Complaint Review: CarHop - Richfield MN Location - Richfield Minnesota

My name is Richard and I am hopeful that the news team can look further into a situation that has arisen that I am sure affects many vulnerable people here in the Twin Cities and other states involved in the CarHop business.

My son Andrew who is 21 years old, went to the CarHop business this past Saturday, April 10, 2010 seeking to look into buying a vehicle.  A little bit of prior information to assist you in understanding our situation is Andrew suffered front temporal lobe brain impairment due to his receiving the DPT vaccination during his early baby years.  This has greatly impaired his ability to comprehend, and totally understand anything, including consequences, he undertakes.  We have medical documentation supporting Andrews disability and he actually was awarded substantial compensation through the National Vaccination Act of the Federal Government back in 1991, when Andrew was 4 years old.

Our situation is this: Though Andrew freely went to CarHop seeking to buy a vehicle; he did not understand what the CarHop business truly involved.  To make matters more complicated, he went there with his girlfriend, who is not of sound mind and judgment abilities, accompanied by her father, whom we thought had sound judgment.

Andrew became caught in a web.  CarHop seemingly preyed on the inability of Andrew to secure credit, only due to the fact Andrew has never had a secured loan before.  He does not have bad credit, per se; he is a young man who originally paid cash to purchase his first vehicle, instead of going through the process of paying monthly car payments to establish credit in the first place.

Upon Andrew bringing this to our attention a couple of days later, after signing a contract to purchase a vehicle through CarHop I learned the whole story. 

He purchased a 1998 Mitsubishi Montero Sport SUV, with approximately 140K miles.  Upon my looking up the Kelly Blue Book value on this vehicle, I discovered at A+ Excellent shape (which is less than 5% of the total vehicles) it to be worth approximately $4,216 for this Metro area.  Incidentally, CarHop is charging Andrew $11,090.68 tax included.  He was offered financing through their own business called UAC (Universal Auto Corp) or some similar name at 20.90% interest in the amount of an additional $3,217.32.  This would bring the total cost to purchase the vehicle $14,308 for a vehicle that in all honesty is worth considerably less than $4,000.

I understand that Andrew entered into a contract with CarHop.  Unfortunately, Andrew does not understand the total impact of this agreement.  They have arranged to have $96 automatically taken from his bank account each week beginning April 16, 2010 and so on for the next 139 weeks.

I find this disturbing when we contacted CarHop on Monday, April 12, 2010 and explained the situation to the people at CarHop and telling them we would return the vehicle back to them and to have Andrew get back $900 which was his necessary down payment.  The sales person there (Ben) said that he would not do anything to rescind this contract under the circumstances, and noted that Andrew attended CarHop with two additional adults, though they also felt the financial arrangement was a fair deal which is appalling to me, as Andrews father.

We are planning to contact the Minnesota Attorney Generals office to file an official claim complaint this morning and follow whatever guidelines they require to work to rescind this contract, due to Andrew Mathisen being a vulnerable adult.

I am asking that you consider looking into this situation and assist others who may get caught up in this web of deceit and deception, for those people like Andrew, who do not fully understand the implications of the total arrangements made by CarHop.

I have no issue with paying a fair market price on a vehicle for Andrew.  I do not believe that Andrew should pay nearly 4 times the vehicle cost especially a vehicle of now over 12 years old.