If a car dealer calls you and says your financing fell thru and you have to return the car, be suspicious. If they say you can't have your deposit back, you may want to call the cops.
That's what happened at a Carl Gregory car dealership in Albany, Georgia. Gregory's lots include a Chrysler Jeep store, among others in Georgia.
The dealership General Manager Joseph Martin was called the mastermind of a deposit-grabbing scheme, assisted by a salesman, Ken Kennedy, who apparently had a long criminal record. Apparently the dealer owner failed to do a thorough background check.
According to
local radio station WXFL, Martin and Kennedy would take down payments from unsuspecting buyers and then let the customers drive home thinking they had a deal. Later they'd call the buyer up and say that their credit fell through and they had to return the vehicle to the dealership. To top it off, they also told the buyers that they had to forfeit the down payment money for using the car they thought they had bought.
What no one knew was that Martin and Kennedy were pocketing the down payment money all along.
Six felonies and four misdemeanors later, Martin is under arrest and Kennedy is on the run.
How much deposit money was ripped off? No one is saying for sure.
Part of what made this scam believeable in the first place is the car dealer practice of "spot delivery" where the car is delivered to the buyer before the dealer ever really gets financing approval. All too often the whole thing is a scam. A few states made this practice illegal but more need to.
Meantime, if a car dealer calls you and tries to pull this scam on you, call us right away. Odds are, they are violating the law.
Burdge Law Office
Because life is too short to put up with getting ripped off.
