Bellagio Motors - Fred Ebadat

That's the way that it should work when the intermediary has a contract with the Seller. But it might work quite differently if the car was sold by an intermediary who had no contract with the Seller.

The above is counter-intuitive because we are all schooled to believe that a contract protects the Seller.

However, when an intermediary has no contract with the Seller, the intermediary is essentially selling a stolen car.

Thus, the Seller is protected only when he has no contract. The police would have treated the car as stolen and it would have gone back to him.

Life is upside down.

 

Perhaps the mullahs can put the money inside our Drone's glove compartment and ship it all back together ?

 

When I read the full name, it suddenly made a lot more sense. I know of several "shady" operating dealers in the Toronto area as well, one of whom actually lied about a car's accident history (thankfully I was not as horribly victimized as some of the members in this thread). Guess what the common denominator is to the owners of several of these said dealers?

 

I was just looking at this old thread. Saw it hadn't been updated since 2013.

Looks like Fred was sent up the river in June of 2015 for 13 years!

Huntington Beach man gets 13 years in prison for luxury car embezzlement scheme after pocketing $2 million - The Orange County Register

Mike

 

His last name must not be Corzine...

 

There are unfortunately so many stories like this that happen every year. There's very little recourse for either the consignor or the buyer. Usually these are treated as civil matters and white collar crime and the car dealers get stuck with a bunch of judgements but face no prison time. It's very difficult to prove fraud unless they can prove he never had any intent to deliver a car. Without an inside person and evidence it's hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt he just didn't have poor business skills and failed.

Furthermore, did you know that in most states if you CONSIGN your car to a dealer and he sells it to a consumer and does not pay you, you have no recourse? Even if you are still holding the title, the DMV will take your title and reissue it to the buyer. This is because of consumer protection laws and the buyer is the "consumer" with protections and you are not. Rob (superspeederrob) bought a consigned truck from a crooked NJ dealer and paid with credit card then found out the dealer ran off with everyone's money. The real owner lucked out in that Rob was able to charge back his credit card, and after he won he returned the truck to the owner. Otherwise the owner would have lost 100%. There's an American Greed episode on this same scam, and they interview both buyers and sellers who are victims. Holding the title WILL NOT PROTECT YOU!

Guys please be smart. The fear of losing will drive us to do stupid things. We spend months looking for the right car and the dealer convinces you there's 3 other people looking at it, send a deposit today. You have to have the idea in the back of your head that every car dealer is trying to rip you off. How can you protect yourself.

There's a couple good suggestions presented in this thread:

1) Use an attorney for escrow. This is impractical unless you know an attorney in advance. They're used to do real estate escrow and it's not really their thing to escrow car purchases.

2) Use a credit card for the deposit. I've done this several times. They should not want a $30k deposit, usually $1-5k should be sufficient. Here's the thing with a credit card - make sure you get a Bill of Sale BEFORE you give the credit card number, AND make sure it says the deposit is refundable if the car is not to your satisfaction. This protects you if the dealer is lying under the sun or using phony PPIs (kick backs or associated PPI). You wire $30k and you pretty much own it, frame damage and all.

3) Be willing to walk away from the car if the dealer is acting shady or making unrealistic demands. If they're saying they will only accept $30k by wire for the car and it will be sold today if you don't do it, there's probably a reason behind it. They are scamming you and they know they need to push you hard to get your $. And they need it quick because they are probably scamming a dozen other people at the same time.

Remember, if you wire them money and they simply take it, what can you do? Ideally you want to pay for the car the day you pick it up and drive it away. If you possess the car, chances are you can get title if funny business is going on. And if you use financing, even better because you'd better believe it that the bank will be able to get this guy prosecuted if he wrote a dozen bad loans on cars he didn't own.