BMW of Macon -Dealer switched the papers and forged signature

Ask the Hackrs
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I leased a 2021 X3 through a broker in the forum. I am in FL, the broker is in a different state and the dealer in different. Made a deal with the broker on LH. Agreed on the price. Paid $500 via venmo. I was connected to the dealer
Noticed some red flags

  1. The dealer switched the car from what was originally agreed on. When I asked for specs I noticed the discrepancy. I raised it with the dealer/broker and they fixed it by giving me upgraded wheels
  2. Paperwork was fedexed to me I sent it back the following day and dealer stopped responding to me. No updates for 3 days about car shipment. I raised it with broker and then the dealer responded and finally shipped the car.
  3. Car was shipped with fuel tank almost empty and did not had any of my signed paperwork.
  4. I sent an email asking for signed paperwork and I was told that it will be shipped to me. He also sent scanned copy as an attachment.
  5. I logged into the BMW account which was set up today. Deal was closed on 4th an. I noticed that my allocated mileage is 10k instead of 12k. I rechecked the paperwork that I received few days ago and noticed that it is different then what I signed. Capitalized cost reduction is 2147 as compared to 1447. My initials on that pages is faked. Two other page have my fake signature.

I have sent a text and message(LH) to my broker and will wait for his response. I am assuming that its not the broker’s fault at all so will let him fix it for me before revealing the name here.

What would you guys do if you were in my shoes?

UPDATE - 02/23/2021
I was finally able to get my car registered in FL. It took a month an half and had to deal with a room full of corrupt and unethical employees at this dealership. Spent hours sending email/calls and had to work as a project manager to get this fixed.

What Happened(my conclusion)- The Finance Director at the dealership tried to pocket $750 loyalty on my behalf(Even though I did not qualify for it). I think my Sales Rep the, Sales Rep Coworker and all are part of this. They usually get away with it but got caught this time. The forger will no get into any trouble.

Legal - I contacted few attorneys and I was told that all they can do it get the contract voided or get me my direct damage back. All suggested against going the legal way. This happens more often then what we can think of.

Me - In the end I was not paid any compensation. The money that they were stealing from BMW was passed on to me hence lowering my monthly by $25. I spent hours chasing them and made three trips to DMV to even get this registered.

Broker - @Clutch I give 2 stars to the broker. Sleeping with the devil makes you the devil. I was promised a straightforward process but it was not. I had to chase the dealer ship to get the car shipped, to send the document over and to get the car registered. So, there were many problems apart from forgery. The broker did refund the broker fee but no not until I mentioned it in this thread.

Details
I leased a vehicle through a broker and I reside out of state. The paperwork was done via fedex. After 14 days or so when it showed up on BMW website I noticed that my allocated mileage was 30k instead of 36k. Upon deep diving and rechecking the executed paper I noticed that my signature was forged and numbers were altered. This deal was conducted via a broker. The car was to be shipped to me.
OMAR Saleh -The Sales Rep- - Stop paying attention after deal was done. I had to contact again and again to get the vehicle shipped to me. He sent me paperwork with forged signature. Never sent the title work to MY DMV after promising. I had to send mails again and again to get the copy of executed paperwork.
Jason Diaz – Called and lied pretending to be the co-worker boss to cover up the forgery. Lied that GM is aware of situation. Lied that BMW is correcting contract and lied that employee will be fired.
Scott Smith (GM) - Did not take any action on the employee who conducted the forgery and made me deal with the same employee throughout the process. I spent more than a month sending email/phone calls. On the calls he sounded like it was not a big deal. Big part of the problem.
Michael Perez- Finance Director- Forged my signature, kept on sending paperwork with mistakes to me. Delayed every step of the process and had to be pushed all through even after committing the forgery. Got away with no punishment what so ever.

  1. Deal Agreed on 4th Jan
  2. Paperwork mailed back 6th Jan
  3. Jan6th- Jan 11th- Chased OMAR via phone call and emails as car was not shipped. He kept ignoring
  4. Jan 12th – Finally Car was shipped and received.
  5. Jan 12th – Copy of paperwork with forged signature email to me by Omar sales rep after asking for it again and again. He said title paperwork has been sent to my DMV(Never sent)
  6. Jan 18th- I noticed the incorrect number on BMW website and realized that my number was forged
  7. Jan 18th -I reached out to my sales rep OMAR who said things will be corrected right away and GM will contact me
  8. Jan- 18th.A co-worked of OMAR, Jason called pretending to be his boss and said that GM is made aware of the situation. Corrected paperwork sent to BMW and the person involved will not be working there anymore.
  9. Jan 19th – Copied GM on the email conversation with Jason and got a call back on 19th. The GM (Scott Smith) said he was not aware of this and will look into it and get back to me.
  10. 20th – He called back admitted to his employee making a mistake and said the employee will be suspended. The employee Michael Perez. GM mentioned that the finance director tried to back $750 BMW loyalty for themselves.
  11. 22nd Jan- new paperwork was sent and had mistaken in it. Same Michael guy sent it
  12. 26th Jan – Corrected paperwork received singed and sent back
  13. 1st Feb- Contacted them as BMW was not showing new number. They never sent the paperwork to BMW
  14. 12th Feb- After pushing them multiple times corrected shows up on BMW website
  15. 16th Feb- Went to DMV but Michael missed a paperwork
  16. 18th Feb- Went to DMV again to get temporary tags because the older tag expired.
  17. 19th Feb – Went to DMV who finally received all paperwork and was able to register vehicle. Recheck the paperwork and noticed that they sent the same forged paperwork to DMV

In the end- My miles was corrected. The money that Michael was trying to pocket was added to my account and hence payment was decreased by $25 per month. No compensation was granted for the ordeal that I had to go through. It took 1.5 month for this to sort out. The employee involved was not disciplined and got away with the mess.

I am not sure how many other they have done this to. I was lucky to check the information else I would had discovered it after 3 years during turn in.

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Consult an attorney

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Do you have a copy of your original paperwork?

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Wow, if this is true, lawyer up. If you have your original paperwork with your signature, that’ll be major. I don’t not believe you, but I am super surprised a dealership would execute this sort of petty fraud (changing amounts due, mileage allotment) for a little bit of extra $.

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Generally the shipping company doesn’t like the tank being filled since it reduces weight and reduces the severity of any fires. But also if you got a LH worthy deal, I doubt the dealer wants to spend another $50 on gas.

As far as the contract, the 4th was the last day of the year for most manufacturers. I am guessing that the dealer was rushing to get in the paperwork for it to count. Obviously to do that, they couldn’t resend you the paperwork so someone took some liberties.

For the miles, the easiest fix is for the dealer to compensate you for the extra miles. 25 cents per mile works out to $1500. You can use that to prepay BMW FS for the additional miles.

And sometimes the FI manager might play around with the cap cost to make the payment work out on the contract. As long as any additional money didn’t come out of your pocket, it doesn’t really matter.

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I did take pictures of the paperwork.
I have LH correspondence with broker on 12k miles.
I have email correspondence with the dealer on the same too.

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Correspondence doesn’t mean anything. Only the contract counts, good that you have a copy.

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Wow! you are downplaying this. Gas tank was just an example. But the real problem is they faked my signature and changed stuff after I signed it.
$1500 cash from them will definitely fix a part of the issue but my residual also went up by $500.

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Service is Service. I get plenty of LH deals and I still get a full tank. Just because the dealer dropped his pants doesn’t mean they should skip on the service.

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I’m not disagreeing with that. I’m just stating why he probably didn’t get a full tank of gas.

I’m not downplaying anything. I’m simply stating what happened. And a solution for that particular problem.

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That’s definitely shady as hell! I would definitely make a backup of those pictures somewhere (Google drive etc.) And lawyer up.

Keep us updated on the dealer and broker. I do not believe the broker is at fault here and I don’t think they would want to ruin their business on LH over something stupid as such. I do think you should reveal the dealership so people are aware who it was with and maybe even recheck their contracts.

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Just for clarity, did the original contract you physically signed have 12k miles per year or 10k?

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The only page that have the miles information does not have room for signature. I rechecked it and it said 12k for the full term.

The paper they sent me back says 10,000 then they crosses it out and wrote 30,000 and added my initial. So, sounds like this was all planned.

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OP, I would not go straight for an attorney - they cost money. You have reached out to the broker, they can help you make it right or they can ignore you. Hopefully they do the first (I suspect they would as they made the connect). If not, torch them and move on from them.

If they do not help, I would reach out to the GM directly either through a phone call or though an email. When you do get through to him make sure you use the words/terms fraud and “bad faith.” He should make it right either by fixing your contract or otherwise compensating you. You have them by the balls. If the F&I manager (or whomever) made those changes to your contract, they were probably banking on that fact that most people never read or compare their contract after signing it ever again. They committed an illegal act and I would think the GM would just want that to go away.

If this does not work - then get an attorney.

What the dealer wants to spend has nothing to do with it. If they didn’t put gas in it for the transportation/fire reasons, that is fine but they should communicate that to the buyer. Doing it just because they already felt they lost enough money is not a good reason and probably a basis for the buyer to mention it on the survey and them not getting good CSI.

Well, reasons or not, it is fraud. Literal fraud. I don’t get any sense that you think it was right or wrong but I would hope you as a dealer would think it was wrong. They are not allowed to take liberties. And even if this was the reason they did it. They are dumb because you can always punch the car and get the contract re-written. It would still count for any sort of incentive or unts they were chasing.

This is a big deal. The fact that you are making it seem like it is not a big deal is pretty crazy for a dealer on tis site. It may be an easy fix and the F&I manager may have taken “liberties” but if they did it is absolute BS and the OP should be outraged. You should not give advice on matters like these.

If you have pictures of the paperwork you signed and it says 12K miles then that is all you need. I would lean on that and not what the broker or anyone else said. Likely if it came to it, the only thing that will matter is what YOU signed.

He really is. Pretty freaking dumb IFYAM. You are right to be concerned and seek remedy.

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Thanks you buddy!
Broker just responded and promised to make it right. So, I will wait for him to fix it if this does not work then I will call the GM. I will update you guys with progress tomorrow.

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Faking signatures on contract? If that’s true I think that dealership should go out of business.

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Playing devils advocate here, but where was it stated that the buyer would get gas? I know a handful of BMW dealers that don’t gas cars before in person delivery. Obviously if OP wants to ding them on CSI they can, but I doubt they are getting a survey at this point. But I don’t think a car without gas (not that I wouldn’t gas a car before delivery) is a red flag for anything malicious on the level of forging signatures.

I’m glad you understood my point. I am simply stating what happened behind the scenes that led to this situation. I tend to be reserved in my judgements, especially on internet posts but if you want a strong statement, obviously it is fraud and OP should be concerned.

I can give advice on any matters that I choose to. I was offering a solution to one particular problem.

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That is a bigger deal than I thought it to be. I read your post initially as more of an clerical error where someone fat fingered 10k instead of 12k.

Crossing out what was already on a contract and then falsely signing is highly illegal and should not be tolerated. I would seriously consider reaching out to the GM/owner. They could be aware of this, but if they are not, it is something they would very much like to know.

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As someone who ships the majority of their business, that is completely normal. If shipping by air, they don’t allow ya know large amounts of flammable gasoline, same with trucks (usually cars are shipped empty or on vapors/low fuel).

The rest of the stuff is beyond LH advice grade and can only be resolved with the parties pertinent to this conversation. From a customer service perspective should you have been alerted car would be shipped empty, probably, but that’s just my opinion.

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They switched the entire paper with the numbers. The “Retail Lease Agreement” is just a totally different copy with different numbers and someone else signed it(fake signatures)