Complaint Review: Dashub - Tampa Florida

I used Dashub to broker a deal on a car offered for auction on Copart (a salvage auction house).

I arranged with Leif Causey “sales specialist” moments before the auction started. I told him I wanted him to bid on the auction live but not to exceed $25,000.

I watched the auction live online 30 October 2017. The final winning bid was 22,200. Leif called an hour later and explained that the bid did not meet the reserve price but that they contacted the seller and he agreed to sell the car for 25,000. I was reluctant at that point as I was thinking 22,200 but I then agreed on the $25k price.

I was invoiced by Dashub for 25,000 for the car, 499 Dashub fee, 85 Dashub document fee, 808 Copart fee, 779 shipping, and 1500 in FL state tax. I had a 2500 deposit (paid by credit card) in with Dashub and I paid the balance with bank wire transactions. The grand total was 28,671.

10 days or so later the car arrives via shipper at my house. Fast forward several weeks and its mid Dec and I still had not received the title to this car. After much back and forth they send me the title that I needed to sign so they could then transfer it in my name. I made a copy of this title noting the name of the previous seller.

27 December I finally after almost two full months received the title in my name. It was also around this time I was informed to check the Copart invoice against the Dashub invoice by a friend. He said they commonly try to scam more money out of unsuspecting buyers by charging more than what the car sold for.

I called Copart and asked for the invoice and they wouldn't give it to me saying I wasn't listed as the buyer. I told the guy I suspected Dashub was overcharging me and asked if he could just tell me if the car sold for less than $25k. He said it did. So now I was onto something. I looked up the previous owner from the original title and they confirmed with me that they sold the car at the Copart auction for $24,000.

Armed with this information I called Dashub and demanded the Copart invoice and any overages refunded to me. I estimate that they likely overcharged me about $1500 but unless I saw the actual invoice I would not know for sure the exact amount. I spoke to Stan Johnson VP at Dashub and he told me to talk with Michael Lederman. Mike called me 9 Jan and only offered excuses. When I demanded the Copart invoice he said that's not how they do business but that he will look into it. We went back and forth for a month with Mike sending me 3 sets of "settlement aggrements" but I never signed any as I did not agree with their terms.

Now Dashub will argue that they are a car dealer and that they sold me the car for $25,000, but this is not the case. I contacted Dashub to broker the deal on this car. I brought this car to their attention. They never took that car into their inventory, no Dashub employee has ever even touched or seen this car. They may be a car dealer as that is the requirement to bid on most salvage auctions but they were paid a fee to broker this sale for me and collected that fee on top of an inflated price for the car, taxes and other made up fees.

This is equivalent to a real estate agent charging you more than the sales price for a house and pocketing the difference. Or a stock broker buying stock at a lower price than you were willing to pay and pocketing the difference. It is deceptive and they are doing this many times over. Please help me fight these thieves.