Forum Discussion
- I agree Wa8yxm. Not everyone is as savvy about matters of finances, law, business, medicine, etc. They don't understand the intricacies and processes of it. They depend on "experts" to help them through the process. That dependence should NEVER be an excuse for said "experts" to cheat the person.
And, as long as the contract stated that the RV seller would handle the title, pay the owner upon the sale of the RV, etc., that RV seller is contractually required to do just that - not doing that is a breach of contract, regardless of whether the victim saw it coming or not. - I see a lot of BLAME THE VICTIM posts in this thread and I'd like to comment on that.
You have something to buy or sell you go to a dealer.. now if you are selling the dealer accepts "Consignment" type sales (NOTE.. As a Seller you generally do better with Consignment since YOU still own the RIG so YOU take the risk it won't sell, where as if you do a "Buy and sell" type dealer not only does he take the risk of it not selling.. He has to pay property tax as well.)
The dealer is, in theory, both licensed, audited and inspected, by the state so you have the word of the State licensing authority he is honest.
(But then I worked for the State police so I know people don't always follow the law).
A smooth talking "used RV salesman" can .. Well.. I've seen smoe real smooth ones in my day.. Only one ever got me only about 50 bucks worth,,, but many have tried. fulltimedaniel wrote:
winnietrey wrote:
fulltimedaniel wrote:
My sympathy for the victims ends where their gullibility, stupidity and credulousness begins.
If even ONE of them had done the simple straight forward due diligence this kind of transaction deserves probably none of this would have happened.
I am sorry but I think the so-called "victims" are mostly victims of self inflicted harm.
The sentence is just as crazy. 7 years in jail. No way to pay back the money. And the court does have the ability to force him to pay. But the real way to get him to pay is bring a CIVIL case against him and take his house and car, 401k, insurance holdings etc. It can be done with the right lawyer.
I would not agree. One line from the story jumped out at me. "they had established a relationship with him and trusted him". Which is why he was able to keep it up for so long.
FTD you were in business a long time, as I have been. A lot of the stuff we know, we forgot even where and how we learned it. We just sort of know it inherently.
I would guess many of these folks have little if any business experience.
Red Flags that they ignored, we would be all over in a heartbeat. But remember that is because we have been there done that.
You and me, we get a BS excuse ( which we know from experience) we are all over it. Relationship or not Other folks not so much.
And even you, and I or any person, with lengthy experience, we are not invulnerable. If the shark is big enough, and clever enough, both of us still can be eaten.
I agree with much of what you say and you make some good points. But the idea that you can suspend your good judgement in a business transaction just because you know and "trust" someone is just naive on their part. That is why in my list of things I included "credulousness"
I think the point you stop being a victim is when you are paying on two RV's at the same time and have paperwork on neither.
I think the cult of victimhood has been stretched a bit too far in this case.
What would you have them do at that point? The loan process is separate from title process. If they stop paying on their loans, they are in default and their credit rating is ruined. The bank isn't going to care that they don't have the titles, all they care about is getting the money back on the loans. The victim can't do that, because without the titles, they can't sell the RVs. They are caught between a rock and a hard place. The only way to get the banks off their backs is to 1)sell the RVs and pay off the loans; 2) file bankruptcy; 3) find enough money to pay off the loans elsewhere; 4) stop paying and go into default. If they don't have enough money to buy the RVs without a loan, then they don't have money to pay off the loans without the RVs.winnietrey wrote:
fulltimedaniel wrote:
My sympathy for the victims ends where their gullibility, stupidity and credulousness begins.
If even ONE of them had done the simple straight forward due diligence this kind of transaction deserves probably none of this would have happened.
I am sorry but I think the so-called "victims" are mostly victims of self inflicted harm.
The sentence is just as crazy. 7 years in jail. No way to pay back the money. And the court does have the ability to force him to pay. But the real way to get him to pay is bring a CIVIL case against him and take his house and car, 401k, insurance holdings etc. It can be done with the right lawyer.
I would not agree. One line from the story jumped out at me. "they had established a relationship with him and trusted him". Which is why he was able to keep it up for so long.
FTD you were in business a long time, as I have been. A lot of the stuff we know, we forgot even where and how we learned it. We just sort of know it inherently.
I would guess many of these folks have little if any business experience.
Red Flags that they ignored, we would be all over in a heartbeat. But remember that is because we have been there done that.
You and me, we get a BS excuse ( which we know from experience) we are all over it. Relationship or not Other folks not so much.
And even you, and I or any person, with lengthy experience, we are not invulnerable. If the shark is big enough, and clever enough, both of us still can be eaten.
I agree with much of what you say and you make some good points. But the idea that you can suspend your good judgement in a business transaction just because you know and "trust" someone is just naive on their part. That is why in my list of things I included "credulousness"
I think the point you stop being a victim is when you are paying on two RV's at the same time and have paperwork on neither.
I think the cult of victimhood has been stretched a bit too far in this case.fulltimedaniel wrote:
My sympathy for the victims ends where their gullibility, stupidity and credulousness begins.
If even ONE of them had done the simple straight forward due diligence this kind of transaction deserves probably none of this would have happened.
I am sorry but I think the so-called "victims" are mostly victims of self inflicted harm.
The sentence is just as crazy. 7 years in jail. No way to pay back the money. And the court does have the ability to force him to pay. But the real way to get him to pay is bring a CIVIL case against him and take his house and car, 401k, insurance holdings etc. It can be done with the right lawyer.
I would not agree. One line from the story jumped out at me. "they had established a relationship with him and trusted him". Which is why he was able to keep it up for so long.
FTD you were in business a long time, as I have been. A lot of the stuff we know, we forgot even where and how we learned it. We just sort of know it inherently.
I would guess many of these folks have little if any business experience.
Red Flags that they ignored, we would be all over in a heartbeat. But remember that is because we have been there done that.
You and me, we get a BS excuse ( which we know from experience) we are all over it. Relationship or not Other folks not so much.
And even you, and I or any person, with lengthy experience, we are not invulnerable. If the shark is big enough, and clever enough, both of us still can be eaten.- I'm in the throw him in jail camp. With a guy like that you will never see a dime.If he is out and even if he is under court supervision he will more than likely find another scam. Lock him up and know that he will learn what it is all about in his new environment.
WTP-GC wrote:
Folks threatening to commit suicide over being defrauded for $28K. What a bunch of ****.
No one threatened to commit suicide. The woman said that if her husband had had a gun, he likely would have committed suicide.
And while $28K may not be a lot of money for some, for others it's a lot of money. Many folks who sell their RVs on consignment are doing so because they are unable to continue RVing and/or need the money for other things.
As to all that being stupid, if you've never been in a situation like this it's very hard to understand. After fighting and fighting and fighting to resolve the problem, your brain stops seeing things in a normal light. You become unable to handle things that would normally be simple "get over and move on". The littlest things become overwhelming. And often, it results in not wanting to kill yourself, but just wanting to put an end to the stress and your brain doesn't connect the action with death. I never got it until I found myself there. Every day it just got deeper and deeper as I banged my head against a wall trying to get a resolution.toedtoes wrote:
fulltimedaniel wrote:
My sympathy for the victims ends where their gullibility, stupidity and credulousness begins.
If even ONE of them had done the simple straight forward due diligence this kind of transaction deserves probably none of this would have happened.
I am sorry but I think the so-called "victims" are mostly victims of self inflicted harm.
The sentence is just as crazy. 7 years in jail. No way to pay back the money. And the court does have the ability to force him to pay. But the real way to get him to pay is bring a CIVIL case against him and take his house and car, 401k, insurance holdings etc. It can be done with the right lawyer.
A victim isn't less a victim because they are stupid, ignorant, disagreeable, slutty, dirty, etc. There is a limit to the "buyer beware" standard and this guy went way beyond it. He defrauded people. He committed a crime. He pays for his crime - no excuses because he only defrauded stupid people.
As for his paying it back, let's look at the numbers from the article:
15 counts of fraud, so likely about 5-10 different customers.
Max money lost about $28,000. Figure low to be around $4,000.
That equates to a total of about $20,000 at a low point and $ 280,000 at a high point.
His house is worth $300,000 and there is "little equity" in it. That probably equates to about $30,000 in equity. Even if he sells it for over value, we're probably only looking at around $50,000 above what is owed.
His car is 16 years old. Probably only worth about $4,000.
So, at best he'd have around $54,000 to pay back all his debts. Plus there's the other business debts he may have that will also have to be paid back. Per the article, he said he was basically robbing Peter to pay Paul.
That's the obvious reason the judge sentenced him to jail - because he knew this guy can't pay back the money and won't be able to pay it back. These are most likely older customers who don't have 40 years to collect $1000 per year in garnishments from a minimum wage job. He's now a convicted felon - he's not going to get a good paying job somewhere else.
Personally, I'm glad to see a business owner go to jail for defrauding customers. I think it's become too common in this day and age and they just receive hand slaps.- duplicate post
DutchmenSport wrote:
The mechanic I use was given a bad check for 1200. The county attorney would not prosecute her because she said she canceled the check when in truth she did not have funds in the account. The law benefits criminals more then victim's, sad. Now the victim is out the 1200. plus the cost of filing the case.
In order to garnish wages, they have to have a bonified job. Then, unbelievable as it may sound, it's the victim's responsibility to ensure the criminals place of employment knows about the judgment. The victim never tells their employers about the garnishments or court settlements. That's when the court's intervene, which begins with the victim trying to figure out where the criminal is now employed. Wanna guess how difficult THAT is these days? It sucks for sure! And every court intervention costs the victim more money for filings, and court costs and such. After a while, it just isn't worth it any more.
