A Cleveland woman says she purchased a used car, paid in cash and has the bill of sale. But getting behind the wheel of that vehicle could be illegal. Now, she wants her money back.
Nicole Rose takes her daughter to the Med Center twice a week for treatments and says the SUV she's been driving was expensive.
"We can't afford the gas plus $15 in parking," Rose said.
So Rose put a message out on her town's Facebook page asking if anyone knew of a vehicle for sale that fit her budget. One woman responded.
"She said her boyfriend worked for Texan Dodge dealership, and that they had a BMW that was over there," Rose said.
Rose tells us she went to the dealership, met with the salesperson and bought the car right there on the spot.
"He just gave me a bill of sale. He told me that his sales manager was going to handle the title and everything else. They gave us paper plates from the dealership," Rose said.
She says she never received the title or permanent plates in the mail, and when her paper plates expired, she went back to the dealership for new ones. Rose says she was then told the salesperson she dealt with was no longer with the company, but that's not all. She learned the car she bought from the salesman was actually a personal vehicle, and not from the dealership's inventory.
She was left with no title, no registration and no way to drive the car legally on the road. So in a case like this, who's responsible?
"It doesn't matter whose vehicle it was. If your salesperson does something, you have liability for what that salesperson did. You can't say, 'I don't have any liability, he sold something he wasn't supposed to sell.' He was working there. He was your agent. And you are responsible for what that agent does," said Richard Alderman, The People's Lawyer.
Now this story does have a positive outcome. After we spoke with the dealership and their attorney, they offered to purchase the vehicle back from Nicole for the full $1,800, even though it was not their car to begin with. Their attorney tells us the dealership may be looking into pursuing legal action now against their former employee.
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