Woodbridge Public Auto Auction BillyDouglasManuelTheo Posion to the community woodbridge Virginia

Subj: Poison in the Woodbridge Community

To whom this may concern,

             I am a young mother and nursing school student. I have 2 small boys ages 1 and 4. I lost my job last year and since then have gone back to school to train to be a nurse. I am striving to make a better life for myself  and my family. My old car got to the point where it was no longer reliable. All I had was 5,000 dollars in my emergency fund/savings account, and I used it all to purchase a car from Woodbridge Public Auto Auction (WPAA) on 4 Oct 2014. I bought this car in hopes that it would get me through the next 4 months so I could finish school. Once I was working again I planned to purchase something better. I did as much research as I could. I brought my kids with me and test drove the vehicle multiple times. I looked up the car facts report, and worried the sales man Douglas half to death with my questions. I expressed how important it was to me as a mother to have a safe and reliable vehicle. All the major concerns I had with the vehicle seemed to check out, no service lights were present. On 12 Oct 2014 on my way to church the check engine light came on. From that point up until today I have been in a battle with WPAA. My husband and I visited WPAA multiple times trying to resolve the issue with them. They patronized and pacified us, wasted our time, blew us off, tried to intimidate and bully us with their harsh language, and stated that there is nothing we could do to them, because they’ve been doing business like this for years. Billy and Manuel are the guys who my husband and I dealt with. Billy stated that the people at the DMV of Woodbridge are incompetent for informing me that I can’t register my vehicle without a clean emissions test for VA.  He also stated that I didn’t need to preach to him about doing the right thing, he has bills to pay.  He also stated that he is not at liberty to share anything about the vehicles, he just needs to sell them. I subscribe to a pre-paid legal service, and had a lawyer draft a letter in order to settle this issue with them, since I wasn’t getting anywhere and I was running out of time on my temporary plates. They ignored me.

The issues with this sale are as follows:

1. WPAA had their mechanics manually disabled the check engine light codes in order to sell the vehicle. We have proof of this through the emissions report we obtained from the State of Maryland, which clearly displayed the same check engine codes that our mechanic found. My husband did an experiment where he cleared the codes himself, and after driving the vehicle around, after about 100 miles the codes returned.

    

2. They failed to inform me that I would be able to properly secure the vehicle. The  key doesn’t lock the car, so I have to pray that no one steals my car every time I have to leave it. I have to lock it from the inside and get out on the passenger’s side. I always look like I am breaking into my own car, because the key doesn’t unlock the car either. When I bought the car Douglas never let me lock/ or unlock it.

    

3. We are currently unable to register the car in Virginia, due to the fact that we would have to pay over 3,000+ dollars to fix the issues behind the check engine light, in order to pass the emissions test. My tags from my old car and the 2^nd set of temporary tags they gave me will expire 12/31/2014. We’ve been going back and forth with this company since Oct. 12^th 2014. Initially, I couldn’t register the car because their department had issues with getting me the registration information, which took a month, and the DMV was suspecting that the car had been stolen, so that wasted time as well. Then I was going back and forth with them begging them to provide some assistance with the check engine light because we couldn’t afford to get it repaired and we couldn’t register the vehicle. I was also worried about my tags expiring and not being able to use my vehicle for school and my families daily needs. We suspected foul play and misrepresentation of the vehicle, but they angrily denied our claims, and furthermore at that time we couldn’t prove it.

    

4.  By 12/31/2014 I will be without a vehicle, and all my tags will be expired. My car is unable to pass emissions testing for the State of Virginia, even though it passed in Maryland. It has to do with the type of codes, because they are related to emissions. It has put my family and I in a really bad situation. I am trying to finish out nursing school and my schedule is the total opposite of my husbands which makes it impossible to share a vehicle. When we saw that we weren’t getting anywhere with WPAA, we decided to seek legal counsel. Our lawyer wrote a letter in order to help settle this matter, however it has been ignored. We can’t seem to take them to small claims court because they are a corporation. We can’t afford legal representation of a greater capacity to fight this, even with our proof which would stand up in court.  The lawyer told us more than likely this has happened before, where they can get away with ignoring our letter because they know most people can’t afford to take them to a higher court system to sue them. Apparently this is how they play it every time so people like us are rendered helpless.

This story has a lot more layers, but I did my best to shorten it and give the important facts and details. I am not sure what will result of this, but at the end of the day I truly just want the money to fix the vehicle, or for them to accept the vehicle back and refund us our money. I want justice for myself and my family. It’s the holidays, I have two small children and I couldn’t even get them any gifts this year.  I need a vehicle to get to school and to transport them. My husband needs his vehicle to get to work to support our family. I don’t understand what would make a company so heartless. 5,000 dollars is a lot of money to just throw away for our family, to be stuck with a vehicle I can’t drive. That is why I have to fight this.  I am praying for a miracle because our family truly doesn’t have an additional 3,000 dollars to fix this vehicle right now.  I don’t know what to do, but I am hoping that by reaching out that maybe we can get some type of support in this matter and if nothing else maybe it could be a cautionary tale to other young people, so that they don’t get robbed of their money.

Woodbridge Public Auto Auction is the most heartless company I’ve ever done business with in my life. These men looked me straight in the eye, while I had my small children in my arms and took advantage of me. You have to truly be heartless, greedy, lacking all moral fiber, to put a mother and her 2 children in a horrible situation like this. It is the middle of winter and in 2 weeks I may not have a vehicle. I have 2 more months of nursing school left and I don’t know what I am going to do, I’ve worked so hard all year, for it to end because I don’t have transportation. This situation is just very overwhelming. However I am a true believer of what comes around goes around.

                          Thank you so very much for taking the time to read my letter. I hope that there is a solution for my dilemma and I hope I can warn people that this place in not a good business. They have an F rating with the business bureau. Please do not go to WPAA. They are horrible…