- One woman’s struggle to get back a car she legally owns.
A used automobile can be a great deal. You can get a well-maintained, nice car for possibly a fraction of the price of a new one. But you have to be careful with what you buy.
Your seemingly perfect new used car could have any number of issues lurking just before the surface. The brakes could give out on the ride home or the places you can’t see could be completely rusted.
Or somebody might just come and claim the car as theirs.
That’s what happened to a California woman who purchased a used car last year. On October 30, 2022, Sonia Ruiz bought a 2022 Toyota Camry on Facebook Marketplace.
At the time, a new Camry sold for around $33,500. All in all, it was a pretty good deal.
But Ruiz didn’t get to enjoy her new ride for long. Just a month later, tow truck operators unceremoniously took her car away.
“We were at work and a tow truck came to my home, picked up the car and took it,” Ruiz told NBC San Diego.
The towing company handed Ruiz a card informing her that the Camry was the property of Hertz. As far as they were concerned, they were simply recovering the car rental company’s stolen property.
A Stolen Car That Wasn’t Stolen
It seems pretty clear what happened. Somebody rented a car from Hertz and sold it on Facebook for a quick, shady buck instead of returning it.
You might be tempted to think that Ruiz reaped what she sowed. She should’ve checked the car’s history before buying it.
But that’s exactly the problem. She did.
“I personally took the car to the DMV, took my documents, and at the DMV I did not have a single problem. They registered the car for me, that day they changed the plates, gave me my stickers, my registration, and two weeks later, I received my title,” explained Ruiz.
After her car got towed, Ruiz naturally contacted the police. After all, her legal property just got confiscated for seemingly no reason.
Reviewing the Camry’s ownership status, the cops confirmed that nothing indicated that it had been stolen.
“The police requested the paperwork of my car, they checked them, and they told me the car had no stolen vehicle reports,” Ruiz said.
A Long, Strange Journey
But if the car is supposedly not stolen, why did Hertz claim it? Is it even their car in the first place?
Well, there is a paper trail about the car’s ownership history. It shows the strange journey the car took to end up in Ruiz’s driveway.
Hertz did indeed originally own the car. The company’s Mexican licensee Avasa rented the car out to an unknown client in July 2022.
Somebody picked the car up at Cross Border Xpress, an airport terminal in southern San Diego. They were supposed to bring the Camry back there, but they never did.
In August, Cortes Towing San Diego picked up the car. The company claimed it didn’t know how the Camry ended up in their yard, but it did auction the car off on September 26 through Lientek Solutions.
Then, in October, Ruiz purchased it through Facebook. This leaves us in a legal conundrum.
The Camry started out as Hertz’s car, there’s no doubt about that. But legally — and DMV records confirm this — Ruiz is its current legal owner.
‘This Is Not My Fault’
Needless to say, Ruiz is upset about the whole debacle.
“This has been draining in so many ways, economically, mentally, and physically,” she said.
“This is not my fault. Somebody here made a mistake or is making a mistake, so then why is it me paying the consequences?”
Hertz has explained its stance on the issue. The company’s statement also clarifies why the situation is what it is.
According to Hertz, Cortes Towing never informed Avasa that they sold the Camry. As a result, Avasa thought the car was still legally theirs when it was towed.
However, Lientek Solutions claims that it did notify Avasa about the auction. Clearly, there has been a communication break somewhere along the way.
Ruiz, though, is ready to fight for her vehicle.
“I am the rightful owner, let them show me what they have. All they gave me was a registration that expired on January 8 of this year,” she said.
“[My title] is from Sacramento, where it counts. The car is legally under my name.”
Ruiz has run into an unexpected hurdle, though. The DMV’s investigation determined that the Camry’s repossession is a civil matter. As such, they refused to order Avasa and Hertz to give Ruiz her car back, despite their records showing she is its legal owner.
“It’s disappointing. If this report stated that the car is mine, I could’ve done a whole lot more with it,” said Ruiz.
Now, she has no option but to lawyer up and go to court. Although she got a good deal on the car, those costs are suddenly eating up everything she saved.
And, in the meanwhile, she’s stuck without a car.
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