lamborghini reported stolen after i bought it

Roy,

Let me say that based on your reply I think you're honest and a stand-up guy. You point 4&5 are mostly correct, #5 the most correct.

I didn't say that you actually perpetrated a fraud or indeed moved the car to the top of your sell list. I'm just saying from a buyer's perspective, they don't know one way or the other, since when you say you didn't, well that's just words and not any kind of reality, and unless there was a video crew following you around night and day for your own reality show (not a bad idea actually) no one may ever know for sure on something like that, but if you say so then I think based on your rep you'd be telling the truth.

Because of what you spelled out in point #5 it proves you're amicable to do the right thing, and if you've got the insurance then that is really great, not just for Josh but for you. Namely because yes you'll likely be covered and then the insurance can go sue everybody to recoup.

You're also correct on the fact that if you ARE insured, and expect either them to pay or once you've paid to recover from them, there likely would have to be a legal action, if not a court case, a demand letter or threat of court case served to you and your insurer (taking notes Josh?)

The reason for this, and I'll expound as you didn't get into it - is to prevent insurance fraud. If Roy were to just cut a check to anyone for $100K and then say to his insurance 'Wow I had a deal that went bad, this guy is pissed, I had to give him $100K, can you reimburse me now' it would be easy for the person you wrote the check to to be your buddy, and then you just made $100K off the insurance company.

So I'm not taking anyone side. And to prove it Josh, honest WTF. No i won't represent you and also, as others have said, just about anyone who has the bucks to buy exotics has a lawyer sitting around or knows a lawyer. And even if that lawyer isn't the right type, he has partners or associates (they all hang out together) and can recommend someone. He may even charge you for the friggin 15 minute call to recommend someone else, but so what, at least you'll find the right lawyer eventually. It may take even 2 lawyers and explaining this thing in deep detail a couple times (and a few hourly fees) before the lawyer with the right experience in case law is found.

If you don't have a lawyer, open the yellow pages and look under 'lawyers' and then 'consumer fraud' or 'business fraud' or 'fraud' or something like that and start making calls.

If Roy, his lawyer, and insurance are encouraging you to sue to get the ball rolling and square this away, I mean holy crap, when does that typically happen?!?!!

Hence my claim that by being honest and saying so Roy is doing the right things and is being transparent and honest with you to a good degree.

 

Saw that one too!? A clumsy statement that might lose the case for Mr. 360spider!

Dont do anything that might jeopardize your current position! Ask a professional to give you "professional advice". Not to put down Mr. "Mark from Ork" or anything but there was a "mis-calculated" fact that might've compromised his advice to you. If all you're after is to get your money back, I honestly feel that Mr. "Roy Cats" will be very reasonable and can probably come to terms with you (not necessarily a refund) regarding this matter. I really dont know what steps you should take but "waking up at 7am just because you got a promising (but a bit "hinkey") advice on the net" is nowhere near logical. I seriously hope that everyone involved get through this situation without further complications!

 

As someone has mentionned on the other site...I am surprised that they let you back out of the cuffs and on top of that take pictures too. Anyways, I wish you the best of luck. The situation truly sucks. In all honesty, this should really be taken care of between the parties involved and off these forums. Lpower already closed the thread and I feel this one should be too. At least for now.

Can't believe you have NOT got a lawyer yet either...

 

Again I commend Roy for being forthcoming with stating that he is indeed encouraging the buyer to take legal action so that Roy's insurance can kick into the picture and most likely make the buyer whole.

Many of my comments in my big post were broad and sweeping, and some almost general thought process or strategy, rather than all being directed at Roy.

The reason for the information dump is because this could happen to anyone, and maybe there's some insights in these threads that people can come away to protect themselves should they find themselves in such a crap situation.

This also brings into light the fact that the cops were 'on the way' to Josh's house when they passed him on the street. If you're purchasing fancy expensive cars, and have any kind of business, always put them in the name of the business, both on the registration and on the documents, and preferably registered to some address that is a mailbox and not even an office. The leasing company found Josh probably by the car being registered and titled to his home address, a big no-no in any 'how to be rich and protect yourself' book.

Also if the cops show up to your house, to take your car away or anything else, never answer the door. Unless you called 911 or there's smoke coming out of your house. If they have a warrant they'll kick it in anyways, but if not why even talk to them. BING-BONG "Hi Officer is there a problem is someone hurt?" "No, but is there a Lamborghini here that you bought and paid for? Well good because we're taking it away." "Do I have speeding tickets? Is the IRS seizing it?" "No, some court in some other state from some company that owned the car 4 owners ago asked us to come take it from you and stick it somewhere until some mess gets sorted out".

Big lesson here folks....just like they say at the beginning of any boxing match: protect yourself at all times.

 

As it should be for you as well my friend!

 

Did you blow all your money away on the Lamborghini!? It seems as if you have no means (financially) to obtain a "proper legal counsel"!

 

I can make it no clearer than this..

AS I told you last night Josh...

1) File a claim with your insurance company

2) Get a Lawyer and get into court to get a order to hold the car in the COURTS possesion till a venue is set.

3) Get a Lawyer and have them start a demand letter to CATS EXOTICS that I will more than happy forward to our insurance company and all their lawyers, that is what I pay them for.

4) Let them do what they get paid for, fight it out between the insurance companies.

5) As stated here and I told you the same last night...I CAN NOT JUST call my insurance company and say, hey cut me a check for $110K...first THEY wouldn't..for the insurance fraud reason number 1 AND second NO INSURNACE Company in the world will pay out unless they have to OR find it cheaper to settle and take a loss then spend a ton of money in court.

I HAVE no control over my insurance company, I can not strong arm them. I have tried everything in my power to give you the correct advise and move forward in the right direction, however all you do is keep crying and blaming me for an issue that I do not believe I am at fault with...AND FYI, OF course my insurance company has already been advised of the potential issues AS I am required by my insurance carrier to notify them....and rest assured they are one of the best it is Loyds of London.

So lets remain calm and LET the LAWYERS and the INSURANCE companys they work for do their job......PLEASE!!

 

I don't understand why you guys are giving the OP so much flack.. he had his freaking Lambo STOLEN. Buddy over at M3Post gets jipped $7000 on a BMW and gets worldwide coverage.

Bizzare world we live in.


To the OP: Best of luck.

 

I do want to point out to all that of course I am truly sorry for JOSH'S mis-fortune as well as the black eye it puts on my company name.

The one thing that has not been talked about much here, is how do we make sure this does not happen again?

I found in my research to this that there is in fact a few companies that will provide "Title insurance" just like a title insurance on a house at closing time. The fee's I have been quoted are based on the % of the selling price of the car and seem to be pretty reasonable and cheap when it comes to the cost of these cars. I also learned from these companies, that a case such as this is not UN-COMMON at all...one company I spoke to today advised me that they process approx 2-5 claims EVERY month...it is a wide spread problem mainly starting with many banks and finance companies not covering their title practices correctly. I was also advised that it happens a lot with hard to track items such as Planes and Boats. Their policy covers my customers, then they go after the bank or finance company and their insurance companys that FAILED to lien the property correctly.

By Monday I shall have choosen one of these companies. I will from that point on HAVE EVERY car I sell covered with this added "title insurance" AT no additional exspense to the buying customer.

I WOULD strongly recomend anyone purchasing a car from ANY Dealer, look into buying this extra coverage!!

 

I agree, not everyone made their money doing battle in the world of big business, surrounded by lawyers and where lawsuits are like a fly buzzing in your ear that you have to smack now and then.

Also some people hate lawyers or are wary and think the lawyers are out to fleece them as much or worse than a [car dealer or insert cliche here] is.

So maybe this guy Josh made his fortune doing charity work for sick kids or who knows what, and isn't battle worn like many others maybe. If I was in that position (and young, if he is I don't know) I'd probably go put the idea out on the boards too.

3 Days is alot for any of us that have been through such a thing. We'd probably all take a cab and a sleeping bag to the doorstep of our lawyers office the night it happened. But in terms of an actual claim, there's all kinds of statutes of limitation and none of there are usually in 'days' for this kind of crap. Which is precisely why 3 months went by while he had the car. The leasing company wasn't spending night and day tracking the car down since the moment it happened. They've got a company to run, and were running their business, while their lawyers were drafting all their crap.

Getting a judge to go snake the car with NO NOTICE to the current owner is pretty shrewd, they spent more than a few bucks on good lawyers to pull that off. Probably a federal judge granting ex parte relief with a seizure/impound order and that is HEAVY HITTER SH*T. It is usually granted when there is extreme likelihood the asset in question will be whisked away if notice is given, and with all the changing hands of the car, once they FINALLY nailed it down to sitting at someone's house [see my post above] they probably did the happy dance and hit the judge up right away.

 

What a load of BS!

 

Due diligence on the part of the dealers, but dealers have a business to run too, so the title insurance is the smarter move. Why have to deal with extra work and worry? If there's a company out there to insure it, they'll provide you the guidelines, and if you follow them, probably not anything different than you do now Roy, you'll be covered and so will your buyers.

On the part of the buyers, see my post above about asset protection. If the cops came to get the car, and it wasn't there, or the address they went to was storage warehouse, well then what? The answer is the cops have jobs to do as well, and they'll only make so many attempts to find something unfindable.

The next action would be eventual legal service against the new owner, at which point the new owner could retort and simply refuse to relinquish the vehicle, file a counter-claim, or a counter-injunction, and hide behind whatever consumer protection laws are in their own state, if indeed they simply went out and bought a car and weren't part of any scam. In the end you still could lose, but why give up the damn car during the whole process, which could realistically take YEARS perhaps. This is grey area sophisticated stuff, and not teenagers boosting cars.

The cops in this case, most likely sheriff's deputies, were executing the seizure order, and not a criminal arrest. At the time of any such action though they know 50% of the time the people they find are criminals, so they cuff you and stick you in the back of the car until they've made sure you have no warrants, since the seizure order could have just as easily been part of some criminal complaint in a court somewhere.

But again why go through that? How embarrassing too, depending on where you live the neighbors already look at you funny if you've got a garage full of exotics, and then lo and behold the cops come and take your car and stick you in their car. You'll be explaining THAT one at all the barbeques for several years...

 

Here's my 2 cents from a legal perspective. The dealers do not have a serious problem if they did their due diligence and researched the title to the car prior to buying/selling it. Sure they cannot sell stolen cars. Obviously this car was not stolen or reported stolen when it was sold by the leasee to the dealer in Nevada and then to Cats Exotics. The two dealers received a clean title with no liens reported. They were purchasers in the ordinary course of business. Yes, they are dealers and can be held to a higher standard, but the car had a CLEAN title. The leasing company made a mistake in sending the title to the leasee. Their mistake, not the subsequent purchasers who paid value for the car. Neither dealer had any idea at the time that the car was fraudlently obtained or fraudulently titled. How could it have been? If the leasing company had a problem, it would have been flagged at the time with the state they sent the title to. Not only did the car have a clear title, that clear title was delivered to the purchaser. The correct resolution is not for Cats Exotics to refund the money. So what, Roy should then turn it over to his insurance? Because he can take the insurance hit?

 

I hope the judge never sees this! I heard he's a member of the F-Chat community!!!

 

+1

 

The only person you have made a contract with was Cats Exotics. Therefore your only legal recourse would be against him, as your contract was with him. Whether or not he knew, he sold you a car he did not have proper title to. I'm sure he's a swell guy and did not set out to do any wrong, but your case is with him.

His case would be with the dealership that he bought it from, for the same reason.

That's how the chain works. You don't skip links in the chain. You made no contract with the leasing company and as such have no legal recourse against them.

Open up the phone book, find you a lawyer.

 

Just to make one thing clear here...which there is no dispute on..the car was SOLD with a PROPER TITLE.

 

LMFAO... W T F ?????

SERIOUSLY... After Reading All of 360s Threads (see link below) ... well... all I can say is.. WTF !!!

Driving home in "Snow Mode" till the motor flooded???

Sitting on the side of the Road in the middle of nowhere posting on Ferrari Chat from your lap top trying to diagnose a "FLAT TIRE" WTF!!!

360... Seriously.. How Old Are You????

My Bet is the whole "Stolen Vehicle" Story was made up by your doctor, or Roy and Lamborghini, as an intervention to save the car from certain destruction!!


http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/search.php?searchid=2171641


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When I say 'serious problem' I mean it in all sense of the words. Based on what Roy has come forth with it looks like he and the client are now sorting this out, so this has nothing to do with Roy and is just more 'in general'.

We often look at exotic car purchases as something 'special' but the court plays no favorites. They don't care if it's Hyundai's or Ferrari's. And the dollar amount involved is $20,000 or $200,000 or the dealer has 20 cars or 200 cars on its lot.

Imagine a lady walking into her local Toyota dealer, and bought a used Camry, and 3 months later the police come and seize it, because it was involved in some kind of legal issue before the Toyota dealer got ahold of it, and some Mom and her two kids are left on the side of the road or in a cop car, with their Toyota on the flatbed.

Do you think that lady would be in court and the court telling her 'Mrs Johnson, in between soccer practice and breast feeding, you should have done more due diligence on that Toyota and investigated its past, and made ABSOLUTELY SURE the title was clear before you bought it from that licensed Toyota dealership with 200 cars on its lot up the street. What you need to do now Mrs Johnson is go find the party responsible for seizing the car and sue them, and leave poor old Bob's Toyota alone, nevermind you gave them all your money."

Bull****. No way. That Toyota dealer would be refunding that lady's money in a heartbeat or the court would be all over them, nevermind the media and bad press. That lady would be threatening to goto all the papers and TV stations. Bad press motiviates. No different than Mr 360 has been doing by going to these boards.

It's one thing for a car dealer to just say they did their 'due diligence' but to actually prove it would be quite hard. It's like that crane collapse recently, 4 people died. Someone was sent out to inspect crane recently. He said he did it, everything was fine. That's what he SAID, but when city officials asked around they found that either the guy didn't, or half-assed the inspection. Then the crane collapses. Do you where that guy is right now? In jail. Arrested because after he said he did his due diligence, but it was obvious to those investigating that from the result - he didn't.

Also anyone that said what I said in my long post is B.S. - that's brilliant. A four-character two-letter response to a long post I made to try and help someone. If you have an opinion or would like to dissect why my response is such B.S. - let's hear it! Discussions are fun. And to help people in the future, maybe some nugget of your infinite wisdom will prove useful.

 

Even if the vehicle appeared to have a legitimate title, if the car is found to have been stolen, it's a fraudulent title regardless of whether or not it was received in good faith. You have done no wrong to this man on purpose, but the fact remains that you sold him a car with the understanding of it being free and clear with a good title, when it did not (should the vehicle be determined stolen).

 

!?!

 

It was never reported as stolen, READ THE WHOLE THREAD!