Marty
Easthampton,#2REBUTTAL Individual responds
Sun, March 05, 2017
So I would like to address an unwarranted personal attack that has just come to my attention. This was a very successful New Car Dealership until its later years when certain events caused substantial inner turmoil. Details of the lawsuit are available via google. Putting on a happy face for work became ever more difficult. For the record, the clients have my upmost sympathy for what they had to endure while I was away. What happened was a direct result of the company president, Charles M Fedor (Charlie) simply not wanting to sell a car that we had in stock for approximately 10 months for a price that equated to what was invioce cost less 1/2 of the holdback money, a practice we had done in the past for other clients.
This car... a beautiful fully loaded, lemon yellow sub compact car with a very high priced window sticker was something we had had for a while... about 10 months to be exact!! Being unable to sell any car for that length of time hurts the bottom line, so when a client shows interest it is a managers job to make the price appropriate so the car sells. We had paid floor plan interest expense on this car for too long and it was costing us money. I think it was already a "left-over" model or real close to being a leftover with the next years models already coming in. A "left-over" is a brand new one year old car that is very hard to sell because they are generally priced close to the previous year. It was my responsibility to make sure it didn't have a one-year birthday. I would NEVER do anything to upset a client, there by creating the possibility that they could walk. Never!!
Because the company president was, shall we say, difficult to talk to, if myself or others wanted to make a car sale happen, we would AVOID him and work directly with his son, Edward C. Fedor, or my father if he was available. The dealership was a partnership, between my father and uncle. When I got the initial call, and the discussion of how we could meet the price came up, Edward and I both agreed that we would have to cut into holdback to meet their price expectation. We both agreed that on this deal we would not make a lot of money, but we would make some, and we would move a car that had been on the lot for almost a year!! Often times we would sell "aged inventory" to other dealers for invoice less all holdback monies, effectively making less money than we were getting from this client!! This was a no-brainer. Price was agreed and I faxed client a signed copy of the purchase agreement. Client gave credit card deposit and deal was a binding agreement, authorized signature by myself, as "authorized dealer signature", exactally as I had done in the past for many hundreds of vehicle sales. That was my job. Make the price and sell cars. I was also authorized because of my years of experience to determine what the value would be on "trade-ins". In my position I determined these values for my deals and the deals of our salespeople as well. I was very knowledgeable or I wouldnt have been given that authority.
Re Discussion of Sales Tax: It was commonplace to give a "form letter" to a client for "Out of State Delivery". That letter would avoid having us collect the sales tax for vehicles sold to "out of state" clients. Those clients, in 98% of the cases also registered the cars themselves, so collecting tax, title and plate fee was unnecessary and that included in this case. The "office" was well aware that the client was from out of state, and was going to take care of their own registration. Back in the day the paperwork was prepared by our office staff, not the business manager or F/I person. There is no good reason why the clients were not provided that form. I dont understand why the exception.
Clients should NOT have (and to my knowledge have never) had to pump their own gas. I'm not sure why it happened in this case. My cousin, Edward C Fedor met with the clients to present the office prepared delivery paperwork on the day of delivery. Im not sure why the numbers at that point were different. All rebates were still valid, and I made sure the day before that both Edward and I were on the same page. I agree... It wasn't right that the agreed price suddenly changed, from what I had signature authorized and faxed to the client the day before. There was no good reason. There was nothing wrong with my numbers ( the clients and my numbers)!! I took every precautionary step to make sure things would go smoothly for the clients in as much as they would be traveling so far for their dream car.
What went on behind the scenes regarding an attempt to change the final price made me very upset. When I arrived back at work, Edward Charles told me that his father refused to let the car go for the agreed price. I do wish to sincerely apologize to this client for what they had to put up with while I was gone, but I hope they understand that when we ended our telephone conversation that night that both the client and myself were on the same page. FACT: Everything was organized and everything I told them was correct!!!! I have and have enjoyed a stellar reputation with many repeat clients over the years and continue to enjoy this well deserved respect to this day. These clients should agree that I treated them with absolute professionalism and respect. I hope what I wrote helps them make sense of what happened and also importantly that what happened here is not an accurate reflection of me.