rsierra

The comments that Champion should have known or did know are ignorant, unless they were monitoring all of his emails it would be very difficult to know. He could have easily done this from his home and was not using Champions "books", plus he was likely trusted. The guy was clearly desperate, probably has drug or gambling problem.

usctrojanGT3

Honestly, all the people that were defrauded by this scumbag should sue the dealership for not only their deposit but the mental distress over this as Champion created an environment that allowed for this complete lack of controls and segregation of duties...they need to be made an example of. Maybe it'll teach other dealerships shape up.

STG

Champion is ignorant for not managing their business properly and not having some sort of checks and balances when buyers are putting deposits down on ordered cars. They are negligent as well and will be held responsible.

Manifold

Given that he was there for 10 years, I do think Champion had reason to trust him. No business is going to do well if it has to mistrust its employees and monitor their every move. The guy is a criminal, not just an employee with some general performance issues.

993KHTO

Correct. THANK YOU.

rsierra

How are they going to know about deposits that they never received? They went to the dudes shell company.

993KHTO

Kindly, and with respect, if you are not familiar with Florida law please refrain...

GT3RS-Fan1

Buyers BEWARE! This happened in a well known dealership.

Think about those "Speccable" GT cars being sold by brokers or third party. Don't they ask for deposits?

Either buy from a direct owner, with clean title, or "reputable dealer." Even reputable dealer now becomes an investigative matter.

I hope those defrauded get their monies back.

Drive safe,
GT3RS-Fan1

1990ruf

I feel their pain. Trying to be helpful. He's my attorney and know his capabilities...

Archimedes

The latter likely true, the former absolutely not. Simple accounting controls could probably have avoided this. A fraud like this should be extremely difficult to pull off, particularly for an extended period of time. Not impossible, but it will interesting to see what if any controls were in place and how he got around them. My guess would be that he was such a trusted, long term employee that the controls that applied to him weren't very robust.

STG

I'm not going to pollute this thread with nonsense and respond to any comments like this. Does a disservice to those who need help and support.

FORENN

Agree, but your post applies to several members in this thread.

redmonkey928

Great point - I know of one broker who asked me about buying a spot from Champion for a 3RS for $50k. I wonder how far this will reach for those brokers that took their cut, and the Champion funds went into the "Champion Autosports" account.

Does this now mean it will spread back into those brokers who sold spots and were also ignorant to the fact this was all a shell?

Archimedes

You're assuming that the entirety of this fraud involved 25-30 people writing checks that averaged about $100k each, every single one to this fake account, and none of which involved any information produced by the dealership to the customers and no communication at all between the dealership and any of those victims. I find that hard to believe. Do you think there were likely zero inquiries directly to the dealership from those customers/victims prior to this guy disappearing? Very unlikely.

STG

PCNA will have to make some big changes to future GT car allocations. The brokers, flippers, and fraudsters come out of the woodwork when there's $$ to be made with these games.

Mark my words, this is the peak of the games.