Print the value of index0
Veterans Cars & Trucks Auto Sales LLC Tammy Ruiz and Carlos Flores ~DECEPTIVE BUSINESS PRACTICES ALERT~ Metairie Louisiana
This is regarding a business in Metairie, La. called Veterans Cars & Trucks Auto Sales LLC owned by Tammy Ruiz and Carlos Flores. These two individuals used very deceptive and shady used car dealer practices when dealing in business with me concerning a vehicle I was interested in. They pretty much scammed me out of money that was deposited for holding a vehicle for further inspection, prior to negotiating any sale.
They posted an ad on Craigslist.com in the 'for sale by owner' section for cars. It was an ad for a 2003 Nissan Altima S 2.5 for $2950 posted on July 5, 2014. I called the number on the ad on July 6,2014 which was on a Sunday. A man answered the phone and said that I could view the vehicle later on that day around 6pm. I met with the sellers of the vehicle around that time in Gretna, La. It was then that I found out that they were actually used car dealers and not private sellers.
I am a young female customer. When I tried to look over the vehicle, the sellers were very overpowering and they would not let me look over the vehicle thoroughly by myself. They kept telling me that everything was 'perfect' and 'fine' and 'everything worked perfectly' and that 'they were christians'. They allowed me to test drive the vehicle in the parking lot of the location where we were, only. I commented that the mileage of the vehicle was a little high (over 229,000 miles) to which the female seller commented "so what? it's a 2003." I was still interested in the prospect of purchasing the car because it looked like it was in impeccable condition, had new tires, the engine seemed to run good, the oil did not look burnt, etc, but I stipulated that I needed a male family member to help me look over the vehicle to make sure that it didn't have apparent mechanical defects. I also intended to bring this vehicle to a Nissan dealership in order to pay an amount of $150 for them to look over the vehicle also, to make sure that it would have no mechanical issues, but I only wanted to go through with that after a family member was able to look at the car. The sellers told me that many people responded to the ad that they posted on craigslist and were interested in seeing the car. They suggested that if I was very interested I should leave a $500 deposit with them to hold the vehicle for me, and prevent other potential buyers from buying it before I had the opportunity. I agreed to leave a $400 deposit. The sellers gave me a bill of sale which was only supposed to serve as a receipt of the $400 I gave him to hold the vehicle. It was not a complete bill of sale or proof of any agreement to purchase because I had not finished being able to look at the car. It was not notarized as is required in the State of Louisiana in order for a bill of sale to be considered legally binding. It did not have the sellers information on it. It had no tax information on it. We never negotiated the price of the vehicle. Some of the information on the bill of sale was written incorrectly. The vin number that the sellers wrote on the bill of sale was written wrong, which I found out the next morning when I tried to research the vin number. They did not put any odometer information on the bill of sale.
The agreement was that I was supposed to meet again with the sellers on Mon or Tues. When I left from the sellers I called my father and when he heard how the much the mileage was on the car, he started freaking out. He insisted that he wanted to be the one to view the car to make sure that it was ok. He said he was only available on Monday due to his work schedule. THE NEXT DAY, I called the sellers around 11 am to let them know that I needed to view the vehicle with my dad later that evening. I received no call back. I called again at 1pm. I received no call back from the first number I dialed. I dialed a second number and I talked to Carlos Flores who said he would call me back because he was busy. He never called back, so I called again at 3:20 to let them know my dad was on his way to look at the car as soon as I get off from work, which would be at 4pm. Tammy Ruiz returned my call at 3:21 and said that they were in the hospital getting outpatient surgery that was taking too long. She said call back around 6:30pm. My dad arrived at 4:00. I called the sellers around 4:15 to see if it might be possible to see the vehicle. They didn't answer. I called again at 6:45pm, no answer. At this point, I had previously spoken to my dad and he agreed that he could travel back to new orleans from the northshore in order to view the vehicle in the morning before he needed to go to work. I relayed this to the sellers in a voicemail message. I called again at 8pm, they never answer.
The next morning I called around 7:30am. No answer. I left a message saying that if my Dad was unable to view the car that morning, I would be unwilling to proceed and would need my $400 deposit back. I called again at 9:00am, this time, the female seller answered the phone and said she couldn't bring the vehicle because they were traveling. I said that I thought it would be best to go ahead and cancel the deal because my dad would be unable to view the car that week due to his work schedule. I asked if I could pick up my $400 deposit and she could put the vehicle back on the market and she agreed to do so. She said to call her back at a later time. I called back after my workday and received no answer. I kept calling back and received no answer. I called all throughout the rest of the week and received no answer. I finally talked to Carlos Flores and he was very argumentative saying I caused him to lose 10 customers, which doesn't make sense because I only had the car on hold for less than 48 hours and one of those days he was unreachable. He agreed to refund at least a partial amount of my money. He did not follow through on that agreement.
PLEASE BE AWARE! These people take your money and then they don't answer the phone. They do not follow used car dealer regulations. They do not provide a used car dealers guide. They try to act like you are going to buy a car without checking the engine to make sure it won't have problems. They LIE. These people agreed to refund my money on two occassions and did NOT follow through which is why I'm filing this rip off report. I don't owe them any money just to have the 'privilege to LOOK at their car'. They pretty much scammed me. Please be careful on craigslist if you are in the greater new orleans area searching for a vehicle. I believe they do business in Laplace, La. as well. They don't tell you their name. I found out their names from looking up the business name on the bill of sale on the louisiana used car commission's website. They post cars using the phone numbers 504 657 3855, 504 304 9533, and 504 235 5765.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
anonymous
Louisiana,UPDATE~RECEIVED REFUND!!!
#2Author of original report
Thu, August 21, 2014
After reaching out to the proper governing agencies, I was finally able to get in touch with Veterans Cars and Trucks and they agreed to refund my deposit in full. They have been very cooperative since.