Gronemus

And to what end?

I purchased my LS430 back in a little over a year ago from one of those corner car lots in a town called Oshkosh, a little over an hour's drive for me. When I first arrived and started to question the owner of the business about the car's history, one of the things I asked him about was whether he knew if the timing belt had been changed or not. The answer to this wasn't going to be as important to me as it might be to others as I figured that if it needed to be changed, I would just simply do it myself. He told me that there was a receipt in the glove box that indicated that it had been performed. Cool. He gave me the keys and said that I could take the car for as long as I wanted. Didn't even ask me for my license.

During the time that I inspected the car after the test drive, I managed to dig around the glove box and found the receipt that the seller talked about. My first thought was that it didn't look too professional but I could see that the serpentine belt had been changed and that was one of the items on the list. I wasn't too concerned at the time so I put the document back. Ended up buying the car a few days later.

To make a long story short, a few weeks ago I drove over to the service center that supposedly performed the timing belt job on my car. I was not surprised to find out that they did not have any record at all of working on any LS430's during 2014, when this work was supposedly done. I asked to see what kind of paperwork that they normally hand to the customer whenever they get worked performed, and he showed me a form that one would expect to receive.

Here is a scan of the document that was in my glove box:



Here are some of the irregularities in this document (maybe you can find more):

• Price of items are not what you would expect. Labor rate is low, price of timing belt is way too high, etc.
• No tax listed on invoice.
• Date of service and miles listed would coincide with the service being performed by the first owner. Car was offered for sale November 2014. However, the first owner lived in Brookfield, not Oshkosh and that's not his name listed in the invoice.
• Note mentions the need for a front drivers side sensor replacement. Not used on this car and I would think that a good repair shop might know this.
• Looks like they smeared some oil on it to make it look like it was handled by someone with dirty hands. LOL.
• I opened up my copy of Microsoft word and went to the template section to start a new document. You might not be surprised to see some templates that look very similar to this document.

I can't imagine why anybody would go through the trouble of creating this??? I really don't think that the guy who sold me the car did this. He had nothing to gain by it and only his reputation to lose. I'm thinking that the second owner created the document shortly before he traded the car into dealership in order to try to make it appear that it was more valuable. I'm not sure if the guy listed in this document was the second owner or not. I suspect that it is. At this point it doesn't matter to me. However, what if some other person bought this car and took that document at face value and didn't know any better. With a little luck they might have been able to go to 180K miles without anything breaking...

Anyway, it turns out I was a little busy this weekend. I'll post my experience in the timing belt thread...

campisi

First thing I was going to say is that it looks like a microsoft Word template, lol! My wife does some freelance photography work and the Word templates are what we use to invoice people so it CAN be legit but that particular one doesn't really pass the sniff test for the reasons you state. An established actual shop probably needs something more than Word templates for their accounting needs. Taht particular 'deception' is into 'fraud' territory .... fraudulent invoice.

Johnhav430

imho car dealers will do anything, it's their livelihood, the difference between being able to pay bills or not. The trick I never would have thought of on my car, was to take the brand new 2005 spare out of the trunk, mount it on the car,, take a pic for cars.com, and put it back in the trunk. The implication was that the car has 4 new Dunlop SP5000's. I know some may say that's the oldest trick in the book, but I honestly never would have thought of it.

waijai

iTrader: (9)

The LS430 doesn't use tire sensors. Low tire pressure is detected by rotation speed.

FILTHEE

I would think that the dealer would have more to gain from the "invoice" than the seller. I highly doubt there's a dealer that will actually give more on a trade in because of service records. But there are certainly some dealers that will try to add a premium because there are records, or at the very least know that a car with records is an easier sell.

warminwisc

91st burleigh is kind of the getto. Where did ya buy the car from in Oshkosh? If there a name of the previouse owner call em. i live in Appleton work in Oshkosh and Fondy PM me.

Jabberwock

Sad. People who do this kind of thing are egregious donkey holes.

takimanpgt

Could be one of two things.

a) Second owner deliberately misled the trade in.

b) Someone left the invoice from the wrong car in this glovebox to make it seem like this car got the service work done.

LS430FL

Wow this is unfortunate. Reminds me of a time a few years ago I was selling a car and the buyer after several requests finally sent me a wiring receipt from Chase bank and told me to release the car. Something didn't seem right to me and turns out the receipt was a fake and made on his computer. Invoice number was made up and everything. I was glad I called to double check. It was pretty well done as well. While your situation isn't as serious as a fake $30K wiring receipt from a bank, it just makes you really wonder about people and their business practices.

As far as deception or fraud, the issue I see here is that the fact of him telling you that the timing belt was done, didn't induce you to enter into the contract to buy the car. If you took legal action you would have to prove that in almost all jurisdictions I know of. You said that whether it was changed or not didn't really matter much to you and you would have done the service if it had not been done, so I personally think it is just an unfortunate circumstance.

These kinds of places give the good used car places a bad reputation.

Johnhav430

Scary, but we live in a world of ***** nilliness. I dunno, I thought that in our time, we were ashamed when caught lying. I know that we were scared of the bus driver, and the driver yelled at us to hurry the **** up. Today, I observe school buses holding traffic up, and kids walking, not running, as slowly as humanly possible it would seem. No sense of urgency.

I am in this jam once again, too much FSA funds and it's 11/2. In our plan funds must be spent by 12/31. I might have to buy 3 pairs of Oakley prescription glasses to use them, not good, I don't even want them. Someone I told 2 yrs. ago said I just make up my own receipts and upload them. I'm not losing my hard earned money, never. (We're talking about the IRS, I wouldn't do that.)

I f'd up on the dependent care (we actually don't qualify), dag, I was like I forfeited all that? Was in a panic waiting for google to load.....(google is the best place to get tax advice lol)

Daspyda

iTrader: (1)

Wired funds - even after they have hit your account - are subject to recall if fraud can be proven on the front end.

That is why I always get a Cashier's Check on a National Bank (BofA, Wells, etc) - and I take the buyer with me to convert it into a bank-issued Cashier's Check from verified funds.

Even making a call nowadays to verify issuance is no longer a guarantee - the buyer can cancel that Cashier's Check at any time until it's presented for payment by you or your bank.

Johnhav430

With my wife's car I told them I have to hurry and get to the bank (Sat. before Labor Day 2011). Finance mgr. says why? So I can get a cashier's check before they close. Again he says why? I go what do you mean? He goes don't you have a personal check? I thought, and still think, that it's odd a new car dealer accepts a personal check esp. for that amount (over 20 grand), but he said we've never had a problem, and if we did, we would fully expect you to take care of it. But you live in our community and as I've said we've never had a problem. Is this profiling? lol

Lexus that was far less money than the above, yep, cashiers check only. I was not able to txf $14k electronically either, DOH. But I wrote a check from my internet account and could get the cashiers check the very next day. Seems like the float and hold concept isn't as prevalent today as it was in my parents day....

I disagree on the buyer's ability to stop a cashier's check, but then again, I've never been on either side of that transaction so I may absolutely be wrong. But it's not logical that it can be done. It can absolutely be replaced, but I don't agree that you can stop it after you've used it for payment.

Jabberwock

For cashiers checks even if the buyer changed their mind about the purchase or making the payment, there’s nothing they can do to stop a valid payee from depositing or cashing the cashiers check and claiming the funds. A buyer could claim the check was lost or stolen and stop payment in that case but they would be required to sign an affidavit staing the check was lost or stolen and in doing so would be committing perjury and fraud.

campisi

I bought my LS new and wrote a personal check for over $60 grand (ouch! I'm wincing at the memory of that especially considering my car is worth under $10K nowadays!). Dealer didn't bat an eye. Also wrote a personal check for my $22K Subaru Forester, again they didn't bat an eye. I sure wouldn't be that trusting!

lorenr

iTrader: (1)

Odd, but from what I've learned, personnel checks are probably just as good as a cashier's check. I wired a cashier's check to the east coast from my bank. The bank manager said they are super easy to create on the newest copiers, so not to hold my breath for the transaction to complete. It took a while.

No easy way to do this, unless it is bank to bank and even then.

My experience is to know your banker, have perfect credit and a very nice financial statement. Then it is easy.

Loren