On 9/29/1996, I traded in a 1978 olds cutlass sup for a 88 Dodge Sundance that broke down on me the very next day. So I had the car towed back to the dealership, where I had the saleman give me a written promise to fix my vehicle. It was signed and a copy put in my file. I called them the next day asking when I could pick my car back up. They informed me that I had to wait until the mechanic came back from vacation.
I waited til the following week and still the vehicle was not repaired. I called and told them I was coming up to the dealership and I wanted to talk to them about putting me in another car since they couldn't seem to get the sundance fixed. I was told it would be fixed by the end of the week. I called CAC and asked them what I could do.
They said to leave the car with the dealership and let them fix it. I still didn't have a vehicle to go to work in so I financed another car and told CAC to go pick the car up from the dealerships parking lot. I informed Best Kars that CAC was coming to pick the car because I had volunteerly repo'd the car.
This was the middle of October 1996. I had my new car so I wasn't to much worried about my other one. I went by the dealership in December and the car was no longer there. I assumed that CAC had picked it up and I was waiting for the paperwork telling me what they had gotten for it.
I never got a letter and was not notified until mid to late February that the car was not there when CAC went to pick it up. I went by the dealership and asked to speak with James Burton and was told that he had died in November of 1996 and they didn't know where my vehicle was moved to. March 1997 I had to go to the police department and file a stolen car report.
I was told that it was a civil dispute and it needed to be handled between me and the dealership. I ran around in circles with the dealership for a year trying to find this car, and never got an answer on where my car was moved to. I was about to give up when I decided to give the police department another try.
On 3/18/1998 Lt. Brown said that the day I came in to report my situation in March 1997 there should have been a report written up and the car entered into the missing car database. He did this for me and started an investigation. I immediately faxed the police report to the insurance company along with all the supporting documents that Lt. Brown told me to.
I received a letter a few weeks later saying that they weren't going to pay this claim saying that the car was abandoned and there was a clause in the policy that excluded this and the matter was closed. I then called the Lt. And he said he would give them a call and inform them that I actually did have a stolen vehicle.
He found out from the FirstLender's Claims Rep that James had resold my car to another buyer for $2500.00 and had pocketed the funds due to the fact that he couldn't produce the title for it to be transfered into the new buyer's name. The car was legally still in my name. So he called CAC and told them where to get the car and when they picked it up and resold it they only got $450.00 for it, when I was charged $4000.00.
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