Complaint Review: John McDonald - Willoughby Ohio

The above claims made by Judd Baker are untrue. They are twisted and contorted in order to cover up crimes commited by him during the purchase of a vehicle from my company. The events as they actually occured are much different from what is reported above. 

Judd Baker agreed to purchase a 1980 Fiat convertible vehicle from my company for $4800 by way of an eBay purchase. His intention the entire time was to commit credit card fraud and leverage ownership of the car for free. It didn't work. 

His first contact with me after the eBay listing ended was a request to meet me in a neutral location, and to have the title already transferred to his name with the sales tax paid before meeting me. This is illegal and impossible without the appropriate paperwork being signed at my business location. This was my first indication that this "buyer" was up to no good.

Upon picking up the car IN PERSON, he inspected the car, checked it over to his satisfaction and declared that it was "probably one of the nicest ones he had ever seen". Which was true. While it is a 35 year old foreign car, it is in great shape for the age and type of vehicle. 

We signed the paperwork, and he paid for the car using a credit card through PayPal. This wasn't my choice of payment, but he indicated he had no other way to pay for the car. This was also a red flag that I should have noticed, as he intended to reverse the payment.

He signed all the the legal Ohio and Federal paperwork accepting the vehicle in its current condition and agreeing that he was purchasing the car AS-IS with no warranty, as required by law.

Judd drove the car home 4.5 hours I didn't hear anything for a few days. Several days later he contacted me telling me that there were some small issues with the car. Although the car was sold AS-IS, I told him I was willing to work with him and help him pay to get this issues resolved to our mutual satisfaction.

His response to my offer to help cover the cost of the issues was immediately file a chargeback to his credit card. He didn't actually want help with the "issues" he claimed to have found, he wanted to cheat the system. He claimed that the credit chard charge which paid for the car was "unauthorized" as in, never made by him.  This was of course a lie, since he not only agreed to the charge and the purchase, but signed all the paperwork confirming this purchase. 

He then had a vehicle in his possession which was not paid, for which the credit card payment was fraudlently reversed. I had no car and no money, and he had both. 

I informed him of this, and his response was "you pay to come get it or else you'll have to pay me what I want to fix everything". At this point he had committed Theft by Deception and Grand Theft Auto.  I was forced to report him to our local police department who dispached an officer and filed a report. This report was forwarded to our City Prosecutor who agreed that Judd Baker's behavior amounted to criminal action and auto theft and they prepared criminal charges. Judd Baker's local police department was also contacted and made aware that the vehicle was stolen. They agreed to impoud the car if I asked.

I agreed to hold off pressing criminal charges if Judd would bring the car back. After several days of agreeing and then disagreeing to do this, I told the police to take action. They called him and indicated what would happen to him if he didn't return the stolen vehicle immediately. Having issues with an AS-IS vehicle purchase does not give you the right to reverse payment and keep the car.  

Judd did finally drive the car back the 4.5 hours and dropped it at our local police station, and I therefore agreed to drop the criminal charges against him.

This was not the end of things however, as Judd initially agreed to mediate this situation by modifying his negative feedback comment on eBay and thereby getting his $500 nonrefundable deposit back, but he changed his mind and refused to do so.

It should be mentioned that throughout this entire process, ALL of the authority figures involved sided with ME and my version of events. The local police fought for me, the Prosecutor took my side of things, Judd's local police agreed to impound the stolen car, eBay removed his negative feedback and struck his account for misuse, PayPal sided with me with the nonrefundable deposit and the credit card company agreed to hold his payment until the police matter was resolved. Judd's attempt to slander me and cheat me out of money and leave negative comments have all been reversed by the various institutions. I followed all of the laws and procedures properly and I'm backed by by the approval of all authority and governing bodies. 

Judd Baker is a criminal con-artist who committed credit card fraud in an effort to scam an automobile purchase. When it didn't work he tried to blame it on me and claim he didn't like the car anyway. Shame on this man for his behavior.