Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in North Carolina

Our son is three and a half hours away at college and had car problems. We got a reference from a family friend whose niece lives in the college town. The estimate was $1000, we gave car repair facility a $500 deposit. This person had our car for a week before Christmas break, we finally drove the 7 hours round trip to bring our son home. After three weeks at home, the car still wasn't repaired so we let our son take my car back. The next weekend (making that 4 weeks the guy had the car) we drove back to get it. The man kept hiding behind his cell phone claiming he wasn't get our calls or texts. We stopped by his house and the car was in his driveway. It reaked of cigerette smoke, we are non-smokers, there was mail for someone other than him, as well as snacks and trash. It was apparent he had loaned my sons car out. We didn't realize any of this when we paid him the additional $500. When we got it back to our sons house, we realized it had not been repaired. We tried calling and texting this man and got no response. We had no other choice but to stop payment on the second check and felt we were just out the $500 from before. He took the check to a check cashing place, probably because this has happened to him before and he didn't want his bank to reverse it. We started getting calls from the check cashing facility saying we have to pay. We told them the work had not be completed, we tried to make contact with the car guy and they should not have cashed it. We also sent them back to the car repair guy but they are now calling us again as I'm sure he refused. Besides writing to the BBB, what can we do? We live in NC.


Asked on 2/13/11, 9:14 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Jeff Rosner Rosner Law Firm P.A.

I don't practice criminal law but you may contact local law enforcement to see if a criminal complaint would be in order.

Otherwise your civil remedy would be to sue this guy. You are in NC but I don't know where the college is. If it was in NC, you would sue him for $500.00, further damages and possibly unfair and deceptive trade practices. I'm not sure what the likelihood of collecting anything would be depending on his financial state. There are other factors that would need to be considered such as whether to sue the business, the individual or both, etc. You may want to consult with an attorney in the college town if you were going to pursue this route.

As far as the check cashing facility, I would demand that they cease calling you and follow it up with a written letter certified mail return receipt. Keep a log of the name of the people calling you, what they say, etc. Indicate in the letter that they have no claims against you, that you have never dealt with them (no privity of contract) and that they need to look to the auto repair guy. If they continue to harass you, you will file a complaint against them for unfair debt collection, etc.

- Jeff

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Answered on 2/14/11, 6:11 am


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