In early May of this year, I decided to buy the Mazda Tribute from Koons Mazda located on Branch Avenue in Maryland. My wife and I put down $7,000.00. We expressed right from the beginning the need to keep the monthly note under $400.00. Ricardo Ledbetter was the person in finance that worked with us. We were assured that the amount of money we put down would be sufficient to accomplish this goal.
Approximately 3 days later, I received a call from Mr. Ledbetter. He explained to me that the financing did not go through and that I would need to either put more money down or turn the vehicle in.in the 3 days that I had the truck, I really grew attached to it and decided that I wanted to try and keep it.
After talking to Mr. Ledbetter, my wife and I decided to put down another $2,500.00. When I arrived to meet with Mr. Ledbetter and pay the additional money, he had the paper work already prepared for my signature. After signing off on what I believed to be the original contract (with 2,500.00 added to my down payment) I then discovered that my car note was now $489.00 (originally it was $389.00).
I questioned Mr. Ledbetter about this and he said that the original contract was no longer agreeable with Koons Mazda, so they wanted out. I then said that this deal is not agreeable to me, reminding him of how important it was for the car note to stay under $400.00. At this time Mr. Ledbetter informed me that he would not let me out of the deal. I asked why not, since I was not in agreement. He said the most he would do would be downgrade the vehicle I was trying to buy or I could turn the truck in, but that they would not return my money. I told him that I would not downgrade the vehicle especially since I just added $2,500.00 to the deal.
My wife had followed me in our other vehicle, in the event that a deal could not be reached. I went to inform her of what Mr. Ledbetter was doing. She, my children and myself then went inside Mr. Ledbetter's office to further discuss this issue. Mr. Ledbetter made it clear that Koons Mazda was allowed to get out of a deal if they found it disagreeable but that I would not be let out of the deal for the same reason. Understandably, this caused both my wife and I to get very upset. The level of professionalism displayed by Mr. Ledbetter had long since gone the way of the dodo, to the point that he even allowed other staff members to walk up to his office door and eavesdrop on our conversation!
At one point, my wife asked one of the Mazda employees to close the door. He told her to hold on and was very disrespectful, to the point that I felt the need to interject (I asked him to close the door now and moved to close it myself).
We quickly realized that there would be no satisfaction achieved at this level, so my wife and I left.
The next day I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and patiently waited.
In late July, I received a call from Mr. Michael Ford (Koons legal office) who wanted to inquire about my financial obligations to Koons Mazda (I had not made any monthly payments on the vehicle because at this time, I wanted to give the vehicle back and get my money back). I informed Mr. Ford of all the sordid details regarding Ricardo Ledbetter and Koons Mazda. Mr. Ford was understandably shocked and assured me that he would look into the issue and get back to me.
When Mr. Ford again contacted me a few days later, he explained that he believed Mr. Koons was unaware of this issue and that he believed that I could meet with him to give him my side of the story. I thought this was a great idea. I explained to Mr. Ford that all I wanted was to get the original agreement back or, if that was not possible, to give the truck back and get back my money.
The following week (the week of July 23 I believe) I was scheduled to meet with Mr. Koons. I took time off from my job to come in and meet him. When I arrived at the Koons legal offices, Mr. Ford informed me that Mr. Koons decided he would not meet with me and sent someone else instead. I later found out that this individual (whose name was not given to me) was the manager of Koons Mazda (at least that was what I was told). This is the person who should have addressed the problem in the first place, but he did not. He did not take the time to address my concerns at this time either. He made it clear that I was either going to have to pay for the vehicle, have it repossessed or turn it back in. If I turned it back in I would only receive $1,495.00 back!
The services that were rendered to me in the past four months by Koons Mazda were deplorable. I was forced to return the truck; I was forced to give up approximately $5,500.00 (the other $1,495.00 I have yet to receive).
My wife and I were disrespected and mistreated by an individual who clearly had only one thing on his mind: how to best get money from customers regardless of the course of action he had to take to do it. And I was disrespected by John Koons III.
Michael Ford told me that John Koons had agreed to meet with me, but then decided not to and did not even have the decency to reschedule a meeting to hear me out. Mr. Koons took no steps whatsoever to address this gross case of injustice. I now understand Michael Ford no longer works at the Koons Branch Avenue location and apparently no one seems to have any records of the monies Koons owes me.
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