Once In A While the little guy wins one!
 

Bidder gets the Challenger, with a little help
By Laura Gunderson, The Oregonian
December 19, 2009, 10:00AM
Thomas Annecharico knew he'd won the muscle car but had to use his own -- and a little of The Desk's -- to actually get it.

EBay is simple enough: You bid, you win, you pay.

That's exactly what the New Jersey man says he did last week with the bright red Dodge Challenger SRT8 that a Lithia Motors dealership in Texas was selling on the online auction site. Annecharico's $28,100 bid was the highest of 19 submitted and, when the auction ended Sunday, he received the usual e-mail from eBay congratulating his win.

But Lithia Dodge of Corpus Christi, whose parent is Oregon-based Lithia Motors, gave Annecharico a variety of reasons as to why he couldn't have the car. On a call that Annecharico taped and The Desk listened to, the dealership's employee who managed its eBay sales first told Annecharico he wasn't the highest bidder.

When it was established later that he was, the same Lithia guy told Annecharico that the car wouldn't be sold for less than $42,900 because the reserve -- a minimum price set by sellers -- hadn't been met.

It went that way all week until late Friday, when after multiple calls, Lithia spokesman Robert Sacks confirmed to The Desk that, in fact, the dealership hadn't put a reserve on the bid. That's a costly mistake for a car listed with reserves of no less than $44,000 in its other auctions.

That's what The Desk figured.

EBay's listing of the dealership's past two dozen auctions showed clearly when minimums weren't reached: the price showed in red, 'Reserve not met' in blue. In Annecharico's case, the auction results glowed in green with "Sold" near the $28,100 price.

Still, Lithia maintained throughout the evening Friday that Annecharico hadn't coughed up a deposit within the two days of the auction's close as required.

Not for lack of trying.

Annecharico said he tried to give Corpus Christi his credit card number for the deposit on Monday, but the dealership wouldn't take it. Despite the resistance, he said he shipped a $500 cashier's check, express mail, that day. The check arrived Wednesday and was refused, as was a second delivery attempt Friday, according to Annecharico and U.S. Postal Service tracking data.

Sacks said Lithia had asked for Annecharico's tape of the call and never received it. He wanted the tape, he said, to hear for himself that the buyer had made the effort. Tracking information, which shows the cashier's check was in the mail Monday by 2:20 p.m. wasn't enough, Sacks said.

"We want a happy customer," he said, "but we sell cars on eBay all the time and, sometimes, people just don't follow through."

Annecharico said he'd already let a customer service representative hear the tape and wasn't inclined to send a copy.

"They want the tape, why? So they can alter their story and formulate another reason not to sell the car?" he said. "If there's a legal case, they'll get it anyway."

Annecharico said he felt as though Lithia pulled a bait-and-switch, posting a car it never intended to sell. While he was on the phone Monday with Corpus Christi, Annecharico said, the rep told him that eBay was used "for leads."

Edward Impert with Lithia's legal department said Friday the Corpus Christi dealer was "very flustered" when he said that and that ultimately, the company sells a lot of cars on eBay.

In its fine print, eBay says it can't force a seller to sell an item. However, it can boot those who misbehave.

Ebay doesn't comment on individual auctions or sellers but, in a released statement to The Desk, said, "It is uncommon for an eBay Motors seller to fail to complete a sale."

An eBay spokesman said that, occasionally, dealers accidentally post auctions without setting a reserve. Ebay said it probably would encourage dealers in such a situation to follow through with the auction and sell the car. Still, it's a dealer's prerogative.

And that's where Lithia came through, giving Annecharico and his wife, Shannon, an early Christmas present.

Around 6:30 p.m. Friday, Sacks called to say he'd listened to the company's own training tapes of the call and though it was "ambiguous, we decided we just wanted to get this done."

Lithia agreed to sell the car for $28,100 -- news the Annecharicos heard close to 10 p.m. on the East Coast.

"We'll open a bottle of champagne," said Shannon Annecharico, adding that the car she plans to steal from her husband goes for no less than $50,000 in New Jersey.

Their anger with Lithia?

Going.

Going.

Gone.

Nothing like loosing 14k to save face... Glad to know in the end the dealer did the right thing... I bet the ebay guy pays more attention next time too....

Saw that this morning. I loved the part about fishing for leads on ebay. :rolleyes:

The word douchenozzle springs to mind.

I doubt there would be a next time, Im sure the guy is long gone.

As a stockholder of Lithia, I applaud their attention to PR.

Larry
PS - Lithia is a local company with an outstanding reputation.

I guess by this you mean that any PR, good or bad, is worth publicizing? Because my first thought is jeez, what sort of dildos does Lithia have working for them? Maybe I'm reading it wrong?

Not the first time this has happened: BMW dealer auctions new M3 for $60K on eBay, doesn't want to honor the deal — Autoblog

Glad to see them finally do the right thing.

Maybe "do the right thing" can be translated: "this guy might just take us to court and get us way more bad press than we want". I sold cars for almost 10 years with different companies in different states and I can tell you that there is a good reason why car salesmen and dealers are the second least trusted people in the world. Most dealers have the attitude that if you won't jack up the customer (or outright lie) you won't be around long. I couldn't play their games and got out 20 years ago.

huh - in Eugene, Lithia Motors has a LOUSY reputation! I hear all sorts of complaints about them.

Kendall is bad, but Lithia is worse.

And, yes, the only reason this guy 'won' is b/c he dug in, said he'd "go legal on 'em" and etc.

Good for him not caving in.

You missed the first part of his statement "As a stockholder of Lithia..."

Sounds like Lithia Motors should change thier name to Massengil Motors.
The Douche couldn't even admit his dealership screwed up.
Good for the guy for sticking to his guns.

Time will prove that Joe is a very smart man. Lithia's stocks went in the tank a while back and smart people were snapping them up real cheap. I'm not a stock market person at all, but if I had the cash at the time, I'd have bought as many as possible when then were somewhere near $3 (if I recall). The last time I checked they were back to up to $11 or $12. With cutting back on the non-profitable dealerships, I suspect that Lithia will be up over $25 within 2 years. Probably over $20 in a year.

Good on ya, Joe. But just for the record, they are a bunch of douchnozzles.

angela

Not to bash you folks in NJ, but I bet if their locations had been switched, it wouldn't have turned out that way. For the most part, folks in Texas don't screw with people. Partly out of courtesy and partly out of a strong fear of an a$$ kicking.

I bid on a new-in-box, OEM 993 shift coupler a few weeks ago. I was going to be on the road when the auction ended, so I bid my max of $100 before I left for my trip. That part is $258 at the dealer. I won it for $19.00 and the seller was veerrrryyyy slow is getting it to me. Looks like he forgot to put a reserve on it. I emailed him several times about it with no response. A few weeks later it arrived in the mail.

That is total BS.

A LOT of eBay Motors sales never go through, and it is primarily deals with dealerships that have problems.

I've had PLENTY of auctions that I was winning for cars canceled either because the car was sold on the lot underneath me or because the car wasn't bringing in the money the dealer wanted. (And many dealers use the lack of a reserve and/or a low starting price to attract people to bid on a car they have no intention of selling unless the price really takes off.)

But you do have plenty of dealers who aren't paying attention or who think they can alter the deal after the fact and let the auction complete, and then try to rework the deal or play these kinds of games after the fact.

This is very common, but eBay doesn't want people to think so.