After finding my wife's favorite car on ebay, I decided I was going to buy it for her. All my other buying experiences on ebay had been good, so, why not.
I emailed Kevin Touhey at ebay username: "autoadvisors1", and asked him if there was anything additional that needed to be disclosed about the car. He assured me the car was in perfect condition and absolutely nothing was wrong. So, I bought the car.
I then proceeded to set up all the transport necessary to get the car to me. It took over a week before the car was picked up in Florida, and an addition week in transit. As soon as the car arrived on the transport truck, the driver was adamant about what a pain in *ss the car had been because it had no power steering. And how hard it is to maneuver the car on the ramps without it. I ended up paying him an addition $40.00 for his hardship.
Then, I tried driving it. Not possible. So, I called Auto Advisors and told them about the power steering pump being bad. The lady on the phone assured me that the pump had been replaced before the car left for Washington state. She even went so far as to fax me a copy of the receipt for the work.
After talking to her, I decided that the pump needed replaced no matter what. So I went down and bought a new pump and installed it. After it was installed, I knew immediately that the rack and pinion was also bad. That might have been the problem all along, but the rack and pinion cost over twice as much as the pump, so I started with the cheaper part first.
After realizing the shop in Florida didn't rip Auto Advisors off, I took it upon myself to call the shop (their number was right on the receipt that Auto Advisors faxed me). I asked the shop owner if he remembered the car, and he said yes. I then asked him Is there anything that you told Kevin that he might not have told me? He then proceeded to tell me that as soon as the pump was installed, he called Kevin and told him that the rack and pinion was also bad. But, Kevin told him that the transport truck was picking the car up that day and there was nothing else they could do about it. My main question is, Why did it take Auto Advisors over one week to get the car into a shop, knowing the pump was bad?
I knew then that Kevin lied to me and it was going to be next to impossible to return the car. So, I brought the car to a local shop and had them replace the rack and pinion. Which, amazingly, fixed the problem.
While the car was in the shop, I tried repeatedly to call Auto Advisors to let them know what I was doing and that I felt they should reimburse me for it. I called them four times and left non descriptive messages, and nobody returned my calls. I then called a fifth time and got a receptionist. I told her about the problems and she said that she would have one of the guys call me back as soon as they get in. Nothing.
By this time I was getting pretty mad. I immediately went to ebay and posted a negative feedback on them. The very next day Kevin emailed me saying he knew nothing about the problems I was having with the car and he was just a man trying to make a living, and what would it take to get the negative feedback removed. I emailed him back saying that I had over $600.00 invested in the repair work and he should pay for it. I didn't hear from him again.
After about a week of nothing from Kevin, I shelled out even more money for ebay to hire a mediator to help solve this problem. During mediation, I went so far as to drop the charges for the pump that I installed, because Auto Advisors did actually have one installed before the car shipped. I also agreed to remove my negative feedback. I guess it wasn't good enough. Kevin responded to the initial request for mediation and then quit responding at all. So now I am back to square one.
I have all but exhausted all the routes that ebay has available to protect it's buyers from rip offs like Auto Advisors. I notified them several times using different routes and they assured me that, although they couldn't tell me what type of action would be taken, if found in violation, Auto Advisors would be punished. The last time I looked, Auto Advisors had over six cars for sale on ebay. Way to teach them a lesson ebay.
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