One man’s hellish experience buying a Chevy Silverado is inspiring hundreds to offer to help.
His daughter Lanna (@lanna7900) shared the winding tale in a multi-part series on TikTok this week.
As she explains it, what should’ve been a simple transaction has turned into a “nightmare.”
Thanks to TikTok’s help, there may be a happy ending in sight.
Car purchase goes horribly wrong
In December, Lanna’s 67-year-old retired father bought a 2015 Chevy Silverado. She says he paid $31,000.
On Friday, Lanna told the Daily Dot that he paid $8,000 in cash and wrote a check for the remaining $23,000.
They were reportedly told that the title would arrive in the mail.
Months went by, Lanna says, and the title never showed up. So they contacted the dealership. They purportedly informed Lanna and her father that the dealership was being sold and thus was processing a backlog of titles.
Lanna says they offered to give them another paper tag so he could continue driving the Chevy.
“Here’s where it gets weird,” she says in one of the TikToks.
The second paper tag expired on April 21, per Lanna. As the deadline loomed, they still didn’t have the title.
That Chevy was about to become a $31,000 lawn ornament, Lanna says.
Increasingly concerned over the situation, they sent a letter “politely” demanding the Chevy’s title by April 18, Lanna says, giving it 10 business days to comply.
Then they tried calling the Chevy dealership.
“To our surprise, all the phone numbers were disconnected,” Lanna says.
It was starting to look like they might never get the Chevy’s title, so Lanna took the matter to TikTok.
“The whole reason I went to TikTok was because I had been hitting brick wall after brick wall,” Lanna said on Friday. “I figured somebody out there is going to have some good advice.”
The story takes a turn
Advice poured in after Lanna posted her story. A person who said they live in Texas said the same thing happened to them, and they were able to get a bonded title.
Another suggested Lanna contact the Department of Transportation, she says, so she did.
Running out of options, eventually, they took the matter to the police.
“There’s nothing worse than when you get to the police department and the first thing out of their mouth is, ‘We’ve been looking for your truck,’” Lanna recalled on Friday.
She says the police told her the dealership had been taking trade-ins without paying off the loans. This means the lender technically still owned the vehicles.
There were eight vehicles affected, according to Lanna, including her father’s Chevy.
This put ownership of the vehicle even more in limbo.
Who owns the dealership?
The listing for the dealership says it’s owned by Joe Maus Automotive Group. That is inaccurate.
Reached by phone on Friday, J.D. Collins, the general manager of another Joe Maus dealership, explained that they were going to buy the dealership but ultimately didn’t. The Google listing had already been changed by then, he said.
“From what I understand, the lady that owned the dealership went out of business,” Collins said, adding, “It’s nothing to do with Joe Maus.”
Collins said that the Chevy, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram dealership in Waynesboro, Georgia, is actually owned by Beth Grant. Reporting in a local outlet confirms that Grant recently sold it.
Late Friday morning, an employee at another dealership that Grant reportedly owns a portion of said they’d pass along the Daily Dot’s request for comment.
As of this writing, Grant had not responded.
Lanna provided a screenshot of an article that says local authorities investigated the issue with the unpaid loans. They purportedly identified eight vehicles whose loans weren’t paid off and ultimately closed the investigation.
“All affected parties have now received resolution, with only one matter still pending in civil court,” the article states.
Will Lanna’s father ever get the title?
As it turned out, the Chevy was one of two vehicles that a police chief in a different town traded in, according to Lanna. She told the Daily Dot he realized something was wrong when his bank called about a missed car payment. Then he contacted the police in Waynesboro, Georgia, where the dealership is located.
Lanna says the owner paid the remaining balance on the loan to “make things right.” Now, the bank is sending the previous owner the title, she says, which he plans to turn over to them.
If so, that Chevy won’t be an extremely expensive lawn ornament anymore.
Today, Lanna feels optimistic but says she won’t completely consider it a victory until they have the title in hand.
She says the outpouring of kindness from strangers on the internet “really does restore your faith in humanity.”
“Thank you to everybody on TikTok because it was amazing and I cannot wait to get this title in hand.”
@lanna7900 #dealersipdrama #dodgedealership #fyp #foryou #wheresthetitle ♬ original sound – Lanna
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