Car dealers don’t have the best reputations, but you usually can expect them to hold on to your vehicle. Someone should have told that to this now-disavowed Hyundai dealer who allegedly abandoned customers’ cars, then had them towed leaving the owners on the hook for storage and fees.

Around a dozen customers who attempted to service their cars at Nissani Hyundai in Culver City had their cars towed away to an off-site facility, according to the LA Times. Some were then asked to pay thousands of dollars in fees to get their property back. The owner of the dealership blamed the coronavirus shutdown in the state of California. The customers and Hyundai corporate aren’t buying it, however.

Hyundai says the only story here is that of a franchisee who couldn’t be trusted to treat customers respectfully and who used the pandemic as cover for shoddy practices.

Once corporate was made aware of the situation, Hyundai stepped in to try and make things right.

Jim Trainier, a representative for Hyundai said-

“As soon as Hyundai learned of this situation and of these storage fees being charged to our customers, we quickly took steps to get all Hyundai cars out of E3’s facility and sent to a nearby Hyundai dealership where the service work would be made and our customers would be well taken care of,”

The report also explains that this isn’t the first time the Nissani dealer group has been caught doing unscrupulous activity. Last year Nissani was ordered to pay $2.4 million in back pay penalties. On April 6, Nissani voluntarily ended its franchise agreement with Hyundai.

The whole story is completely bonkers and worth a read.

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