I used Dashub to broker a deal on a 2013 Tesla Model S with a salvage title offered for auction on Copart.
I informed my Dashub “sales specialist” Leif Causey, that I was interested in that specific vehicle a couple hours before the auction started. Since I had lost several previous auctions with prebids I told him I wanted him to bid on the auction live but not to exceed $25,000.
I watched the auction as it was occurring live online 30 October 2017. The final winning bid was 22,200. Moments later I attempt to contact Leif to see if this was his winning bid but I could not get a hold of him. I left a message and he finally returned my call over an hour later. He explained that the auction did not meet the reserve price but that they contacted the seller and he agreed to sell the car for $25,000. I was reluctant as I was at that point thinking $22,200 but I agreed on the $25k price.
I was invoiced by Dashub for $25,000 for the car, $499 Dashub fee, $85 Dashub document fee, $808 Copart fee, $779 to ship the car, and $1500 in FL state sales tax. I had a $2500 deposit in with Dashub and I paid the balance with two separate wire transactions as my wire limit is $25k per day for an online transaction and the total I owed after they used my deposit was $26,171, the grand total was 28,671.
10 days or so later the car arrives via shipper at my house. I right away notice its much worse than what the pictures showed. Particularly the curtain and drivers seat airbag had deployed while the auction pictures hid this detail. In the pictures the airbags were tucked back in place and the camera was angled to hide that the airbags had deployed. I was annoyed at this because it was clearly deceptive and shady on the sellers part so I called Leif to tell him. He sounded sympathetic to the dilemma but in the end he said nothing can be done as they are only brokering this deal and all Copart sales are “As Is.” I was upset but I understood that it was my gamble so I ate the additional cost to also fix the airbags which was significant in both time and money.
Fast forward several weeks and its mid December and I still had not received the title. At this point I start to worry about it as I have had money invested in the car in parts as well as time repairing it. If I didn't have the title the car would be only good for parts so there would be no reason to fix it. After much back and forth they send me the title that I needed to sign so they could then transfer it in my name. 27 December I finally after almost two full months received the title. It was also around this time I was informed to check the Copart invoice against the Dashub invoice by a friend. He said they commonly try to scam more money out of unsuspecting buyers by charging more than what the car sold for.
I called Copart and asked for the invoice and they wouldn't give it to me saying I wasn't listed as the buyer. I told the guy I suspected Dashub was overcharging me and asked if he could just tell me if the car sold for less than $25k. He said it did. So now I was onto something. I looked up the previous owner online from the original title. It was a small dealer I called them and they confirmed with me that they sold the car at the Copart auction for $24,000.
Armed with this information I called Dashub and demanded the Copart invoice and any overages refunded to me. I estimated that they likely overcharged me between the actual car price, taxes and copart fees about $1500 but unless I saw the actual invoice I would not know for sure the exact amount. I spoke to Stan Johnson VP at Dashub and he told me to talk with Michael Lederman (not sure his title). Michael called me 9 Jan and only offered excuses. When I demanded the Copart invoice he said that's not how they do business but that he will look into it. That was 5 days ago and I suspect they will not reveal their scam or refund my money at this point. I decided that my best course of action at this point would be to get the $1500 deposit I paid with my USAA credit card in lieu of pursuing them via litigation and wasting even more time and money.
Now Dashub will argue that they are a car dealer and that they sold me the car for $25,000, but this is not the case. I contacted Dashub to broker the deal on this car. I brought this car to their attention. They never took that car into their inventory, no Dashub employee has ever even touched or seen this car, they never even had it on their website as a potential vehicle to bid on. They may be a car dealer as that is the requirement to bid on most salvage auctions but they were paid a fee to broker this sale for me and collected that fee on top of an inflated price for the car.
This is equivalent to a real estate agent charging you more than the sales price for a house and pocketing the difference. Or a stock broker buying stock at a lower price than you were willing to pay and pocketing the difference. It is deceptive and it is fraud and I won't stand for it. Please help me fight these thieves by spreading the word on this scam. Also if you know anyone who bought anything through them demand to see the auction houses invoice to check for overcharging.
I informed my Dashub “sales specialist” Leif Causey, that I was interested in that specific vehicle a couple hours before the auction started. Since I had lost several previous auctions with prebids I told him I wanted him to bid on the auction live but not to exceed $25,000.
I watched the auction as it was occurring live online 30 October 2017. The final winning bid was 22,200. Moments later I attempt to contact Leif to see if this was his winning bid but I could not get a hold of him. I left a message and he finally returned my call over an hour later. He explained that the auction did not meet the reserve price but that they contacted the seller and he agreed to sell the car for $25,000. I was reluctant as I was at that point thinking $22,200 but I agreed on the $25k price.
I was invoiced by Dashub for $25,000 for the car, $499 Dashub fee, $85 Dashub document fee, $808 Copart fee, $779 to ship the car, and $1500 in FL state sales tax. I had a $2500 deposit in with Dashub and I paid the balance with two separate wire transactions as my wire limit is $25k per day for an online transaction and the total I owed after they used my deposit was $26,171, the grand total was 28,671.
10 days or so later the car arrives via shipper at my house. I right away notice its much worse than what the pictures showed. Particularly the curtain and drivers seat airbag had deployed while the auction pictures hid this detail. In the pictures the airbags were tucked back in place and the camera was angled to hide that the airbags had deployed. I was annoyed at this because it was clearly deceptive and shady on the sellers part so I called Leif to tell him. He sounded sympathetic to the dilemma but in the end he said nothing can be done as they are only brokering this deal and all Copart sales are “As Is.” I was upset but I understood that it was my gamble so I ate the additional cost to also fix the airbags which was significant in both time and money.
Fast forward several weeks and its mid December and I still had not received the title. At this point I start to worry about it as I have had money invested in the car in parts as well as time repairing it. If I didn't have the title the car would be only good for parts so there would be no reason to fix it. After much back and forth they send me the title that I needed to sign so they could then transfer it in my name. 27 December I finally after almost two full months received the title. It was also around this time I was informed to check the Copart invoice against the Dashub invoice by a friend. He said they commonly try to scam more money out of unsuspecting buyers by charging more than what the car sold for.
I called Copart and asked for the invoice and they wouldn't give it to me saying I wasn't listed as the buyer. I told the guy I suspected Dashub was overcharging me and asked if he could just tell me if the car sold for less than $25k. He said it did. So now I was onto something. I looked up the previous owner online from the original title. It was a small dealer I called them and they confirmed with me that they sold the car at the Copart auction for $24,000.
Armed with this information I called Dashub and demanded the Copart invoice and any overages refunded to me. I estimated that they likely overcharged me between the actual car price, taxes and copart fees about $1500 but unless I saw the actual invoice I would not know for sure the exact amount. I spoke to Stan Johnson VP at Dashub and he told me to talk with Michael Lederman (not sure his title). Michael called me 9 Jan and only offered excuses. When I demanded the Copart invoice he said that's not how they do business but that he will look into it. That was 5 days ago and I suspect they will not reveal their scam or refund my money at this point. I decided that my best course of action at this point would be to get the $1500 deposit I paid with my USAA credit card in lieu of pursuing them via litigation and wasting even more time and money.
Now Dashub will argue that they are a car dealer and that they sold me the car for $25,000, but this is not the case. I contacted Dashub to broker the deal on this car. I brought this car to their attention. They never took that car into their inventory, no Dashub employee has ever even touched or seen this car, they never even had it on their website as a potential vehicle to bid on. They may be a car dealer as that is the requirement to bid on most salvage auctions but they were paid a fee to broker this sale for me and collected that fee on top of an inflated price for the car.
This is equivalent to a real estate agent charging you more than the sales price for a house and pocketing the difference. Or a stock broker buying stock at a lower price than you were willing to pay and pocketing the difference. It is deceptive and it is fraud and I won't stand for it. Please help me fight these thieves by spreading the word on this scam. Also if you know anyone who bought anything through them demand to see the auction houses invoice to check for overcharging.
