That is far from abnormal for a used car lot. Especially one with large volume. However if its a small shop that sells one car a week that is excessive. I have a friend that works at a local used car lot and the owner has had several law-suits in the past year, some he won, some he lost.

If you buy a car that the transmission dies the next month and it costs more than the car...I can see a law-suit happening, even though the car is as/is people will still try to sue..its the american way

Being a used car salesman is not the most fun job out there when the customers come back and say the car blew up a few days after they drove it..no matter what the price was.

Well that'* the thing Hans, he'* LOST ALL these cases, most by not even answering the claim which is irresponsible and admits guilt. Some he lost by denying the claim and losing in court.

Also, he is a very small dealer. At most he has 20 cars on his lot. It'* basically him and one other employee. And judging by the fact there are 4 people including myself that have been involved with a consignment sale gone bad, I'd guess most of these other cases are about the same thing.

Below is the latest comment on the NBC30 site. BTW, my video is one of the "Most Discussed" videos!! That means it'* more visible to the public!

http://video.nbc30.com/player/?id=0#videoid=102542

It'* easy to win in court.

It'* much more difficult to collect the judgment, especially from a business.

And he knows that.

Exactly, which is why he blows people off thinking they will give up. It'* not as difficult to collect as it is time consuming. I'm not letting it go.

What goes around comes around. He'll see soon enough.

Type "Bernardo Motors" in Google and my story is the first result – even above his website.

What'* going to happen is, eventually, he will lose enough cases, declare the company bankrupt, sell all of the cars to a friend, and open up shop under a different name.

When it comes to money, etc., as they say, "possession is 9/10ths of the law." Like you said, best thing you could do is work with the AG to shut him down and have him barred from doing business in the state.

Well it looks like others have been very vigilant at collecting their payments. It'* possible to get a lein placed on his property that would interfere with him selling his business, and he may already have one placed on it for all I know.

I'm going to hope for some assistance from the AG. I may even try to get back on NBC and let the whole state know about all his lawsuits and update my story. I don't have the Sebring anymore. Unfortunately that may be a problem for me. But I needed to get rid of it. If I can't win my own case because I don't own the car anymore, I can at least help others and hope to get his a$$ investigated by the AG.

I think not having the Sebring works in your favor.
1: it shows you did actually have to sell the car; you weren't just letting it sit around as a spare (ie you were actually burdened by the payments)
2: the car sold and wasn't hard to sell and I hope it sold quicker than the length of time he had possession.
and 3: that (I hope) the amount you sold it for was comparable to what was being asked for while he had it (minus the extra months of depreciation & mileage of course) ( I believe it was commission free?)

Well I didn't sell it, I traded it for the 03. When I first dropped the car off at the dealer, it booked at $11,000 easy. Over time I lowered the price to $10,000 because I still owed that. I got less than $6,000 for the trade. If it ever comes up in court, which I think it will, I wouldn't say I owned it still. That would be perjury. I just don't know if a judge would award me much if any for a car I don't have. :? Although, if he doesn't answer my claim or doesn't come to court, I should win automatically. That'* what I hope happens.

I guess I could argue that I HAD to trade it due to an issue with my daily driver. I could say that since he had extra keys to my car he could come by and steal it at any time, and I didn't want that.

If that question ever did come up, I would think you could argue the fact that due to the excessive miles and condition the dip$hit dealer put that car in, you were put into a "negative equity" situation, which was rolled into your new car. You may not own the car anymore, but you still own it'* defaced value.

excellent point Sandrock!