goin2drt

goin2drt

STG

Keep in mind, $2.5MM is ONLY what he ran off with. Didn't take long to get that kind of number together. Over the past 10 years, there could possibly be $20MM+++ in undeclared revenue, etc.

I agree, everyone knew the game. Even the brokers. They could care less as long as they were getting their cut. They were being paid themselves out of the shill accounts. All these damn brokers in the business and they all talk. Somehow Champion ownership and management never knew brokers were working with Shiraaz?? Common now. Many of us here aren't that gullible.

We've uncovered many facts to dispute the couple naysayers. The evidence is overwhelmingly not looking good for Champions management and ownership.

So we're not supposed to expose this for the sake of 100-150 employees there?? You think Champion will go out of business? This will probably not even affect their sales. Somehow people feel sorry that someone may feel uncomfortable at work having to answer questions related to this, but say nothing about the victims who were defrauded. Oh yeah, they should known better!! Geez. Common.

David HUDGENS

Except for the $2.5M that he didn't share with top brass or the company....

He definitely knew the system well enough to find the loopholes and take advantage of his position. I don't know if we'll ever find out how much the dealership knew about his activities or were complicit, but as stated in other posts, someone should have seen it or suspected something. I still find it hard to believe no one noticed the lack of profits or sales in his position.

djcxxx

Dr Chill

I cannot see how Dave Maraj, an extremely intelligent leader and businessman, would knowingly have allowed this debacle to exist under his watch. He built a legendary dealership full of great people who live, eat, and breathe Porsche as well as racing and performance. To think he would allow this individual to skim money from his GT car sales and jeopardize his dealership's reputation and ability to continue his business model is preposterous. Sookralli, with a loving wife and 10 children, was a trusted individual to the Maraj family, and they have been conned 10 times greater than any individual that trusted Sookralli with their deposit.

It is not this forum that has spurred Champion to do the right thing here. It is their moral and legal obligation to do so. To attack them and the other legitimate and honest employees is premature until the facts are known. As you can see from my experience there yesterday, they are regrouping from this mess and appear to be taking the necessary steps to correct SS's actions as best they can. Remember, Mitra is their new leader, and is inexperienced and is only in his early thirties. They have been getting advice from their legal team and appear to be making some progress.

It appears to me that the only solution to this situation that would have been acceptable to this angry mob on Rennlist would have been Champion calling every party defrauded the day after they found out about this debacle and giving them a new build allocation at MSRP and sending them a bank wire for the deposits lost. This takes time and they cannot manufacture allocations out of thin air.

Needsdecaf

I didn't make this personal about you. Don't understand why you're making it personal about me.

You are correct, everyone can have an opinion. Unfortunately one opinion, that Champion knew about this and sanctioned it for years, is being presented as fact. The actual facts show that this is possible, but it hasn't been proven yet. Personally I will wait until the facts come out before stating with certainty that "they knew".

Reading through the posts, it seems as though the mentality is "let's destroy this dealership" which is way beyond "let's help the victims get their money back". I'm very glad this has come to light, every single victim in this deserves their money back as well as an order slot in my opinion. And I'm very glad that this thread has helped accomplish that. Please don't put words in my mouth. But I don't think the business needs to be burned to the ground before we know all the facts. If it comes out that he was not a lone wolf, and that dealership higher ups knew about this, then yes, they deserve to be lambasted. Until then, I reserve judgement and have some sympathy for all the employees working there that had nothing to do with this.

STG

Fair enough. I'm not one that's advocating them "burning to the ground". I think that where there is smoke, there's fire.

I think many here are just frustrated with the whole environment which fostered scams like this to happen. PCNA, ADM's, the brokers, the greedy dealers, and the snakes who come out of the woodwork to take advantage of people. PCNA has done near zero to remedy any of the drama that surrounds its "halo models". If anything, has gotten worse for the .2's. They are the enablers who use the above to further their best interest with little regard to the buyers of their cars.

STG

This is what was listed as the "Management Team" up until he left. Not that large. Just like many small businesses.

I guess Shiraaz could easily have flown under the radar and, yeah he was a nice guy that we'd see around once in a while. He had an office somewhere. lol. He'd be driving around flashy cars all the time as well. The guy was listed as a Vice President of Marketing!! For the largest Porsche dealer in the USA. I'm not stupid.

Manifold

Definitely too much overconfident speculation in this thread. These things take time to investigate properly, and I'll wait for the results of a thorough investigation before forming an opinion about the dealership.

Dr Chill

I agree, the fact that PCNA has allowed this practice to continue without attempting to address it has contributed to third parties figuring out how they can scam the system. I personally was in the market for a GT3RS but would not pay ADM and couldn't find a dealer who would give me an allocation at MSRP. I was disappointed by Champion that they didn't offer me one, being a former Champion Audi and Champion Porsche customer several times over. I even emailed Dave Maraj but realized I wouldn't get a return email from him as he drowned 5 days later.

Manifold

What's the total volume of the dealership? I'm guessing that these couple dozen deals were small potatoes compared the dealer's overall volume.

Needsdecaf

Needsdecaf

Manifold

Goes to show how little we know of the facts of the situation. $100K average deposit always sounded too high to me.