And this evening - for the other side of the story - we spoke with Eden Crichton. He claims that the delay was caused by COPART, the auction platform that car dealers use to acquire vehicles. He added that the vehicle is sitting in storage in the US and all Blair has to do is pick it up. He spoke to us via Zoom.
Eden Crichton, Car Dealer
"Something didn't happen, right? And I eventually learned from Copart, which is the site that we use, I learned that the vehicle wasn't properly identified upon when I sent somebody to go and pick it up."
"So I sent someone to pick up the vehicle because I wasn't there. We sent a transporter to pick up the vehicle. Upon the transporter arriving, the Copart representative says, wow, we have a fleet of vehicle and that particular VIN number is missing. We can't locate it. So you have to come back, give us seven days to find the particular vehicle."
"Well, not a problem. I didn't send the person back in seven days because it costs each time we send a transporter there."
"So I communicated via email. I got the Copart representative phone number. So I could have texted him on Whatsapp, I explained to him that I'm in Belize, and we're sending transporters to move this vehicle."
"So anyway, time had passed and I want to say they didn't locate the vehicle for maybe two months. The customer got irritated, irated and said, man, what's going on? You're stealing my money, that sort of stuff."
"So by him doing that, I said, no, man, I don't have no reason for thief your money. I have brought in vehicle for customers on a regular basis, which far exceed that, alright? But let's not get into that."
"I explained my story to the magistrate at the time and the magistrate said, okay, how are you going to settle this? I said, your honor, the vehicle will be, the vehicle is available, your honor, the vehicle is available at Copart or pickup."
"Give me until Friday to sort out the pickup or whatever it was to sort out the pickup and we will move forward. I said, we could either do that or this man being so angry, he can cancel his arrangement with me and pick up his vehicle on his own."
"Well, he opted for that. He opted for his money to be returned to him. I tell him I don't have his money. Copart has the money. He said well what money I have for him. I said I have the freight value for you."
"The magistrate says well if that's the matter return the man's freight money, give him his paperwork for his vehicle and that is what I did. I returned to him his freight, his freight value which was I want to say four thousand dollars which is two thousand US dollars very very cheap for such a thing."
"So I returned that to him. Thereafter he wanted the money to the value of the vehicle. I said that's not the agreement for the magistrate. So what I did the proper thing I wrote him a letter. It took some days to do all of this so time passed."
"So I wrote him his letter explaining to him that his vehicle is in a particular address I gave him a copy of the title, I gave him whatever documents he needed for the vehicle, and I also informed him that the vehicle is in America at the location and accumulating storage."
Crichton told us he is not currently in Belize.
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