Is "stealing" your order Identity Theft?

[Cyberwiz64]

Thanks for all the feedback. You see all the post here about dealers claiming the truck never arrived or you didn't pick up with XX hours/days and they resold it. Especially people that have been waiting along time. I have had my experiences with really great Ford dealers and some really bad ones.

Ford has talked tough about dealers but have they actually followed through? I believe there was a 3 strike plan where if you had issues you lost 1 month allocations, 2nd strike was 3 or 6 months. Third strike was no allocations for a year which was considered the "death penalty". In away losing allocation kind of punishes the customers hoping their order came it.

So basically it's a crappy situation and no one can do anything.

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[gte105u]

Well, I am a lawyer, and I think the non-lawyers are right on the money. The catch is, of course, that state laws vary, and I haven't the foggiest idea what the law is in Florida. But I don't see how this set of facts would rise to the level of identity theft.
On the issue of fraud, maybe. And there might be a way to get some kind of compensation civilly. Say, you had an XLT that you were supposed to buy for $28K; they sold it out from under you; you had to by one for $38K. Damages are $10K. But that's more of a law school question than a real case.
There may be ways to punish them by snitching them off to the consumer protection people in Florida, assuming there are such people. But at a certain point running laps on the squirrel wheel of the law can be debilitating and, eventually, fruitless.

The problem with trying to recover damages is proving they violated the terms and conditions. They always have so many notes, gotchas, etc. that they point to in order to CYA. Did you drink beer on the second Sunday of the month? No Maverick for you! Even if you can prove they acted in violation of the contract, is the price you paid today really proof of damages? Different time, different market, new vs. used, and most likely slightly different vehicle. I could see that being argued either way. I would think maybe the profit they made above what they sold it to you for would be another metric for damages. But that has flaws as well. Overall seems like the answer is pursuing the dealer for $5k-$10 of damages on a $20k-$40k truck is an exercise in futility like you implied.

The only angle I can think of to add to all this is that, I believe, during the Wells-Fargo cross-selling scandal in 2016 it was stated that the act of using customers' PII (personal identifying information), even without running their credit or signing them up for services, was enough to be constituted as fraud.

But that was also surrounding a national bank that created over 1.5 million fake accounts and services; I doubt car dealerships would face nearly the same scrutiny or level of investigation.

That's what I was getting at. There is the potential to get to fraud but identity theft is a stretch. For Fraud it would likely need to be such a major number of cases to make it worth pursuing, and you would need inside information showing it was intentional. Even then, the penalties would likely be financial as punitive fines. Hard to pierce the veil of incorporation to get a person actually arrested.

 

[Timothyd]

I am hoping there might be some lawyers out there that can kick their .02 in.

A dealership, from what I understand, cannot order a Maverick for stock purposes. To order a Maverick, a customer has to supply a valid driver's license for the Customer Verification Order Process (COVP). The intention of the COVP is to assure Ford that their is an actual customer placing the order for a Maverick. If there is no DL, there is no COVP, there is no order. The bottom line is a Ford dealership cannot place and order without a customer providing identifying documentation to get past the COVP. No customer, no order.

I am wondering if a Ford dealership uses a customer's identification to order a vehicle they have no intention of selling to the customer, does that constitute identify theft?

The dealership is reselling the customer's vehicle, without their consent, to make a huge mark up. This is not being done "accidentally" and it's being done for financial gain to the detriment of the customer. The dealership may argue that the customer could drive off the lot and flip the truck and make a huge mark up.

In my mind, they are using the customer's personal information to make money to the detriment of the customer. With all the complaints about theft out there, someone might want to reach out to a lawyer and see if they can pursue class action.

If there is a lawyer out there, I would love to know if that constitutes "identity theft" in some capacity?

It's just plain theft

 

[gte105u]

It's just plain theft

How so?

 

[Timothyd]

How so?

If it belonged to you and someone took it, it's theft. Of course there's a lot of wiggle room for the perp there.

 

[boe757]

It's just sad to see this happening and legally, nothing was done wrong.

possibly in today's world - good thinking outside the box; fraud, unjust enrichment. the problem is the damages are not great enough to get any legal civil interest, and there is little reward on the criminal side, plus it's a long wait for government intervention. The Golden rule-those with the gold : rule. Get your deposit, move on, in a couple years Mavericks will be readily available

 

[gte105u]

If it belonged to you and someone took it, it's theft. Of course there's a lot of wiggle room for the perp there.

But it never belonged to you. It belongs to you once you sign the contract and make your earnest payment. Even then it can revert back if you don't adhere to the contract and/or financing doesn't come through. It's not theft, because they didn't take something you own yet.

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