Chesapeake Auto Buyers Toyota Finders Chesapeake Auto Buyers/ToyotaFinders.com are a rip off, buyer beware! Glen Burnie, Maryland

My wife and I went to look at a car on Feb 5, 2009.  We liked the car and the owner, Richard Fanzo, said with a deposit he would hold it a few days while we found out if we could get financing.  We were told we were pre-approved by our bank.  We wrote him a check for $500.00 made out to him personally not Chesapeake Auto Buyers or ToyotaFinders.com.  Well with the economy, the bank wouldn't give us the loan for that particular vehicle.  We called Richard and told him.  He said, "OK", he'd see we got our money back.  Well on March 25th we still hadn't gotten our money back after many phone calls to Richard he continued to say, "I'll send it out this week" or "I'll see you get something this week" so we contacted the Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General's for the state of Maryland.  We have a receipt and can get a copy of the cancelled check.  After contacting the Consumer protection Division we waited for them to get back to us.  On June 11^th we received a letter telling us that they have attempted to resolve our complaint but they regret to advise us that Chesapeake Auto Buyers does not answer the phone nor do they respond to written correspondence.  We were told that they could be of no further assistance.  They said we might be able to file suit in Small Claims or District court but they can’t give us any legal advice.  We even had a lawyer right them a letter asking them to refund us the $500 so we wouldn’t have to take further action.  We have never heard back from them.

Since this has happened we’ve been searching the internet and have found others who have had problems with him also.  We even found out that there are 2 court cases against him.  My advice to anyone looking for a used car is to stay far, far away from Chesapeake Auto Buyers aka Toyotafinders.com.