Yesterday I shared an AARP The Magazine story about an 83-year-old man who was allegedly swindled by Mac Churchill Acura. Robert Jones went into the Fort Worth dealership to redeem a free gift he’d received in the mail. He, according to the story, drove off in a car he didn’t want and paid way more than the car was worth. When Jones’ daughter found out about the deal, she tried to get Churchill to take it back. When he refused, the story said, she approached the magazine and its resident watchdog, who “heroically” appealed to the dealership’s parent company. And the deal was reversed.
Mac Churchill responded to the story with a letter that appears on his dealership’s website. He claims that he couldn’t undo the deal because his contract was with Jones, who never asked him to reverse it. One part of the letter in particular stuck out to me as a strong point in Churchill’s favor:
“Neither American Honda nor Acura Financial Services forced us to do anything,” Churchill wrote. ” They would never ask us to break the law by cancelling a valid contract at the request of third-party. In fact, it was at our request that Acura Financial Services unwound the deal after the daughter returned the vehicle to another Acura dealer with the intent of letting the vehicle repossess. The article says Mr Jones would be liable for any difference after the vehicle was sold at auction, which is completely untrue. We made sure that Mr. Jones would have no personal liability and his credit would not suffer as a result of his daughter’s actions.
“When Acura Financial informed us that vehicle had been repossessed, we asked them to allow us to buy back the contract in order to spare Mr. Jones the embarrassment of having repossession on his credit,” he continued. ” Although they were under no obligation to do so, they allowed us to buy back the contract. ”
The letter also disputes the price of $48,000 quoted by the AARP story.
Would y’all journalistic orgs please use this story as an example of how “instanews” is just an excuse for lazy journalism. So the AARP has a story about some old guy accusing a local car dealer with cheating him. The FWW then pushes it forward, with a picture of a greasy car salesman, a few paragraphs at the top in italics using stereotypes that the author thinks might be funny, and then a few snarky cracks at the bottom about Mac Churchill kicking babies. No one ever checks anything anymore. The excuse is, “well it was printed by the AARP, and we are just presenting the news that a local guy’s problems are in AARP.” What ever happened to taking a little time to investigate whether this was really true. Maybe get a hold of the daughter, ask Mac Churchill what happened from his perspective. See, finding some semblance of truth takes time. But truth isn’t that important. Got to get eyeballs to your website. Who has time for doing work. Crank out some shit, and then crank out more.
I asked to have my contract reversed 1 day after signing ..they refused as well.Was an interesting experience.Even though the ordeal was not what I would have enjoyed.I will say however their after care for their customers is good.free car wash and vacuum .While you wait fresh baked cookies and a good cup of coffee.