Law enforcement takes some forms of fraud very seriously. Writers of bad checks, for instance, can expect to practice their cursive in jail.
But when a car dealer sells a rebuilt wreck and conceals the damage, authorities tend to want to pretend that no laws were broken.
This week's Martin column describes a recent civil trial that ended with a jury hammering Blue Springs Ford for selling a pickup truck that had undisclosed structural damage. "The whole front end was cock-eyed," Bernard Brown, the attorney for the couple who bought the Ranger, says.
The jury awarded the couple, Kimberly and Michael von David, $171,520 in actual damages and assessed eye-popping punitive damages of $1.75 million.
Brown has taken Blue Springs Ford to court on multiple
occasions. He's astonished by the brazenness with which the
dealership seems to operate. "There are other Ford dealers we never a
peep about," he says.
Brown has done well for his clients, but he's irritated that trial lawyers are the ones to be making Blue Springs Ford account for its actions. He'd like to see someone with police powers take an interest.
Each year, the Missouri Attorney General's office receives dozens of complaints from car and truck buyers who purchased vehicles unaware of their wreck or salvage history. Seldom does the state's top cop take action.
At trial, Brown introduced evidence showing that a Missouri Attorney General last sued a franchise dealer for selling a rebuilt wreck in 1990. (A spokeswoman for Attorney General Chris Koster did not respond to requests for comment.)
Bob Balderston, the president and owner of Blue Springs Ford, testified at the recent trial. Under questioning, he admitted that the dealership had sold vehicles fraudulently. Brown says the testimony was "extraordinary," and he says he intends to send a transcript of the cross-examination to the attorney general, the U.S. Justice Department and the Ford Motor Co.
Brown believes that more aggressive enforcement is needed because other protections may not be reliable. Brown once appeared on a Canadian news program that described the incomplete histories that Carfax provides in some instances.
Calling Carfax "hideous," Brown says unscrupulous used-car dealers take advantage of situations when a previous owner's frame-bending collision fails to make it in the vehicle report. "Knowing a Carfax is clean is their weapon to defraud you," he says.
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No offense but I can't believe anyone is crazy enough to buy a new car from a dealer right now. Considering that a healthy chunk of 2010 Cash 4 Clunkers cars have already been repossessed (i.e. http://repofinder.com) why not just go to local banks and credit unions and buy these repo cars back for half the retail price? If you're going to buy junk at least don't over pay.
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