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Consignors’ Complaints Pile Up Against Vintage Car Dealer
Several readers have written recently expressing concern about the evident tension between the Haggler and the dull and windy nitwit whose name is attached to this column. The Haggler has, for a long time, tried to make it clear that this nitwit is not to be confused with the Haggler, but the message does not seem to be getting through. If anything, the nitwit —
Hey Haggler. Can you stop with the insults, please? I’ve been pretty patient with your attacks, which are completely gratuitous, for years.
The nitwit speaks! Hey, how about if you zip it for the time being, hmmm? For, like, another five or six minutes. Because nobody comes to this space to listen to you. Seriously. They come for the Haggler.
They come for consumer justice.
Exactly! And the sooner you stop interrupting, the sooner we’ll get to consumer justice.
Wow. Deep breaths. You see, dear readers, what the Haggler puts up with? It’s sad. But it won’t deter the Haggler, who in this episode learns more than he needs to know about vintage cars.
Q. In May, I placed an ad on Craigslist to sell my 1969 Plymouth Road Runner, hoping to pocket at least $23,000. I was soon contacted by a rep at Dusty Old Cars, in Nashua, N.H., who said if I consigned the car to the company it would transport the vehicle to its premises, post photos on its website — which is viewed by buyers around the world — and net me as much as $35,000.
Good deal, it seemed. We signed a contract, stipulating that I would be paid a minimum of $23,000. Or so I thought. In August, I was enraged to get a check from Dusty for a little more than $18,000. The company had accepted an offer of $23,000 from which it subtracted a 10 percent commission, a number of fees and nearly $2,000 in repairs.
I maintain that the car was in fantastic shape — it had been almost completely refurbished — and these repairs were unnecessary. I’m not sure you can get any of my money back, but maybe you could make sure others don’t fall into the same trap.
— Joseph Mastromarino, Derry, N.H.
A. Mr. Mastromarino is one of dozens of unhappy Dusty Old Cars customers. The New Hampshire attorney general’s office has a list of nearly 90 complaints about the company on its site, and James Boffetti, the state’s senior assistant attorney general, told the Haggler that the office is currently investigating the company.
“Customers were told time and again, “We sold your car for $10,000 but we put $6,000 of repairs into it,’” Mr. Boffetti said on the telephone. “‘So minus our commission, here’s a check for $3,000.’”
He added that some customers were not paid a cent for their vehicles. Anthony Marotto, for instance, told the Haggler that he was paid unsatisfactory amounts for six of the 10 cars he consigned to Dusty and a grand total of zilch for four of them.
At least Mr. Marotto was never threatened with a lawsuit. That happened to Stephen Kelly, who received nada for the 1970 Cadillac DeVille that he had consigned to Dusty. After posting a complaint to a Better Business Bureau of New Hampshire website, he got a call from Dusty’s owner, Stephan Condodemetraky, who is heard in a TV news report about the matter, broadcast last year, issuing a warning on a voice mail message:
“You know, it took me about five minutes for me to locate you, sir. So it’s going to take about five minutes for my lawyer to locate you, too. And then we’re going to come after you personally. That’s after we file criminal charges with the police departments.”
The Haggler thinks it is time for readers to meet Mr. Condodemetraky, a highly voluble character with an affinity for long explanations and a deep love of jargon. (Instead of “jalopy” he prefers “materially problematic asset.”) But first a little heads-up. Do not expect this guy to retreat an inch.
“People are dishonest,” he said during two surprisingly entertaining conversations last week. Mr. Condodemetraky said that Mr. Mastromarino, for instance, had completely misrepresented the state of his Road Runner, and that the repairs performed were required to sell the car for $23,000. Further, he said, those repairs were allowed under the terms of the contracts Mr. Mastromarino signed.
As for Mr. Marotto and the four cars that didn’t yield him a dime, expensive and needed repairs wiped out any profit that he might have expected, Mr. Condodemetraky said.
Obvious question: Why not tell Mr. Marotto that he is going to wind up with nothing before the repairs or the sales occur?
“We told him at least three or four times,” Mr. Condodemetraky said. “Not only did we do that, we took him through the mechanical inspection of each asset.”
Untrue, said Mr. Marotto. Before he learned through the Haggler that the cars had been sold, he added, he had considered filing a stolen car report.
What about the 89 complaints on the attorney general’s website, the Haggler asked Mr. Condodemetraky.
“We’ve done almost 6,000 transactions since we opened in 2011,” he said. “Let’s say 5,500. Eighty-nine complaints is about 1.5 percent of all our customers.” He wondered: Can The New York Times match that tiny ratio of satisfied to unsatisfied customers? The Haggler is in no position to say. But you get the picture. In Mr. Condodemetraky’s view, every one of his critics is lying or mistaken, or both lying and mistaken.
But the sheer number of those critics is taking a toll. Last week, Dusty Old Cars filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing between $500,000 and $1 million in liabilities and naming 19 ex-customers in its list of creditors with the largest unsecured claims.
Do you think this has led Mr. Condodemetraky to rethink his business model? Oh, you are adorable.
“We continue to operate,” he said, with some pride. “We consigned cars today and we sold cars today.”
EMAIL: haggler@nytimes.com or tweet to @TheHagglerNYT. Keep it family-friendly and under 250 words, include your hometown and go easy on the caps-lock key. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.
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