it wasn't great and I certainly stay the hell away. Then again, I hate taking losses on my vehicles and that was the only 1 I have

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Does the customer have the same rights to return the vehicle if he finds he overpaid? I doubt it.

Matter of fact, they do. If the agreed price is not what is on any piece of the paperwork, the deal can be voided. Seen that happen too, but usually, the customer just resigns for the lower, correct price.

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Only time I would buy from one is if I had a friend that was getting me some kind of discount.

Which violates another life rule, don't buy or sell cars to friends or family.

What I don't understand is how the police would actually arrest this guy based on the circumstances. You would think that to be arrested the crime that someone has accused you of committing the evidence would have to be pretty clear cut. If the dealership and the customer both signed the contract, how can the police agree that the dealership was robbed?

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Which violates another life rule, don't buy or sell cars to friends or family.

What I don't understand is how the police would actually arrest this guy based on the circumstances. You would think that to be arrested the crime that someone has accused you of committing the evidence would have to be pretty clear cut. If the dealership and the customer both signed the contract, how can the police agree that the dealership was robbed?

Once the contract is voided out and the car is requested back, if he does not return it, it's stolen.

Think about it this way, you go to Hertz to rent that little Chevy Avea you love so much. You sign a contract for, say 2 days. After a week, they call and say, "Mr. Dude, we'd like that Aveo back since every other princess in Ohio wants to drive one and be queen for a day." You don't bring it back. Since the contract is no longer in place, you're driving around in Hertz's car, not your car, even though for a period of time, it was yours. Same concept.

Unless this guy paid cash, full value, up front, the financing can be pulled out at any point in the window I've described. Hell, more than likely, the financing was never in place, and in reality it was still the dealership's as long as money was concerned...

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I used to sell cars, & yes 80% of the industry is filled with scumbags. Dealership screwed up, they needed to chalk it up as a mistake. Not sure how they convinced police to arrest him tho... Can you just walk into a station, claim theft & they pick the person up? Did they provide evidence? That could be scary if its that easy.

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Unless this guy paid cash, full value, up front, the financing can be pulled out at any point in the window I've described. Hell, more than likely, the financing was never in place, and in reality it was still the dealership's as long as money was concerned...

Per the article he paid in full, I think the dealership was seriously out of line. The guy was given a verbal price, that price was on the contract and he paid that price. If the dealership comes back later and wants more money they can just keep wanting.

The suit claims Davenport asked Sawyer to come in and sign a new contract reflecting the corrected price. Sawyer declined, saying he had already paid in full.
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Once the contract is voided out and the car is requested back, if he does not return it, it's stolen.

Think about it this way, you go to Hertz to rent that little Chevy Avea you love so much. You sign a contract for, say 2 days. After a week, they call and say, "Mr. Dude, we'd like that Aveo back since every other princess in Ohio wants to drive one and be queen for a day." You don't bring it back. Since the contract is no longer in place, you're driving around in Hertz's car, not your car, even though for a period of time, it was yours. Same concept.

Unless this guy paid cash, full value, up front, the financing can be pulled out at any point in the window I've described. Hell, more than likely, the financing was never in place, and in reality it was still the dealership's as long as money was concerned...

False equivalence.

When I go to Enterprise (because fuck Hertz, that's why :) ) to rent a car, ownership and title does not change hands. The contract presented to me by the dealer (with numbers that the dealer has agreed to by virtue of presenting me with the contract) states that all ownership of said vehicle is transferred to me, or in case of lease transferred to the leasing bank. Now that being said, I have first-hand witnessed someone sign a "contract" for a used car that they did not have financing locked-down on, essentially "borrowing" it. Financing didn't go through (they never even talked to the F&I guy as he just left for vacation), and they ended up bringing the car back (and not happy about it). Since that's not what happened here, this exception doesn't apply. Once you have ironclad bank approval, the F&I guy signs off that financing has been executed (which didn't happen in my exception example), and you sign on the dotted line, that's a done deal. Just because Chevy is offering that 60-day return policy for it's customers doesn't mean that the same applies for the dealers. I hope this guy enjoys his new pile of money.

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Per the article he paid in full, I think the dealership was seriously out of line. The guy was given a verbal price, that price was on the contract and he paid that price. If the dealership comes back later and wants more money they can just keep wanting.

Verbal doesn't mean shit. He was given a contract offer for the listed price and he accepted. No one was under duress, there wasn't a egregious mistake in the contract that would make it unenforceable (like if they sold the car for 3,339 instead of 33,339, a reasonable and voidable error). That's a valid contract.

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Matter of fact, they do. If the agreed price is not what is on any piece of the paperwork, the deal can be voided. Seen that happen too, but usually, the customer just resigns for the lower, correct price.

If the contract has wording to the effect that inaccuracies may be corrected then that's fine. Math mistakes etc are correctable. If the buyer just has remorse because he agreed to too high a price, or the dealership has remorse because they mistakenly agreed to too low a price then those are not errors, and would not be correctable unless both parties agreed to the correction.

There's no cooling off period, either side.

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I hate to see the other side here, but if there is a mistake on the contract that has to do with the purchase price, there is a certain period of time BOTH parties have to make the contract void. If the dealership decides to exercise their right to void the contract and Mr. Dude doesn't bring the car back, it's stolen.

I worked at a dealership for a few years, and saw this happen - only once, but it does happen. The salesman AND the finance manager applied the same $1000 discount to a car. Salesman had to get the $$$ or have the people bring the car back. Does it look good or make for good business? Nope, but people are people and mistakes do happen.

There are only 3 reasons in Ohio contract law that a contract can be voided, duress, a unconscionable mistake, and fraud. In your example, I can't imagine any court, small claims or otherwise, would consider a $1000 variance on the price of a $20,000 car (I'm assuming it's new-ish) to be a "unconscionable" mistake that makes the deal grossly unfair to the dealer. $10,000? Sure thing, that puppy's getting thrown out. If your people lawyered up like this guy in the article, they'd at minimum kept their car.

There is no "three day cooling-off period" in Ohio at least, that you can rescind your contract with a car dealership. Once you sign, assuming all other contingencies like financing have been locked down and you take delivery of the vehicle, you just bought yourself a car.

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If the contract has wording to the effect that inaccuracies may be corrected then that's fine. Math mistakes etc are correctable. If the buyer just has remorse because he agreed to too high a price, or the dealership has remorse because they mistakenly agreed to too low a price then those are not errors, and would not be correctable unless both parties agreed to the correction.

There's no cooling off period, either side.

Dammit Scruit, I had this legal discussion! :)

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Well, shucks. I suppose I was the other side of right... not wrong, no. Maybe less right? Yes, I was less right than Cheech :D.

I can say that when I was at the dealership I saw this happen on both sides - maybe our contracts were written better, maybe our customers were more understanding. Who knows, but it looks like the law doesn't allow it. Now, who knows - this happened in Carolina, right? Or was that the clutch thing? I didn't really read this article, just the other one...

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Well, shucks. I suppose I was the other side of right... not wrong, no. Maybe less right? Yes, I was less right than Cheech :D.

I can say that when I was at the dealership I saw this happen on both sides - maybe our contracts were written better, maybe our customers were more understanding. Who knows, but it looks like the law doesn't allow it. Now, who knows - this happened in Carolina, right? Or was that the clutch thing? I didn't really read this article, just the other one...

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful, hate me because I'm right. :)

Seriously, it can be a scary thing getting nasty calls from salesman and dealerships making demands on a car that you just bought. High-pressure sales can be used for extortion as well, and if the dealership is already shady enough that they are resorting to stuff like that to get the car back over $1000, something tells me they are being less than truthful on the phone to the customer as to the consequences of not complying with the dealer's demands. Couple that with someone who doesn't know any better or is too scared to look up their rights in this situation, and they'll fold pretty quick.

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Matter of fact, they do. If the agreed price is not what is on any piece of the paperwork, the deal can be voided. Seen that happen too, but usually, the customer just resigns for the lower, correct price.

Yes, but in this case the agreed price seems to have been on the paperwork. They just reneged the deal because it was the wrong price. If all the paperwork is the same, there should be no recourse.

I can't buy a car for "x", look online and find out it is worth less and go get my money back.

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Yes, but in this case the agreed price seems to have been on the paperwork. They just reneged the deal because it was the wrong price. If all the paperwork is the same, there should be no recourse.

I can't buy a car for "x", look online and find out it is worth less and go get my money back.

Right, right. I meant only in the case where paperwork did not match either other paperwork or negotiated price, not the price just being too high/low for the market.

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