Revocation of Acceptance - Part 6

The pre-trial conference was a waste of time. Doornbos didn’t even care enough to show up; he called in from his office. If I knew that was allowed I would have done it as well. We were told to expect a court date in 4-6 months. Other than that, there’s no new info.

Revocation of Acceptance - Part 5

Today is the big day. I have a pre-trial conference with the lawyer for UACC about the Auto King debacle. The lawyer for UACC is Douglas E Doornbos of Doornbos & Hoeksema. It’s being held at the 63-2 District courthouse and the judge is Sara J. Smolenski.

Tomorrow I’ll give a full report about how things went.

Blackout

Yikes, talk about procrastinating; we moved into our apartment in April and I finally blacked out our bedroom window. Like most things one delays doing for no reason, I wished I would have done it a long time ago. I sleep so much better in a pitch black room. I even turned my clock around to eliminate that LED glow.

Surprised by Christmas!?

Christmas has been December 25th for a few years now, so I really don't see why people are surprised by it every year. Normally it's simply comedy for me because I get to watch as people scramble around at the last minute in a desperate attempt to find gifts at the last minute. This year is different because my wife is one of those people who get surprised by a date that never moves. My present making has been finished for a few weeks and the buying portion was done well before that.

Friday Afternoon Meetings

What kind of boss calls Friday morning to schedule a one-on-one meeting with you at 3pm on a Friday? He didn't even bother to tell me what he wants to meet about. So now, I get to spend all day wondering if I'm going to get fired this afternoon. All of my energy for the day was eliminated in the span of less than a minute. Except for items which must be done today, I won't be getting any actual work done.

I have no idea what I'll do if my fears are true. My wife lost her job a few weeks ago and she has yet to get another one. Our savings is down to basically nothing because of her job loss, so we basically have nothing to fall back on. With the local economy the way it is, I highly doubt that I'll be able to match the wage I'm receiving now. A realistic estimate would be about 3/4 of what I make now.

Congratulations boss man! You've succeeded in ensuring that I won't do anything today except brooding, browsing want ads, and updating my resume.

Guilty Pleasure - The Lottery

The lottery is numbers, chance, big money, and gambling all rolled into one. It's also my guilty pleasure. I'm not bad at math, I know full well that the 175,711,536 to 1 odds of me winning the jackpot are just about the worst odds in the world. But I look at the money spent as an entertainment tax.

It's the fee that allows me to stand in the shower in the morning and daydream about a future where I don't have to get up and go to work in the morning. A future where my daughter's college education is already fully paid. The key is to realize that this reality can come about; but it probably won't happen via the lottery.

Playing with the numbers is an added benefit. Mapping out the numbers and seeing which ones hit on what dates is a strange kind of fun for me.

Revocation of Acceptance - Part 4

It's been a couple weeks since I revoked acceptance on the Impala and as of last night the dealer still hadn't arranged a time or place where he could take the vehicle in exchange for refunding me my downpayment plus the repairs that I ended up paying for even after he said that he would do so. When my wife finally got home from taking care of her Grandmother (she just had knee surgery), we drove to Auto King of Grand Rapids and I dropped the car off at his lot along with a note to contact me to get the keys. It also mentioned that I was expecting to receive my money within 10 days.

Early this morning I also faxed the note to the dealership as well as sent it to Chris Buben in an email. I then wrote a letter explaining this step and faxed it to the finance company. I informed them to contact me via email with any questions.

Revocation of Acceptance - Part 1
Revocation of Acceptance - Part 2
Revocation of Acceptance - Part 3

Revocation of Acceptance - Part 3

After calling, mailing, and faxing, I finally got a response from Chris Buben of Auto King of Grand Rapids. His response came in the form of an email from cbuben@sbcglobal.net. He basically said, "nuh-uh, you can't do that." He must have completely ignored the letter itself as well as the supporting documentation.

Let's go over some of the funnier parts of the email (his portion in green):

We need to get the car to our mechanics and go from there.

Would this be the same mechanics whose shop at your dealership didn't even have a common car fuse?

You can't simply decide you don't want the car any more because it has a couple mechanical issues.

Actually, if you had bothered to read the letters and fax I sent then you would be aware that the consumer is allowed to do just that if the defects substantially impair the value and also fulfill one of the following conditions:

• Defects were supposed to be fixed and have not been.
• The buyer's initial acceptance was caused by difficulty of discovery.
• The buyer's initial acceptance was influenced by the seller's assurances.
• The product sold is not fit for ordinary purposes (e.g. a car should start and run).
• The seller used "unfair, unconscionable, or deceptive methods, acts, or practices"(as set forth in the Michigan Consumer Protection Act).

I can meet all five instead of just one, so this will be a slam dunk if it goes to court.

I wonder if he thinks I'm not serious. The longer this goes on, the more it seems like he's just hoping I'll give up. Well I've got news for him, I'm not a big fan of being screwed over and I'll gladly spend a day in court to get things right. He's just making things harder on himself because he'll end up having to pay the fees and costs is this goes to trial. On top of that he'd probably drag his feet on paying the judgment and I'd end up having to go through a seizure of property.

Part 1
Part 2

Revocation of Acceptance - Part 2

The mug pictured sure isn't me, it's Chris Buben from Auto King of Grand Rapids. He's the seller that I briefly mention in part one of this little story. I was hoping that there wasn't going to be a part two, I naively believed that Mr. Buben would act like the upstanding businessman that he claims to be; but I should have known better.

I've always shied away from used car dealers and bought from private owners due to the less than stellar reputation that used car dealers have as a whole. However, since the wife was against going to a private party, we compromised and went to a smaller local dealer because we (it turns out wrongly) believed that they would be more honest than your average corporate-type dealer.

I called Auto King with my revocation of acceptance on Tuesday morning, as of Wednesday morning I still hadn't heard from them so I sent a letter as well. On Friday I called the finance company (UAC) and informed Steve of the situation. He stopped short of calling me; but just barely. He actually had the gall to lie to me and try to say that I had no recourse against them because all they were doing is financing the purchase. Of course that would require me to ignore the bold print statement at the bottom of the contract which states (as required by federal & state law):

NOTICE: ANY HOLDER OF THIS CONSUMER CREDIT CONTRACT IS SUBJECT TO ALL CLAIMS AND DEFENSES WHICH THE DEBTOR COULD ASSERT AGAINST THE SELLER OF GOODS OR SERVICES OBTAINED PURSUANT HERETO OR WITH THE PROCEEDS HEREOF. RECOVERY HEREUNDER BY THE DEBTOR SHALL NOT EXCEED AMOUNTS PAID BY THE DEBTOR HEREUNDER.

After calling him out on it he fell back to the "well, neither of us are lawyers" defense and I ended up just faxing the letter and all supporting documentation to his office at 616-949-9690.

As of this morning I still haven't heard back from Chris Buben with a time and place where we can exchange the vehicle for the downpayment plus the repair costs he was supposed to cover. So after a bit of digging I found their fax number ( 616-261-3361 ) and faxed a copy of the letter that I mailed to him last week. I also re-faxed it to UAC since I still haven't heard from them either.

Part 1
Part 3

Revocation of Acceptance

This morning I called Auto King of Grand Rapids and informed them that I was revoking acceptance of the vehicle. The car in question is a 2005 Impala that is probably flood/water damaged. I let them know that they could call me to arrange pickup of the car as well as refunding my down payment.

Problems so far:

• The radio was locked (while it was on the lot) he agreed to fix it; but I ended up having to take it to a Chevy dealer. It turned out that the radio wasn’t originally from that car (even though the dealer claimed that it was).
• The wipers didn’t work. I called him about this the next day and he said to bring it in. I poked around a bit myself and discovered that the fuse had been pulled. After putting the fuse back in and turning the car on, the wipers went vertical and stayed that way. They wipe now; but their rest position is vertical.

Before I took it to him, I pulled the fuse and pushed the wipers down (just as they apparently did). He acted dumb when I got there; but his first suggestion was the fuse. He then suggested that I get a fuse from the dealer the next day (that was when I had the appointment for the radio at the Chevy dealer). I asked him if he had a fuse and he said no. They have a garage on-site. It seems kind of strange that there weren’t any fuses in their garage and that he knew this without having to check.

• The rear defroster doesn’t work.
• I was attaching my daughter’s car seat when I noticed that if one looked where the upper and lower parts of the back seat join, you can see a lot of rust behind them. It takes something pretty severe to rust the interior of a car that badly.
• A lot of the instrument lights either don’t work or work intermittently.
• The listing says that the car has power seats; but only the driver’s seat is powered.
• Sometimes the car won’t start. It’s happened to me a few times now, it will turn over; but for some reason the car won’t start.
• It stalls too. It happened to my wife the other day with a witness in the car. It hasn’t happened to me yet; but at least now I won’t be too surprised.

I’m waiting until noon or until Auto King calls me back before I inform the finance company. From what I’ve read, they’re bound by the same regulations as the dealer since the dealer arranged the financing.

Folowup:
Part 2
Part 3