Dragone Classic Motorcars Rip Off Scam of Old Cars and your Money Bridgeport Connecticut
Scammed!
I am a 69 year old, retired Viet Nam Vet, living on Social Security.
I own a 1937 Buick which I bought about eight years ago, with the intention of driving this car for the rest of my life.
I brought this car to Dragone Classic Motorcars, Inc. in Bridgeport, four and a half years ago to have some minor mechanical work, and some custom bodywork done. They finished the mechanical work, slowly, to be sure, but completed it. When they started the body work, they partially disassembled the car, so it was not movable, then left it unfinished, never covered over fresh bodywork or welds with paint, so that the car is rusting, and continually promised me the car would be done "In just three or four weeks" if I just paid them a little more money.
Having recently moved to CT, I was not aware of the legal requirement for them to supply me with a written estimate, which I had to sign in agreement, before they could proceed. No written estimate was ever presented to me, and of course was not ever signed, authorizing the work.
They continuously charged more and more money, and failed to complete much of the work on the car, until I had paid them over $69,000.00 for work which is still, after four and a half years, NOT complete! AND they are demanding another $31,000.00 bef0re they will even START to complete the work they have already been paid for!
I believe that their intent, from the beginning, was to continuously increase the price until I could not afford to pay any more for the car, and then sell the car at auction for the amount they claimed I owed them, keeping my car, and my money, and charging me with the difference between what they auctioned my car off for, and what they CLAIMED was still due on the car.
I have since learned that they have a reputation for doing exactly this in the past, and have gotten away with it because they usually deal with people who are wealthy enough to pay their inflated bills, or else they take the car and auction it off, leaving the owner with a 'BILL' to pay for the remainder of their charges above and beyond what they get for the car at auction.
Jerry
New Haven, Connecticut
U.S.A.
3 Updates & Rebuttals
Alex Dragone
Connecticut,United States of America
correction
#4General Comment
Tue, November 24, 2009
sorry i am not the owner of Dragone Classic Cars, I am the owners son... I didnt mean to file that last rebuttal under "owner".
Alex Dragone
Connecticut,United States of America
Defense
#4REBUTTAL Owner of company
Mon, November 23, 2009
Ok... Firstly, you make it sound like the work you wanted done to your car is something that could be done in five minutes. You wanted to make your 37 Buick into a resto-custom, which takes a lot of fabrication work because your combining new parts from other cars, and old parts from yours. This is not a kit that just bolts together. As for the bill, we can't give written estimates on custom cars because when building a custom it is impossible to guess how much time something is going to take if your just fabricating it from scratch and changing it as we go along, as we were doing on your Buick. Furthermore, your 1937 Buick coupe is a twenty thousand dollar car. So therefore, even if we sold your car at auction it wouldnt even come close to the bill. We told you before when we started work on the car that it was an expensive job because of the amount of time it would take to do the work. We were doing the job you wanted, you are just a cheap guy that gave us a junk car to start out with. Find me a place were they could do the same job for less money. Also we have never taken someones car and sold it off at auction because they havnt paid their bill. Believe me we wouldn't want your 1937 Buick, we don't need your fifteen thousand dollar car when we have 5 million dollar cars in our shop. Don't badmouth my dads shop because you didnt pay your bill. Dragone Classic Motorcars has been in business for over 30 years. We are the oldest existing antique and classic car dealer in the U.S. We have had the greatest cars in the world, from the 1908 Vanderbuilt cup Locomobile "Old 16", which is now in the Ford Museum, to famous Ferrari's, to an all original 1932 for 3 window coupe with an ardun flathead and a quick chang rear end that was built in the 50's. And you have the nerve to badmouth us on the internet because you didnt want to pay your bill for a 1937 buick, which was a dead soldier to begin with. Good Luck finding someone to finish your car... why dont you go to the dollar menu at Mcdonalds and see if they'll do it, those prices seem realistic for what you want to pay.
Jerry
New Haven,Connecticut,
USA
Update
#4Author of original report
Wed, November 04, 2009
I would like to add that the report as I originally wrote it, may have been overstated, in some areas. I do NOT know that the intent was to defraud.