Not again!

For nearly five months, Donna McDowell, a Jamaican living in the United States, has been washed with feelings of distress after not receiving a motor vehicle she purchased on February 17 from a local, St Andrew-based used-car dealership.

McDowell, who paid in full the sum of $2.3 million for a 2013 Black Toyota Voxy motor vehicle from Singh’s Motors Limited, which is located along Hagley Park Road, was assured that it would be delivered to her the following week, on February 24, as the car was not yet on the lot.

In an interview with The Gleaner over a week ago, McDowell explained that, on the agreed date, she received an image sent to her cell phone of a broken windscreen. The image was sent by Sophia Ramsundar-Singh, who is listed as one of two directors of the dealership, according to Companies Office of Jamaica records.

McDowell stated that Ramsundar-Singh told her that the car, which was on the wharf, became damaged and could not be fixed within a day.

The buyer added that she further queried as to whether the vehicle could be delivered the following Monday, but she was told that this request could not be fulfilled because something was wrong with the car battery as well and Ramsundar-Singh did not want to give McDowell a car that was not functioning properly.

“She [ask] if me can wait for within the week so she can clear a next one give it to me, so me say ‘okay’ because she adamant that the vehicle not working ... so, me still believe her,” McDowell said.

But unbeknown to McDowell, similar complaints have been made about the dealership’s failure to deliver vehicles that have been paid for.

There were two similar incidents reported to The Gleaner in 2021 and 2022. The first was regarding a St Mary businessman who filed a lawsuit against Singh’s Motors for failure to deliver a motor vehicle in the agreed time. As a result, the businessman requested his $1 million deposit for the 2013 Toyota Probox motor vehicle, which had been sold for $1.2 million, to be refunded. The man made the deposit on July 12 and was expected to receive the vehicle three days later.

The 2022 case involved Nadine Dixon, who demanded a refund of an $800,000 deposit on a 2013 Toyota Isis Sedan after a promise that it would be received in two weeks was broken. Dixon remained empty-handed months after the agreed on delivery date. She made the downpayment on August 16, 2022, for the vehicle valued at $1.59 million with an agreement to pay the balance of $790,000 after the vehicle was delivered.

Following the publication of her story in The Gleaner, Dixon received a refund through bank deposit on November 7. Lynvalle Hamilton, president of the Jamaica Used Car Dealers Association (JUCDA), informed The Gleaner at the time that, while Singh’s Motors was a certified used-car dealer, it was not a member of the association. He further stated that complaints against the company were not new as, prior to the Gleaner article, the association had been receiving some complaints from customers.

As McDowell’s scepticism about the company continued to grow, she reached out to The Gleaner on June 12 for assistance. With frustration evident in her voice as she spoke, she expressed that she has not been able to work effectively and that she has been very stressed and mentally affected by the ‘runaround’ she has been receiving from management.

McDowell, who is a medical technologist and certified nursing assistant (CNA), stated that she has even had to take time off from work due to experiencing depressive episodes.

“I’m so tired of the back and forth,” she explained.

Source of income

She continued that the vehicle purchased was intended to be used as a means to make additional income to help care for her mother, who has to wear a colostomy bag and requires round-the-clock attention.

In April, McDowell finally requested a refund. By this time, attorney-at-law Bertram Anderson who represents McDowell intervened and wrote to Singh’s Motors Limited on May 4, 2023.

Speaking with The Gleaner on June 16, Anderson stated that he did not receive a response from management.

He said that despite being in communication with Ramsundar-Singh since April, there were no efforts made to resolve the issue.

Following interventions made by The Gleaner on June 16, management of Singh’s Motors provided the newspaper with evidence on June 20 that a cheque valued at $2.3 million was deposited.

Last Saturday, McDowell shared that the sum was reflected in her accounts.

Speaking with The Gleaner, both Deon Singh and his wife, Ramsundar-Singh, stated that they encountered clearance issues which affected why McDowell did not get the car in time and resulted in a batch of vehicles being on the wharf since last December.

They added that the vehicles were still on the wharf and that their supplier had sent them false documentation regarding their shipment which had to be corrected in Jamaica through the Transport Authority, which took months to rectify.

Singh stated that he had been racking up storage fees of more than US$1,000 as a result, adding that it cost him over $2 million to get things rectified.

“But customers will not understand these things,” he bemoaned. “It’s not like we’re being disingenuous to people enuh, these things happen.”

In addition, he noted that it was “only because the grace of God why dem no guh pon the auction”.

Ramsundar-Singh explained that she remained in constant communication with McDowell.

“I sent her the import entry, I went to the wharf [and] I did the video of the vehicle and sent it to her, I sent Donna everything. The situation we had with that supplier, [they] sent eight Voxys to us and none of them were inspected. He sent us fake inspection. When we proceeded to do the permit with trade board, [they] let us know that all inspection was fake so they advise me what to do. I had to engage Kingston Wharf, pay US$92 per vehicle to get them sanitised,” she said.

She continued that $7,000 was paid per vehicle for the motor vehicle fitness fee.

“After paying Donna balance in full for her vehicle and request the surrender from the supplier, he is sticking me up now. So, before him surrender up that vehicle, I must pay the balance for the other vehicle. We did, we are getting to surrender them by next week,” she told The Gleaner on June 16.

She added that, even after being refunded, if McDowell still wished to get the vehicle, she could collect it once it was cleared.

On May 22, McDowell made a complaint to the Consumer Affairs Commission (CAC) but she said that she has not reported the matter to the police.

Reluctant to make police reports

Speaking with The Gleaner, Dorothy Campbell, communications specialist at the CAC, said there is a common misconception that, if a consumer has been deceived by someone who takes their money with the promise that they will get a product or service in return and in a specified time, that it was a matter to be logged as a complaint to the CAC.

“Once you have been defrauded of your funds for an item for which you intended to receive at a particular time to be delivered and that doesn’t occur; whether it’s a pack of biscuit or a house or a car or a washing machine, that’s fraud. That’s a crime,” she said.

“And I wish consumers would take that seriously ... . It’s not a simple complaint any more ... so they have to involve the police,” Campbell added in a bid to encourage customers to report such instances.

She stated that what seemed to be occurring was that many Jamaicans were reluctant in reporting these matters to the police.

She also urged customers to use online resources for discovering reviews about the companies or people they planned to do business with and to inform others when something was wrong in the market.

“Google is borderless,” she said, adding that it did not matter if the supplier was local or in other regions.

“See what has been written about them. Are they persons of integrity that you would want to do business with? Look at the contracts. Does it look fair? We need to just take a little more time to review,” she said.

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com