BUYER BEWARE. - DylanChristner
BUYER BEWARE. SELLING BRANDED TITLED VEHICLES.
I will never deal with this dealership or Russel Larkey, or Russel Hernandez ever again. My wife purchased an f150 from them and three weeks after we purchased it in the title process the title was deemed “not actual mileage”. This is considered a brand on the title and devalues the vehicle significantly. We contacted Russel L and he said they have never heard of such a thing happening like this and reassured us they would look into it and get it fixed. I never received a call from them for a week so I called again. Russel L said they were still looking into it and he said he would call me the following day and he promised he would call. So after not receiving a call for another week I called again and he told me he has been so busy and forgot to call me back again but the manager Russel Hernandez was involved in it and he was going to make things right and get the title fixed. After almost two months of calling them and getting nowhere I went back down there in person and demanded to speak to the manager. When speaking to Russel Hernandez he told us he was just now notified about the situation. (Mind you this was months after I originally called, so Russel larkey lied when he told us he has someone looking into it.) Russel told us he’s not worried about the situation and he will contact carfax and he would take the vehicle back in on trade but the trade amount was 10,000 less than what we paid which was 5,000 less than what we still owed. We were NOT upside down on this loan, the only reason we were upside down was from the title brand and the fact that the dealer was lowballing us. He said he would buy it back from us too but it was still going to put us upside down on it since the value he was offering us caused me to have to pay the dealer 5,000 dollars to clear out the loan. This was cash out of my pocket for their mistake. He kept saying he would get it resolved if he bought it back from us but wasn’t considered about getting it fixed for us while it’s still in our possession. So we are in a position where we are having to pay for their mistake. He also informed us he had this issue with two other vehicles before but apparently lied about this when we first confronted them about it because I was told that this has never happened from Russel L.
All they wanted to do was sell us another vehicle and lowball us on the vehicle we just bought from them. I contacted a lawyer and the lawyer said I would end up spending more in lawyer fees than what I could gain from the dealership. We tried trading the vehicle in at all the major dealers in Lakeland and they all wanted to offer us half of what the vehicle was worth because of the brand. We spent months with Carfax and the state of Florida trying to fix it and we got nowhere because it happened when the vehicle was in the hands of the dealership. Finally when they bought it back and me paying the 5,000 to get the loan paid off they were so rude in the office. Russel Hernandez would not even look at us or apologize for the mistakes. They would not give me a receipt for the wholesale purchase so I had to take pictures of it all on my phone of the paperwork. Of course I was worried because all they have done was lie to us. After selling it and waiting 6 weeks for the refund and checking in every couple weeks they never even started the refund process for the extended warranty. Russel Larkey told me several times that it was being handled and clearly he was just telling me what I wanted to hear. After the seventh week I called and spoke to the finance manager and she told me she called Russel L and he said “I am not involved in any of that” which was also a lie because he was part of the entire situation. He was the one who told my wife where to sign on the wholesale paperwork and showing they still owed us 1400 dollars for the warranty. They made a fool of us having to call and check every week thinking something was being done when
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