Military Family Warns JBLM Customers To Stay Away From Lynwood Car Dealership

(Editor's note: The following was posted to Lakewood-JBLM Patch's Facebook page by users Nathan and Michelle Priest)

In 2010 we purchased a Ford Expedition for our family. In 2011 my husband, who is a sergeant in the military stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, had a 2005 Ford Mustang that he had taken in to Harris Ford in Lynnwood, WA to trade in for a Mustang that he had wanted.

We had the vehicle for a year. The first six months after my husband had purchased the car he was stationed in Germany. When my husband returned from Germany, we moved on post and shortly after realized that we would not be able to afford the car anymore. We called the finance company who informed us to return the car to the car lot that my husband had purchased the car from.

We took the car up to Harris Ford and tried to see if there would be a way to refinance the car. When we were turned down for a refinance, the sales man we talked to named Zach told us to just leave the car and keys with him and he would call the finance company and have them come pick up the car, which we were told would be considered a voluntary repossession and that we were good to go. It has been a year as of the July that we have not had the car and were under the impression that the car was repossessed.

Fast-forward to last week. We have recently tried to take my Ford Expedition in for a trade in to get into something new. When the dealership that we are working with right now ran my husband's credit, it showed a repossession on his credit, which we knew would be there. When we were told that the repossession was only under a year old we were baffled. We called the finance company to try to find out an exact date that the car was repossessed, only to find out from the finance company that it had no record whatsoever of a repossession and had no clue where the car was at.

We called Harris Ford to find out what was going on only to be told that they did not have the car and had no idea what we were talking about. After countless calls and no help at all, we went to the Lakewood DMV to find a VIN number for the car and find out if it was still registered in my husband's name. Sure enough the car was still registered to him. At this point we were on the verge of calling about four or five police departments to try to figure out who would have jurisdiction over this and start going about filing a police report basically on what we thought was a stolen car.

As doing this I decided to call Harris Ford one last time with the VIN and plate number to see if we could find this car or we were going to be reporting a $19,000 car stolen. As soon as the manager got on the phone and I told him my name, he asked if i was looking for the Mustang, and I told him yes. He said that the Mustang had been sitting on the lot the entire year.

I was dumbfounded. We had a manager from the finance company, a sales man from the dealership we were working with to trade my truck in and myself and my husband all calling Harris Ford for roughly about a week to find out where this car was at and it was there the whole time. We were told that the battery was dead but nothing else was wrong with the car and that they would put a new battery in for us and we could come pick it up and go from there. This phone call happened at about 8pm on 8/9/2013.

My husband, myself, our four children and my father drove the 60-mile trip from Joint Base Lewis-McChord to Lynnwood to pick the car up and decide what we were going to do from there. When we showed up it took the manager about an hour to finally come down and talk to us. We were told by other sales people that the car had been there the whole time and they knew exactly who my husband was and, as they put it, my husband was a legend on their lot. We were told that they called the finance company a few days after we dropped the car off with them and the finance company told them that they would not repossess a car from an active duty military member.

Instead of calling us to let us know that the car could not be repossessed by the finance company, they drove the car around to their back lot and parked it. Decided not to call us to let us know. We were told by the previous dealership that when they pulled my husband credit that there was a repossession on it but the finance company never repossessed the car.

The manager of Harris Ford named Nate told us that it was our fault that the car sat there for a year and that it was our responsibility. When we run our credit and find the repossession on there we are under the assumption that the car is no longer at Harris Ford and that we are to just wait to get a last bill of sale to find out how much we owe left on the car. The manager never put a new batter in it and pretty much told us we were on our own. When the mechanic pulled up in the car and my husband and I looked at it we were astonished.

There was mold everywhere all over this car. On the floor in the back, all over the passenger seat and all over the steering wheel and the head rest of the seats. The mechanic jumped the batter and the manager pretty much told us that we were good to go and that we were on our own.

We are still baffled and dumbfounded how my husband can end up with a repossession on his credit report but the car was never repossessed, and how when we called for four straight days and were told they didn't have the car, how it just showed up in their lot and they knew all about us when they claimed to not have any clue of what we were talking about in the first place.

Please, we are needing help to warn off any military member who would ever have the unfortunate experience of dealing with Harris Ford and to get the word out there that it is not ok to operate a business like this.