Paul Motor Company Paul Motor Co BUYER BEWARE! LIARS! NOT TO BE TRUSTED! Internet

I'm Jeremy Paul, co-owner of Paul Motor Company. I dealt with Mr. Friedman towards the end of this transaction with the hope of fully satisfying him. Please excuse me if I my reply comes across as personal; I have spent the last 21,000 hours of my career building and maintaining our good name.

 

 

Some context first;

Mr. Friedman (the buyer) made us an offer on a 1994 BMW M3 that we had listed on eBay Motors. Given that he was not a local buyer, we recommended a third-party pre-purchase inspection to reassure him of the car’s condition. We also provided many additional photos and a video walk-around of the car. We believe that an inspection was particularly important for this vehicle, as it was over 20 years old. The buyer agreed to have a pre-purchase inspection done at an authorized BMW dealership and we sent it there the following day. The buyer received the inspection results and also spoke with the BMW service advisor to get his overall opinion on the car, both on its aesthetic and mechanical condition. The buyer accepted the inspection results and proceeded with the purchase. Full payment and signature of the bill of sale occurred AFTER reviewing the inspection results as requested by the buyer. The buyer wired us the full payment two days after the inspection was completed and the buyer was entirely comfortable with the results. Once he received the vehicle, the buyer claimed that he was not satisfied with it and requested $20,000 from us as compensation. Although we sold the vehicle without warranty, as stated in our eBay listing and on the bill of sale he signed, we still offered the buyer $3,500 to help resolve a subjective cosmetic issue with the car. We had no obligation to offer him anything, but we still wanted to make sure that he was happy with his purchase. The buyer refused our offer and demanded much more money from us, constantly changing his demands. He blackmailed us, verbally abused our employees and threatened to destroy our company’s reputation online if we did not fulfill his demands. He claimed he would make all of his employees leave us negative reviews online. He was extremely rude and aggressive while we were trying to help him. We remained courteous and tried to find a solution with him for 2 months following his purchase. He claims that he was ignored but we simply did not respond to his written threats and blackmail attempts. We did, however, speak to him with respect and try to find a reasonable solution. The buyer was very difficult to deal with and made our employees feel personally targeted. He made ridiculous statements to us (he suggested blowing up the car and putting it on YouTube for the world to see, for example) and would change his demeanor at any given moment depending on his mood. He also left us a negative review on eBay Motors which was immediately removed after we proved our case to eBay's authorized arbitration firm; NetNeutrals who acknowledged that this customer was being completely unreasonable and was trying to take advantage of our company. 

On his Google review of our company, Mr. Friedman stated "I have never left negative feedback for anything in my life" upon clicking his profile (https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/...m3!8m2!3m1!1e1), one sees that Mr. Friedman is incorrect or lying. In fact, before writing his review of us, Mr. Friedman had ONLY 1-star reviews and negative reviews for other companies including one for a car dealership that he did not transact with (according to them).

Paul Motor Company has sold more than 2000 vehicles since we've had Google reviews. Only two are negative reviews from clients. We are a Top Rated seller on eBay with 100% Positive feedback. This distinction which is awarded to 5% of dealers on eBay motors according to our rep. Brian Springer, is achieved through hard work and transparent transactions. That does not mean problems did not arise in these 2000+ transactions, but when they did, we took responsibility and made it right - even when something was not our responsibility such as transportation damage. The difference with Mr. Friedman is that he asked for several times more than the cost of a good paint repair and threatened to bash our name all the over the Internet if we did not comply. This is part of why NetNeutrals ruled in our favor after conducting an independent investigation. On what would be considered minor flaws in he paint, Mr. Friedman, an Insurance Adjuster by trade, presented us with a quote for $20,000 but said he would accept $10,000. In the end, he lowered it to $5,000. Seeing as minor repairs would normally cost us $ 1,200 at a good bodyshop, we offered to pay 3,500 to keep him satisfied. He declined the $ 3,500 - He wanted no less than $5,000. Still trying to figure out a way to solve this in a fair way, I offered to pay to have the vehicle transported from NY to a good body shop in Ottawa who knew the car and we would pay for the work. But his demands grew increasingly to the point of being unreasonable such as "pay for my taxes on the car before I release it to go to the body shop & pay for my flight and hotel so that I can inspect the paint myself" 

Throughout the process of trying to assist Mr. Friedman, he was leaving negative reviews online, making threats to our staff and twisting the truth during phone calls with me. It was very difficult for me to want to help him because he was hurting my company. But I kept an objective mindset and thought “He deserves a chance to explain his side. I have to try to ensure this ends on a positive note”. After spending more than 25 staff hours trying to satisfy Mr. Friedman, after threats delivered to our receptionist, insults to our staff, false accusations, twisting the truth and the frequent use of profanity, it became clear to me that Mr. Friedman was acting as an unreasonable person.

Like many small business owners, I’d rather have a good name than have a few extra thousand dollars in my bank account. I believe Mr. Friedman was trying to leverage how much we value our online reputation against us and saw an opportunity for extortion. In this very rare case, we decided not to succumb to his threats and it resulted in undeserved negative feedback.

BTW, this is an exceptionally clean vehicle as the inspections shows - See pictures of our eBay listing here: BMW: M3 Euro-Spec (#24 of 45) | eBay This M3 was on consignment and the owner accepted Mr. Freedman’s offer of $10,000 under asking price - He purchased it at a very good price. Yes it had some cosmetic paintwork. If no previous paintwork was an essential criteria for Mr. Friedman, he should have mentioned it before buying the vehicle. We did not misrepresent this vehicle or lie to the buyer. In fact, we paid $400 for him to perform an inspection at his local shop to look under the car and make sure this vehicle was not involved in an accident. They confirmed that it was not in an accident and the customer does not deny this fact. I would advise any buyer to discuss issues that they feel are potential “deal-breakers” before purchasing a vehicle. 

After going the extra mile in good faith with respect to finding a fair solution, it became clear that it was impossible to satisfy Mr. Friedman, I wrote an email to Mr. Friedman explaining that we would be putting an end to all communication with him. When does it become OK to give-in to very unreasonable demands and threats? 


Jeremy Paul,
514-885-8187 info@paulmotorcompany.com