Honda of Jeffferson City Honda of Jeffferson City Jefferson Cityautoplex Fraud Jefferson City Missouri The dealer misrepresented facts/features and TRIM level of the car and sold us one trim level below than offered, when contacted he refused to give us refund or price adjustments Jefferson City Missouri

hi,

Thanks Robert for this passionate defense and trying to educate me. 

i am not the one who bought this car. i would not have becasue for sure i can differentiate fraud dealers vs good ones. 

but i am sure of one thing..."ignorance is not a crime/mistake but lying and cheating a customer is".

I only feel for the buyer here....he bought a car from from a dealer who seems not honest. What they put in their ad and what they sell seems completely different.

if it happens everywehre, then every buyer has to hire a private investigation agency before buying anything. I dont think it happens in my utopian land for sure.

my sympathies for the buyer....

Hello Robert

Thank you for representing the dealer of Honda of Jefferson. I am representing here my report based on hard evidences i have against the dealer. I have no way to include those here. In any case, looks like i have to go to hire authorities and probably hiring my private attorney is only option.... 

In my opinion, every business run on fair practice and good customer service... Every business and organization is bound to follow certain general rules and law. LAW is a LAW and they cann't do fraud for their benefits....I have expressed my concerns here and got very rude response from dealer! I will do all what i can do to fight my case and will take this to every level i can and ofcourse i do have evidences for what i claim for!

Thank you for your concerns and helping me!

I am sorry to say but your Utopian idea of a car dealer is one that does not exist, and for all practical purposes never existed.

Are there dealers that are totally "honest"?  Yes, but even their "honesty" has limits.  For example with Used Cars while they may "check out" a car, they aren't going to go out of their way to find and fix issues.  Why Because that affects their bottom line.  Why do you think used cars are usually sold "As-Is".  Not "As-Is...well unless something goes wrong"?  If a dealer wants to cover something they will SELL you a warranty for an extra cost.  Oh and the ones that say they will cover items..already have built the cost into the price of the car.

You keep going back to the ad and how you are not an "expert".

Companies are not held "accountable" for mistakes in ads, after all people make mistakes.  This is why every ad you will ever see from any company has enough "fine print" that excludes them from being liable for just about everything from a misstatement to the next Zombie Apocalypse(well not quite but I think you get the idea).

Of course if you could prove they intentionally did this you may have a case for fraud, but nothing you have shown here rises to that level.  You lose further standing as when you actually called them out for the discrepancy, you continued with the sale after they made allowances.  To many people the "discount" you were offered would be enough for them to say that they tried to make it right, and you accepting this discount makes it very difficult for that to not be seen that way.  After the fact this becomes nothing more than a case of buyer's remorse.

As for being an "expert"..in what?  You are the only expert in what you like and what is important to you..no one else is.  In your case you looked at a car, saw what features were on the vehicle, looked for things that you felt were important to you and ones that weren't you really ignored.   You felt that the Backup Camera was important, it wasn't there so you settled for a $650 reduction in price.   You mentioned the power seats.  So during your test drive you didn't notice that the seats weren't power?  Actually you didn't notice it because it wasn't an important feature or something you really "missed" not having. 
 
You say you can't trust dealers anymore.  Well that is right...and that is wrong.  As I stated you really could never fully "trust" dealers.  Where you need to go back to the concept of "Trust but Verify".

You can go ahead and "Trust" that your dealer has all the intentions of being honest, but it is your responsibility to "Verify" that they are. In this case you verified they were wrong...yet you continued with the sale without verifying everything.

What this is all meant to be is to help you in the future that the next time you go to buy ANY car from ANY location you go in as an "Educated" consumer and not some rube who just fell off the turnip truck.  You can also take this in other major(or even every day purchases).  After all if you go looking for a TV that they say has a certain feature..if that feature is important to you..you better verify it before you buy.

Good Luck...

i am glad to see the response to the compaint here. 

i appreciate the detailed response but.......are we missing the real point here??

i wonder, can a seller put many lies in their ad. especially a professional dealership like the one (jefferson honda) in this case? are dealerships accountable for what they post in their ads?!

a buyer may not be an expert but has found some obvious lies like camera and roof rails which anybody with normal intelligence and common sense can find out, without expertise on cars and its mechanics. buyer did not catch all their lies in that moment does not  mean a dealership can lie and mirespresent facts and cheat their customers.

I am really surprised that seller can get away with any lies if they were not caught lying before selling it. 

i used to think buying in dealerships is safe becasue we can trust them with waht they say about the car. here they are the experts and a buyer may not be one. i also used to think they are accountable if they misrepresent facts. but based on the earlier repsonse, if that is true, i will be afraid to buy a car ever from a dealer too.

As they stated you had every opportunity to test drive, review, and research that car, as well as walk out if you didn't like the deal. Now, I am not going to say they did or did not rip you off, as there is only one side to this story. However, even if they did initially attempt to mislead you, at some point YOU must take responsibility for your part in this as well.

In your own report you stated that you "caught" them in this "lie" BEFORE you bought the car...yet you continued with the sale. You claim they were rude...but you continued with the sale. Once you realized that it had no camera or roof rails you should have verified any other items as well. But you did not, instead you agreed a lower price. How it got to that offer doesn't matter, and them offering a lower price is not some admission they lied it could be seen as nothing more than part of the negotiation process.

So let's skip the preliminaries and go right to the main event...remedy. What are you looking for in all of this? For them to rewind the sale...isn't going to happen. To have some "huge" payday for loss of value. Again isn't going to happen..and here is why. During the negotiation/sales process when you "caught" them in this "lie" and were about to leave they offered you $650 which you accepted. Now, you of course are claiming that was only for the camera but it is unlikely you have anything in writing to that effect.

Looking at the KBB "fair market" value they provided for a 2013 used model. The difference between the trim levels is about $800-$900. If we take into account they already offered(and you accepted) a $650 reduction the remainder is only a couple hundred dollars. Where quite frankly you probably could have gotten that by just rejecting their first $650 offer.

One other item, you didn't actually say what you paid for the car but realize that the KBB price is only a guide. There is actually no regulation or law that says they have to sell it at that or ANY price. The fact is that you accepted the price they gave, and your "Well I thought it was a Base Plus" model at that point is meaningless because of your own admissions BEFORE the sale.

So you can be upset and you can be angry and you can direct your anger at who ever you want. You can say that you will get "justice" and bring them down.  But in the end it was you who even though you stated you caught them in this "lie", you continued with the sale....enjoy your new car.