A transaction which was expected to take no less than two weeks turned into a five-month battle, when a local auto dealer failed to produce the car though having received a sizeable down payment – now clients are warning against such dishonest dealers.
Jude Abrams, a technician, in chronicling his experience, explained that having purchased his first car in 2015 from Oswin Jones, owner of ‘Oswin J’s auto imports’, he opted to utilise the very dealer, after being informed that a 2011 Allion was readily available for sale but he would live to regret this decision.
“On August 21, 2021, I contacted Oswin via cellphone and we spoke of monetary arrangements with respect to the motor vehicle I was interested in buying, the 2011 Allion at a cost of $3M. Oswin told me that his sister who is also his employee would meet me to collect the down payment which was GYD$600,000. On the said date, I handed over the money to Oswin’s sister and he confirmed the payment,” Abrams related.
Abrams explained that the down payment was made with the understanding that $2.25M would be sourced from a commercial bank and the remaining $150,000 would be paid subsequently upon the delivery of the car.
Initially, Abrams was told that the car was on the wharf and simply had to be cleared but when August came to a close and he requested an update, having secured the loan from the bank, Jones would then tell him, that the car shown to him in photos, was intended for another client, and he had made a mistake. Jones reportedly told Abrams that the car intended for him would arrive early September, 2021.
“At one point he told me that the vehicle would be here on September 24, but that did not happen. Then I was given around the third week of October 2021 but this as well did not materialise. From October to November 23, 2021 Jones and I would go back and forth concerning the vehicle being delivered to me,” Abrams said.
On November 24, 2021 Abrams contacted Jones requesting a refund, which he promised to do on December 10, 2021 which never happened.
During the period of December 2021 and January, 2022 Jones was sent a promissory document for refund drafted by an overseas based lawyer, and a report was made to Vreed-en-Hoop Police Station Criminal Investigations Department by Abrams, all of which proved futile since Jones ignored them.
Additionally, on December 18, 2021, Abrams was referred to rhe Fraud Department at the Brickdam Police Station, but when that proved futile, he later went to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Headquarters were another report was made. There, Abrams also received information from the Police that Mr. Jones was involved in matters of similar nature.
After months of making a down payment of more than half a million on a car with Jones, the young couple, Abrams and his wife, was refunded the money in mid-January 2022 after the police signaled their intention to arrest and charge him for collecting money under false pretense.
Abram’s wife, Svetlana told this publication that the situation was mentally and physically taxing. “The situation took a significant toll on my family and drove me to the state of depression. After our many attempts to resolve the matter by way of a lawyer’s letter and initial reports to the police failed, I reached out to Jones’ wife, and pleaded with her. I explained how difficult it was for me to get my daughter to and from school in the absence of my own transportation. I explained that I’m pregnant, and the situation was causing unnecessary stress. She said she understood, and assured me that the refund would happen no later than January 4, but when the date arrived, she pulled herself out, and said I should contact her husband,” Mrs. Abrams explained.
In a telephone interview with this publication, Jones noted that the delay was due to “the couple’s inability to pay the remaining balance of the payment, $2.4M”.
Another victim of Jones’ act is Royden James who purchased his car back in 2019 from Jones. James shared that he had made his down payment in the first week of December 2019 and was scheduled to receive his car at the end of January 2020.
However, this never materialised. Instead the car was delivered to James until the end of May 2020, four months after the initial delivery date.
“It was a whole run around because after January 30, 2020, the day he said he would do the delivery, he gave one excuse to another excuse. But then when I was telling someone about my experience, they said they were having a similar experience with Jones,” James related.
“When my car came it had a set of issues. The first issue was that the mileage was revived. He advertised a low mileage and when my mechanic did the assessment he found that the mileage was twice as high. This meant that the car was older than advertised which meant that it would have had to be a bit cheaper for the car,” James added.
James indicated that the car came with other complications which cost him about GYD$1,000,000 in repairs. He confronted Jones about the matter and a possible refund of some kind, however, to date he is yet to receive that refund.
Village Voice News understands that another client made a down payment of $1. 3M to Jones for a Toyota Allion in February 2021 and was made to wait approximately eight months when the process was expected to take no more than four weeks.
