Selling on Consignment Problems

My husband and I agreed to consign our RV with a dealer for $38,000 to us and they would get anything over, we paid a driver to transport the RV to the dealership, then paid a cleaning fee. We were told we would have to cover if there were repairs necessary at time of sale but were assured that the amount would be minimal if any as they did not consign coach's that needed that amount of work.

Had to email facility to find out that they had received the coach and were assured it was a great coach and should have no problems selling it for us.

3 weeks after they had received the coach, we were told that we needed to pay for steam cleaning of the carpets because without the cleaning they could not get our price. We acquiesced and agreed to pay for the steam cleaning. We requested photos of the coach and we agreed that we would increase our price to $38,500 to cover the expense of the cleaning. We also requested our agreement in writing for both parties signatures.

It took several emails and a couple weeks to finally get the photos and just promises that the steam cleaning was scheduled but wasn't done. Our requests for something in writing were ignored.

Here's where our problem starts...we were informed of an offer for $30,000 while we were dealing with a family emergency...and were then informed that we would never be able to get the $38,500 because the windows, couch, cabinetry and carpets all needed replacing...we made the careless decision just to accept the offer, regretting it almost immediately.

4 days later we get an email that the buyer had retracted his offer because he thought our coach was an '08 and it's an '06 and made another offer of $26,000. The employee used the term "retracted". We immediately rejected that offer and informed the employee that we had made a mistake in accepting the $30,000 and were going back to our original agreement and we wanted an explanation for all these alleged issues that were just coming up. At this point the RV still had not had the carpets steam cleaned and had not had any photos taken and had not been put on their website.

3 days later we get another email stating that the buyer had gone back to the $30,000. We informed the sales person that we were not going to accept the $30,000 as we stated and wanted the RV steam cleaned as promised.

Now we are told that they have actually sold our RV for the $30,000, the buyer has taken delivery and they have provided him a bill of sale.

Do you think the dealership should be held to the $38,500 per our email agreement with the sales person?

Sounds like you need a lawyer!

You need a lawyer to sort that one out. If you have documentation of your position, you ought to be able to get some satisfaction. Maybe even the full $38,500. I gather, though, that you had given them a power of attorney to sell the coach? Or maybe pre-signed the title? Otherwise, how did they transfer ownership?

If the legal route is too much for you, write a letter to the Help lines at Motorhome Magazine and Good Sam's Highways. They have a pretty good track record of getting vendors to make amends, even though they seldom admit any wrong-doing.

That's the thing - they have no power of attorney and only a copy of our title...we had been requesting for over a month now our agreement in writing and we were ignored. So as far as I can tell they had no authorization to even sell our RV except for the one email which once we were told the buyer retracted the offer, we retracted our acceptance.

Can a dealership deliver an RV and accept funds, provide a bill of sale without the signature of the actual owner??

Words mean things....  nothing in writing only E-mail. 
  You meandered from 38,000 to 38,500 and then accepted 30,000. NOTHING IN WRITING.

I don't think you will ever find a lawyer that will touch it.

Tough call...take the 30,000 and run.  Mistakes have consequences.  JMHO

Can a dealership deliver an RV and accept funds, provide a bill of sale without the signature of the actual owner??

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He can do all those things if he wants, but in most states he can't transfer the title until you sign it.  That means he can't actually sell it yet, though he might sue you for breach of contract if you don't transfer the title.  But you will have to consult the laws wherever the consignment dealer is located. And also your own state, if different (your state's title laws may apply as well).

That's just one of several reasons you really need an attorney to sort through it.

Since his salesperson informed us that the buyer retracted the offer and then offered less, which we immediately rejected how could he sue us for breach of contract? We would have honored our original acceptance, realizing it was our mistake in accepting it, until they said the offer was "retracted"

As a seller, I'm not obligated to honor an offer once it was retracted correct?

We were not even informed that negotiations were still going on with this buyer - once the offer was retracted we stated emphatically we wanted our original agreement amount and were told by the salesperson that he was going to find us another buyer with a better offer.

Carson may have a point, but was the original 38,000 price in writing anywhere? Was there no contract at all with the consignment dealer? Usually they at least won't your signed agreement to pay their commission.

I wouldn't be surprised if they sold for it for more than the $30,000 and tried to bump up their profit by claiming a lesser amount. Then backed away when you balked at $26,000. I suspect they are trying to steam-roller you with these tactics. Stand firm and insist that you have not agreed to any sale yet

You have a contract (written or implied) with the consignment dealer to complete the sale transaction once he has a buyer. The issue here is whether there is a qualified buyer and agreed price. His argument will be that you agreed to the price and therefore are obligated to fulfill your part of the sale transaction. You, of course, say you have not agreed, but he can still file suit, figuring you will cave in rather than go to court. He can threaten to sue you over several things excuses, but that doesn't mean any of them are valid. Just a scare tactic.

In my opinion, the fact that you still have the title gives you some leverage.  I would contact the person who paid the dealer for the RV, and tell them of the issues.  If the dealer wants to sue you for breach of contract, let them, and the facts will come out in court.  Also, in my opinion, that if the person who has paid money to the dealer has taken possession, without having the title, the RV could be considered stolen.

Ultimately, though the best idea would be to get a lawyer, if not that at least contact the Attorney General in your state and talk to the consumer fraud division.

Best of luck,

Paul

I wonder if it would be rude to ask about the commodity. Make of RV, Model, type, size and age.

Not at all - 2006 Fleetwood Southwind 32' Class A

The extensive forensic trail of emails is your best reason to contact an attorney. You have lots more to work with than the average "he said/she said" contract dispute.

Find an attorney!

Thanks JeniL...  Here is my experience... I bought a 1995 Winnebago Adventurer, 32' Class A in 2004. Just 2 years older than yours. 50K miles and in good shape.. fantastic cabinets and everything worked at that time. The carpet was dirty but had that taken care of during the PDI. Tires were 2 years old.

I paid 30,000 cash. Dealer fixed a few things afterwards without question at no charge. I was happy.

I am not questioning your quest for getting some sort of fairness deal. Sometimes one wins..sometimes one loses. Especially when buying used RV's .


Hope things work out for you in a reasonable way. I hate paying lawyers...never had to yet.

Thank you everyone for your input - sometimes it is nice just to get other opinions and hear others experiences...much appreciated!

I haven't had any good experiences with layers either, but in this case I think one is going to be necessary. However, as long as you keep the vehicle title in hand, you have leverage.

I mentioned the breech of contract lawsuit only because it is a common threat in disputes like this. Did not mean to say a suit would actually be filed, or that that jenlloyd was actually in violation.

Regardless of the outcome, there seems to be adequate evidence of unprofessional business practices at this dealers. I hope you will also share their name  with us. I doubt if many here would be interested in doing business with a store like that.

as a general rule attorneys seek money, not justice.

In my opinion...sometimes it's best to deal with crooks in a familiar manner.

call that dealer at inform him that you still have the title and you are going to call the police and report the RV was stolen when you were having the carpets cleaned. hang the phone up and see what happens next.

that will put the burden of proof on them.

I hate to say this but you are probably SOL.  You probably signed some type of power of attorney authorizing the consignment shop apply for title and then  transfer title at sale so this is probably a done deal.  A lot of these shops set up as a LLCs and there is generally not a whole lot to go after even after a successful lawsuit.  These shady guys get sued all the time.  You really need to do due diligence on the consignment dealer before signing anything.  I would only deal with outfits like PPL in Houston.

Just chalk this up to experience and don't make this mistake again in the future.

That's a lot of chalk! 

Jeff said:

That's a lot of chalk! 

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It sure is but what are you gonna do about?  Throw good money after a bad problem and deepen your losses?  Just saying..........

Of course it's easy for me to say because it's not my money. 

I really feel for this lady and her husband!

Well, I don't want to mention the name of the dealership until we end this battle...I want to give them a chance to do the right thing.

And we can honestly say that they do not have our signature on anything...we don't live in an area that has RV dealerships so we had to pay a driver to pick up the RV and driver about 150 miles - I explicitly asked the driver where was the Consignment Contract for us to sign and he had none. They only have a copy of our title, Registration and Insurance card in the RV.

We asked several times to have something in writing and our demands were ignored.

The Breach of Contract would be difficult for them as it was their employee who stated in an email "the buyer on your coach was under the assumption that it was a 2008 model. When he showed up here today he realized that it's a 2006 and retracted his offer. He will still buy the coach but has reduced his offer to $26,000."

This was 3 days after our acceptance of the offer. We immediately followed the above email up with a rejection and retraction of our acceptance with another demand for agreement in writing for the $38,500. Response from sales person same day stated "understood and will do their best to find another buyer with a better offer"

It was another 4 days after the above that the manager is jumping in now stating that when his sales person claimed there was a retraction of the offer, he had actually already accepted the $30,000 in cash, provided a bill of sale to the buyer and the buyer had taken delivery which does not make sense given his employees statement.

The other rub is that they are now claiming that the coach needed $10,000plus of repairs yet they have had the coach for 2 months and no mention of these alleged repairs were made until after they were pushing us to accept less than our agreed upon price. In fact, they are trying to say they knew about these repairs as soon as the coach arrived, yet we have an email from the salesperson stating that the hold up on photos for their website is only because of steam cleaning carpets, that it was imperative we have done or they would not be able to get the $38,500, 3 weeks after they received the coach.

Well, we are currently waiting for some sort of documentation from them and one can still hope that they will do the right thing.