Delaware Public Auto Auction

The letter I sent to Delaware Public Auto Auction below tells the story. It's long but details how these people operate.

I will try to trim it down later. This is a work in progress, so I'll add some more recent info soon - one being a nice chat I had with with my good friend and DPAA's manager Brandon Price wherein he said that---

I was a grown woman and should know how to buy a car.

Oh yes he did!

I have other information regarding their license. Delaware Public Auto Auction is a trade name for a business called "Car Auction & Reinsurance" which has several licenses, one of which is as a motor vehicle dealer. This is important as I will explain later because manager Brandon Price denies being a dealership and since he's just an auction, he is not held to the same laws as a dealership would be.

Perhaps he's referring to Delaware Code, Title 21, Chapter 63 which states that "disclosure (the requirement that dealers disclose when a vehicle title has been branded "reconstructed", "flood damaged", "salvage" or was a "taxi") shall not prevent any person from otherwise bringing any action under any law for a failure to disclose material information concerning the condition or prior use of any vehicle."

Yeah, I bet that's what brandon was thinking about and trying to get around.

Here's the letter that tells the story. Like I said, I'll try to trim it down later. This is a work in progress with more story to tell.

BTW, Doug Powell is our illustrious owner of Delaware Public Auto Auction.

Let's give it up for Dougie and Brandon of DPAA! Put your hands together, people!

May 2, 2019

Mr. Doug Powell AND Brandon Price
Delaware Public Auto Auction
2323 N. DuPont Parkway
New Castle, DE 19720
302-656-0500

Dr. Mr. Powell :

I hope you are having a nice day! My name is Kim and I bought a 2004 KIA Sorento on February 14th, 2019 after the car my church had bought me was totaled in a wreck. I am a sick woman on disability who has very little financial resources who needs a vehicle to get to doctor's appointments. So when the Sorento failed inspection because it had serious problems (See Inspection Report and Repair Estimate) that I was being told probably wouldn't be worth repairing and that I should just get rid of the Sorento altogether, I was devastated. I don't live in an area that has good public transportation and now I have no way of getting to my frequent doctor's appointments. I would have sent this letter sooner, but I have been too sick to be able to handle my affairs in a timely fashion.

Giving your staff 2 to 3 days advance notice, I drove from the Washington D.C. area in a rental car specifically to buy a Saturn that I had seen on your website for $3200, if everything checked out. But when I arrived, your sales associate said that he would not sell me the Saturn because it made a disturbing noise. When I tried to turn it on, it sounded as if the battery was nearly dead, too. Again, the sales associate said that he didn't feel right selling me the Saturn, and for the second or third time told me that he did not make commissions.

I was disappointed and perturbed. I asked why they did not have this all figured out before I drove all the way there, in a rental car. no less. The sales associate said that he didn't know why it wasn't checked out and seemed remorseful. I felt that since he was honest about the Saturn, that he was someone to be trusted.

I asked if there was anything else in the same price range that I could look at. He showed me the Sorento. It drove well and I generally liked it, despite that the casing under the driver's seat was busted so that the seat could not be adjusted, but it cost considerably more. By now it was dark outside. I asked for a flashlight so I could look underneath for rust or other obvious problems. He told me to use the light on my cell phone. I told him that it wasn't bright enough and asked him again if he could find me a flashlight. He left and I didn't see him for a little while. When he returned, he did not have a flashlight and the conversation went in another direction. Later I asked him again for a flashlight and was put off again and distracted by a change of subject.

It was fairly late by this time. The auction (Note that a poorly attended auction was held in another room while I was there, but I did not attend it or participate in it in any way) was well over, and the sales associate and I were the only ones there since it was past closing time. I estimate that I had been there for nearly 4 hours. I was in a stressful dilemma, feeling stranded with no way to get home unless I either kept the rental for another day (it was to be back by morning), cutting into my limited funds for buying a car, or make a hasty decision to turn over every penny I had to buy the Sorento that very night. To make matters worse, I was too tired and worn down by the complications and stress to make the trip home, so no matter what decision I made, I was now going to have to cut in to my funds even more to rent a hotel room in New Castle.

The asking price for the Sorento was over $4000. So this was a huge leap. I decided to offer $3500 for the Sorento, which was accepted. The associate threw in the part for the seat repair and said it would be mailed to me, which I NEVER received. With all my money spent on the purchase alone, I would now have to let the Sorento sit for several months as I saved up for taxes and registration fees, and whatever repairs might be needed which I expected to be minor.

I feel that I was put in a high stress & pressure situation, from allowing me to make the trip there to buy a vehicle that I'm then told has too many problems to be sold, the point being to instill a sense of trust that would lower my guard, to directing me to a higher priced vehicle, to ignoring my requests for a flashlight so I wouldn't see how bad things looked underneath ( have been told violates disclosure laws), to generally dragging out the process late into the night, wearing me down and making me more pliable. Also, I have heard this called a "bait and switch" tactic. And the sales associate making himself seem trustworthy is all part of the grand plan, I'm told.

I don't like being so cynical and prefer to have a more positive view of humanity. Therefore, I choose to believe in innocence over deliberation.

While other mechanics were reading the Sorento last rites, I found a repair shop willing to weld the broken parts, thereby greatly reducing repair costs to $680, a hundred dollars of which is for the part that your associate already promised me. Even so, it would take me over a year to come up with this money, if at all, considering the money I would have to spend on transportation to get to doctor's appointments, therapy, treatments, etc. I am in a truly disastrous state of affairs.

So please, for the sake of peace and fairness, would you do the same and work with me to get the Sorento up and running? I am not asking for a refund or even for you to cover all the repairs. I am just asking you to please pay $100 for the part that was promised me and and then split the rest of the bill of $580 with me, which would be $290 for a total of $390.

If I weren't so poor, I'd pay for the entire bill myself. But the fact is, I am poor and being without a car puts my health at risk. You can only bum rides from your friends so much...

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope maybe it will strike a chord with you to help out a bit.

Respectfully,

Kim B