Dealer Fraud Part 1

Imagine trying to trade in your vehicle only to be told that it couldn’t be traded in because it shows signs of being in an accident. A major accident. Well, that happened to us. On June 27 we tried to trade in our Nissan Xterra because it gets horrible gas mileage and we were in desperate need of something else. To our surprise the vehicle isn’t even worth half of what we paid for it. How could this be? We trusted the person who sold it to us, Ray’s dad. It was time to act and time to act fast.

Ray went to the dealership where we purchased the vehicle and gave them a chance to make matters right. Only to be told that there was nothing that could be done because the dealership had been sold and was under new ownership. Just great now what? They politely handed us a carfax (which will come back to bite them in the ass later) and sent us on our way but, little did they know I wasn’t going to let it stop at that.

I decided to do some investigating on my own. I started with retrieving the police report from the accident. I was speechless. Not only was our vehicle in an accident but the police report stated that it had sustained heavy damage, disabled on scene, and was towed away. I was pissed, furious, and on a mission to make these people pay for selling me a totaled vehicle.

We started making phone calls. Starting with Ray’s dad then, we moved onto both parties involved in the accident. Neither party wanted to speak to us which was very frustrating because they had nothing to lose from speaking to us. Fine, so be it, we decided to call the insurance companies. After getting tossed around and put on hold we finally spoke to someone whom told us the claim number and that both vehicles had been declared a total loss. Perfect that was all the information I needed to contact the Attorney General’s office.

New Mexico law states that if a vehicle has sustained wreck damage and the cost of repair for the collision damage exceeds 6% of the sales price of the vehicle, then, yes, the dealer must provide a written affidavit to the purchaser that describes the vehicle and states whether there has been repair work done on the vehicle due to wreck damage. No affidavit was provided to us. Nothing, zilch, nada, zeros. I think we have a dealer fraud case on our hands my friends. Stay tuned for part 2 because it only gets better from here.