SEVERAL local car buyers were recently cheated out of money by transferring their down payment into the personal bank account of a salesman of a car dealership to secure new cars, only to find out their money was taken away by the salesman, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

    The car dealership, which sells BYD new-energy cars in Longhua New Area, said in response that all they knew was that the salesman took the money to gamble. One of the victims, surnamed Peng, said that he was collecting evidence with the other car buyers before reporting the matter to police.

    According to Peng, he had paid a down payment of 110,000 yuan (US$15,840) to the salesperson, identified as Wang, in November last year, because Wang told him that if he paid the money to Wang’s personal account, he would be able to pick up his new car earlier.

    After transferring the down payment to Wang, Peng received photos and videos of his new car from the salesperson and was told that he could pick up the car Dec. 18. However, Peng was not informed his car was ready to be picked up by far, and he cannot reach the salesperson.

    Peng later called the car dealership and was told that the down payment had never been transferred to the company’s account, so he never actually secured a car. Peng said that the car dealership then refused to help him contact Wang and the company said that they were not responsible for this issue.

    When attempting to make a complaint against the car dealership, Peng met other car buyers who were coming to question the car dealership about the same tricks. It turned out that a total of seven car purchasers had transferred over 500,000 yuan to the salesperson, but none of them obtained a new car.

    The victims decided to report the issue to Longhua police and seek justice by legal means. A lawsuit might be lodged against the car dealer as well.

    The salesman’s mobile phone remained shutdown. Wang’s superviser, surnamed Li, said that the car salesperson had gone gambling but that he had no idea about where or what kind of gambling Wang was involved in.

    Li also promised that he and the car dealership would cooperate with police to look into the case, but mentioned nothing about compensating the victims. (Zhang Qian)