It’s been two years since Davidson Garcia bought a used car from Vroom, the online car dealer.
The 2015 Subaru WRX has been sitting in a New York City impound lot for more than 10 months, without valid plates or registration.
That’s because in an ill-fated blunder, Vroom sold Garcia a vehicle for which it did not have the title and therefore didn’t have the legal authority to sell Garcia the car, according to Garcia and his attorney.
“For the past two years, they have failed to register the vehicle in my name or provide New Jersey plates,” Garcia said, noting he’s still been forking over money for insurance and paying his car loan, with interest.
The Jersey City man bought the car on Sept. 26, 2020, documents show, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and just as supply chain issues were heating up, causing a steep rise in the cost of new and used vehicles.
“It seemed like a promising way to buy a car safely, without close contact to other individuals,” Garcia said.
He paid $25,586.72, including fees to cover the registration and title, documents show.
When the car was delivered, it had a 30-day temporary tag from the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, which would expire on Oct. 26, 2020, Garcia said.
As the expiration date neared, Garcia said he contacted Vroom multiple times for updates. He requested a second temporary tag, knowing he could be ticketed or towed if he drove the car, which he said he needed to get to work and school, with an expired tag.
It took seven months, until May 27, 2021, for the second tag to arrive, he said.
That tag’s expiration date came and went. Vroom sent another 30-day tag set to expire on Sept. 5, 2021.
And it did, without the issue being fixed.
Garcia, who said he knew he shouldn’t drive the car, at times didn’t have much of a choice.
“It was my only form of transportation,” he said. “I’m fully aware that what I did was illegal. But what am I gonna do? Lose my job and lose my education?”
In November 2021, his luck ran out. The car was impounded by the New York City police.
More calls to Vroom got him nowhere, Garcia said.
“Rather than address the underlying problems, Vroom merely offered Mr. Garcia a rental vehicle,” his attorney wrote in a letter to Vroom, in an attempt to resolve the problem. “Since the vehicle was impounded, the impound storage fees have been accumulating at the rate of $25 per day. And, because the vehicle has been impounded, there is a substantial risk that the vehicle will be sold at an auction in the event that Mr. Garcia cannot resolve the issues in a prompt manner.”
The New York City Police Department didn’t immediately respond to questions about how long a car would remain in an impound lot before it’s sold at auction, but its website said it “regularly holds online auctions to dispose of seized, unclaimed property and vehicles.”
Finally, in March 2022 — with his car sitting at the impound lot for more than four months — Garcia found out what the problem was.
“After multiple attempts of phone calls with customer service. I had found out that they had sold me a vehicle with a loan,” he said. “It still belongs to another person.”
Vroom’s solution, according an April letter to Vroom from Garcia’s attorney’s, was to “force Mr. Garcia to sell the vehicle back to them without taking any responsibility for its unlawful actions or the harm that it has caused him over the last year and half.”
“Mr. Garcia has spent thousands of dollars on payments for the vehicle and insurance despite the fact that he has yet to receive the title and registration, and he has experienced substantial emotional distress and inconvenience related to this experience,” the attorney said.
The attorney asked Vroom to pay $63,742.50 in damages, which includes the cost of the car, funds to cover rental car costs and attorney fees, noting that amount would go up every day the car remains in the impound lot.
Without much response from Vroom, Garcia asked Bamboozled for help.
HISTORY OF COMPLAINTS, LAWSUITS
Vroom said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it was having trouble with titles and registrations back in March 2021, months after Garcia purchased his car.
“We also have experienced disruptions in our logistics network and productivity challenges in our back-office operations, including backlogs in the titling and registration of vehicles due to shutdowns of or limited operations at state departments of motor vehicles,” it said.
Based on the number of complaints it has received nationwide, it seems those issues have not been fully resolved.
In April, the attorney general in Texas filed a deceptive trade practices lawsuit against the dealership, alleging the company “misrepresented and failed to disclose significant delays in transferring clear title and obtaining vehicle registrations, burdening thousands of consumers.”
It said the state, along with the Better Business Bureau, received more than 5,000 complaints from consumers over the last three years.
That number has since risen to more than 6,000, according to the Better Business Bureau.
In July, the company agreed to pay an $87,000 fine to Florida as part of an 87-count complaint over allegations that didn’t get clear titles to scores of customers.
Nevada and North Carolina are also looking into similar complaints, according to a published report by Barron’s.
Here in New Jersey, the Division of Consumer Affairs received 23 complaints against Vroom between January 2021 and June 2022, spokeswoman Erica Lockhart said.
“All of the complaints are currently open and under review,” she said.
In the meantime, the company announced its second quarter profit per unit — or vehicle — was $3,629, or up 106%.
We asked Vroom to review Garcia’s case, and the next day, his attorney received a phone call to set up a negotiation over the car.
After speaking to his attorney, Garcia said they don’t expect to have a resolution anytime soon.
“They’re just going to give me the runaround again for six months or a year — who knows for how long — and try to kick the can down the road,” Garcia said. “I’ll just keep using the rental car. I have no other choice.”
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Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KPMueller.