Car shipped cross country but never received

L

londonsfire

Guest
Jurisdiction
New Jersey
This is a strange situation I've found myself in... 5 months ago, I purchased a car online through eBay from a dealership in NJ for $6000. I live in CA, so I paid the dealership another $1200 to ship the car cross country, so $7200 in total. I received the title in the mail, but the car itself never showed, and the auto transport company that the dealership sub-contracted out went MIA. Once I informed the dealership it never arrived, they reported the car stolen. The car was found two months later at an empty parking lot 40 min from the dealership in NJ. The company they hired to ship the car were actually scam artists and took the money but dumped the car. The police towed and impounded the car in the town it was found in, while my insurance checked it over. No damage was done, but since I never had a chance to drive or even see the car in person, I wasn't going to take the risk of being delivered a car that might have been driven around accruing mileage or stripped down some way by the scammers. So I told the dealership to pick up the car and refund my money. A couple of weeks later, I called the tow yard to see why the car hasn't been released yet, and they said the dealership told them they would come and pick up the car, but never did. Come to find out, the dealership actually decided it wasn't worth their trouble to drive 40 min away and pay the tow and storage fee charge, even though they were the ones who sub-contracted out the car to the thieves. The dealership let the car sit at the tow yard accruing daily storage fees and never attempted to notify me they weren't going to pick it up. Now to get the car released from the tow yard, it will cost $1500.00 in cash and someone has to pick it up in person. So me living in CA, there's no way I'm able to do it. I demanded the dealership to pick up the car, but they have ignored me. I feel since they have already been paid for the car, they no longer care what happens to it. So even though I've paid them $1200 to deliver it, they are denying any accountability and will cause me to lose possession of the car and will not refund my $7200.00. I really feel this is unjustified, anyone feel I might have a case to sue or no?
 
I see more than one scammer involved.
Why on earth do people persist in buying a car thousands of miles away?

You do have a lawsuit of some kind, but its likely to cost you $10K to endeavor to get a judgment for $7K.

There's no way a CA court will obtain jurisdiction over a NJ company, probably "mobbed up"!

Even of you prevailed and received a judgment in a NJ court, there's no chance you'd ever collect it.

For all you know, the "dealership" is more than likely a "stealership"!

Good luck, mate.
 
londonsfire said:
I really feel this is unjustified, anyone feel I might have a case to sue or no?
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Even if you were willing to spend the time, travel and money (many thousands that you don't get back) suing, on the remote chance that you'd win, you aren't likely ever to collect anything from those scammers.

As a practical matter, you either figure out how to go get your car and pay the storage and transport fees or you kiss the car and your money goodbye.
 
I was looking for a certain make and model to modify for off-roading and camping. There were none to be found in my state, or even on the West coast for that matter. The best asking price and condition from all the selections of this one model I was looking at online, this one car seemed to be the best bet from this dealership. Since the dealership specializes on selling cars online, they post youtube videos of their inventory and tons of photos of the car. I checked out the carfax on the vehicle and all seemed in order. I did do research on the dealership they were 100 percent positive ratings on eBay since 2008, and their yelp reviews weren't all that bad. So the dealership is an established business and not a fly-by-night. That being said, I completely agree this is the dumbest thing any potential car buyer can do, purchasing a car without ever looking at it in person, I just had to learn that the hard way, I suppose. Now, for the advice given so far, it seems that its not even worth to sue since the costs of the lawsuit will outweigh the value of the car itself. I thought when you win a lawsuit, that the one found guilty covers your legal fees as well, no? But it's also pretty discouraging when the I'm also being told, even if I do win, they still most likely won[t be able to collect. I appreciate everyone commenting, even the ones shaking their heads at my ignorance. Trust me, I been doing that everyday since. I learned my lesson. Hope you all had a great New Years.
 
londonsfire said:
I thought when you win a lawsuit, that the one found guilty covers your legal fees as well, no?
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When you win you get your filing and process service fees added to the judgment amount but, in the American legal system, each party pays for his own attorney and doesn't get those fees back. There are exceptions but this is not one of them

londonsfire said:
I did do research on the dealership they were 100 percent positive ratings on eBay since 2008, and their yelp reviews weren't all that bad. So the dealership is an established business and not a fly-by-night.
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Nevertheless, no matter how reputable a car dealership is, it's still a car dealership and once they sell you the car (as is), get your money, and turn it over to the shipper, they are done, with no further obligation to you at all. That the dealer got scammed by a transport company isn't likely to change that unless you can prove that they used that transport company on other occasions where shipped cars disappeared.
 
Thanks Adjusterjack. It's just really hard to believe that there are no other options. If I was to buy a $7000 product from Amazon, and it never showed, I would not be held accountable and would get my money back the next day. I can't understand why this isn't the same with a $7000 car. I never felt I was in any kind of danger of losing money because I not only had Ebay's Vehicle protection program and insurance on the car, but assumed since I paid the dealership directly to ship, they would be responsible for it until the car crossed my hands. How can I be accountable if the dealership hands over keys to whoever shows up to take the car with out any kind of background check. When you simply google the auto transport's name, there are warnings to stay away, that they are criminals being investigated by the NJ AG.
 
The reason you are accountable is because the cost of pursuing remedies against others is so costly and inconvenient that, in all practicality, virtually non-existent.

You took a risk, a big one, relied on this, that, and the other thing, none of which you had any control over and it blew up in your face.

I'm a car hobbyist. I have bought and sold over 100 cars in my lifetime and I have never bought a car from another state. The reason I don't buy cars from other states is the same reason I don't sky dive, rock climb, or bungee jump. Way too much risk of something very painful happening when something goes wrong even if there might eventually be remedies.

At this point asking how and why this happened to you is meaningless. You should have been asking the "What happens if this goes wrong?" questions before committing to buy the car long distance.

I suggest that the best way to cut your losses is to fly to wherever your car is, pay the storage fees before they get even farther out of hand and arrange to get your car home. Might cost you a couple of thousand dollars but that's better than kissing $6000 and the car goodbye.

Your insurance might cover part of the cost of recovery.
 

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