Friendly Car Deal Goes Downhill...Fast!

When your 80-year old neighbor offers to sell you her car, what could possibly go wrong?

A couple from Hempstead thought they had an agreement to buy their neighbor's car.

Robert Adams and his wife Michelle had every hope of buying a used car from their 80-year-old neighbor, Gertrude.

She even agreed to let them pay for it over time. Things were going smoothly, then all of a sudden things fell apart.

"I want my money back," said Robert. "That's all I want, that's all I want is my money back. I don't want anything else," he said, "I don't want the car anymore."

"It was a very nice, pretty car, and it had low mileage," said Robert. "She came to my door with a note saying she was willing to negotiate with me, so I gave her a $200 down payment," he said. "I'd give her money every week."

They agreed on a price of $3,200.00 for a red, Chrysler 300 M-Class, 2000.

Even after Robert lost his job, he kept up the payments. "I was still giving her payments from my unemployment, me and my wife, money we got from the stimulus. I sold my car to try and get this car." They'd been giving her one hundred, two hundred dollars at a time, even after she moved away. Each time they'd get a receipt for the amount. So far they'd paid her $1,950.00 dollars.

"Me and my wife kept making our payments and at the last minute she turns around and says she's going to sell it to a member of her church," Robert exclaimed. "I says OK, we'll take the money back. Then she tried to give me the money with a bad check,". "The bank wouldn't even touch it.

That's when Robert called Help Me Howard.

Using the VIN number, we found out there was a lien on the car, so the title wasn't clear. Gertrude couldn't sell the car to them or to anyone else.

We tried asking church members for information, but they were less then helpful.

A church representative did say that Robert, "should be hearing from someone", but the only phone call from the church directed Robert to call their attorney.

Shortly after our first attempt to contact Gertrude, she finally sent the Adamses a money order for $1,100.00. But we still wanted to find out exactly what the problem had been.

Finally Howard tracked Gertrude down at her new apartment to get her side of the story.
Gertrude didn't want to go into detail, she insisted that Robert had been paid and accused him of "playing" Howard.

Gertrude insisted she only owed Robert Adams $1,100.00 and the refund had nothing to do with our visit to her church.

By the way, Robert still needs a car. During this interlude with Gertrude, he put down another $500 deposit on a different car, but things were taking so long with Gertrude, that he couldn't pay for that car either, so we got that deposit back for him too.