Texas Plumber Sues Car Dealer After His Truck Ends Up In Videos of Syria's Front Lines (mashable.com)

New submitter hydrodog writes: A Texas plumber traded in his truck, which ended up in ISIS videos showing his logo and phone number. Now he is getting hundreds of harassing phone calls for 'supporting ISIS' and is suing the dealership for not taking off his information before selling it. He is seeking more than $1 million in damages. According to Mashable: "According to the complaint, filed last week, a salesman at the dealership, Edgar Vasquez, told Oberholtzer 'not to worry about the decal,' saying that peeling it off would 'blemish the vehicle paint.' 'At no time did Vasquez or any other agent, servant, or employee of the Defendant tell Plaintiff that Defendant would leave the decals on the truck, which would be transferred in some fashion to international jihadists conducting warfare upon innocents in Syria,' reads the complaint.

Comments

BRB

[sexconker]

Applying Hillary Clinton logos and decals to my car and trading it in.
BRB.

Re:BRB

[ArhcAngel]

MSBC presents less factually based content than any other cable news channel.

Toyota has always had this problem

[siphonophore]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/66d1d3ec-2f19-11e0-88ec-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3uLdcGolO

FTFA:
In a statement...Toyota added: “It is not our proudest piece of product placement. But it shows the Taliban are looking for the same qualities as any other truck buyer: quality and durability.”

That's a bold pivot to a positive message. Maybe the plumber can lean in and tell customers if he can put up with ISIS's shit, he can put up with theirs.

Re:Toyota has always had this problem

[ColdWetDog]

1. Buy a number of used Toyota trucks
2. Paint the logo of your worst competitor on them
3. Ship them to the Middle East
4. Profit !

Truck traded in USA ends up in Syria how?

[snowsnoot]

A better question is how the hell this vehicle somehow ended up being shipped to the middle east where it could be sold to ISIS?

Re:Truck traded in USA ends up in Syria how?

[Sowelu]

Money can be exchanged for goods and services.

Re:Truck traded in USA ends up in Syria how?

[Solandri]

Shipping stuff out of the U.S. by cargo container is dirt cheap, especially in a country like the U.S. which has a trade deficit. More containers of stuff come into the country than go out, so many of those containers have to shipped out empty at the expense of the shipping company. They are desperate to put anything into those containers to recoup at least some of their expenses. Consequently, the cost to ship something overseas out of the U.S. is about the same as what it costs to ship it from the middle of the U.S. to the coast.

Re:Truck traded in USA ends up in Syria how?

[Mashiki]

Oh you'd be surprised at the amount of stolen cars being shipped out. The only search something like 2% of cargo containers right now, and shipping out a two stolen cars with one legit car happens quite a bit. Kind of like how here in the Americas, car thieves will buy a wrecked vehicle(usually water damaged or salvage), swipe the VIN, then slap it onto a stolen car. Which is why you check dashboard VIN against the other stamped VIN's on the vehicle parts(windows, doors, transmission, engine, body panels, subframe etc) when you buy. Hell there was a dealership here in Ontario that bought up a bunch of cheap vehicles and had them all seized because they were stolen, and they didn't double check to see if there was matching/mismatched VIN's.

If someone is runs a legit repair, seeing 4-5 VINs is common since they're removing parts from one salvage vehicle to another and then reselling a repaired vehicle. Of course, you need to check those VINs to make sure that they weren't stolen too, since chopshops do exist.

Re:Truck traded in USA ends up in Syria how?

[prefec2]

You know, putting the truck in a container or car carrier is only one piece of the puzzle. They cannot ship them in via the Mediterranean Sea, as that part of Syria is controlled by Assad and other non ISIS groups. Lebanon will also not work. And I doubt Israel allows the cars to cross. Therefore, the car must go around Africa or use the Suez Canal and then to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and/or Irak. alternatively, they could go through Turkey. But Turkey is our ally and would never ever do such thing.

Re:bjoo hjoo

[Sowelu]

Because the dealership specifically stopped him when he started to do so, and promised to remove it themselves before they resold it?

Re:bjoo hjoo

[Pharmboy]

That is very likely. Dealerships contract out people all the time to install pin striping and other specialty logos. Remember all those fancy graphics on Toyota trucks in the 80s? They didn't leave the factory like that, I worked in a dealership then. These guys know exactly how to remove the old sticks from other dealerships or company logos without leaving a film or scratch. The dealer just got lazy and wholesaled it out. It probably isn't illegal (although it probably was a lie), but it is very bad business.

I guess my question is answered

[Applehu Akbar]

Whenever I see another one of those Daesh videos, I have always wondered where that rogue Toyota dealership is so we can wipe it out. Who know that it was in Texas?

Re: In the US

[guruevi]

If you have a somewhat successful business where you can afford trucks and employees, you could easily rake in 1M or more in a year. If your business goes bust or you have to invest into a media campaign or change your phone numbers or even a major decline in customers due to someone else's major fuck-up (if not plain illegal actions, trading with those nations in the US is strictly forbidden), 1M is not too little to ask.

Re: In the US

[binarylarry]

I think it's obvious where he'll be sending that million...

Toyota is good for jihad

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1997, Robert Fisk interviewed Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan, as described in his book The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. But first, he had to get there.

...we set off up the track that Osama bin Laden built during his jihad against the Russian army in the early 1980s, a terrifying, slithering, two-hour odyssey along fearful ravines in rain and sleet, the windscreen misting as we climbed the cold mountain....

The road grew worse as we continued, the 4×4 skidding backwards towards sheer cliffs, the headlights playing across the chasms on either side. "Toyota is good for jihad," my driver said. I could only agree, noting that this was one advertising slogan the Toyota company would probably forgo.

Re:bjoo hjoo

[xQx]

What are you trying to say? That the used car dealer was dishonest?

Wow. What is the world coming to.

Re:In the US

[Oligonicella]

It's not ridiculously high. The man and his business's reputation cannot be restored to its former state and other than suffering a monetary slam, the dealer can do nothing to help with that.

Re: In the US

[devilspgd]

How about the legitimate customers who were afraid to use his business because of what their neighbours might think? It takes a lot less than "Oh, is that the ISIS guy?" to kill a business in small town America. And what about the customers who tried to get through, but due to the hundreds of crank calls, couldn't get through and switched to another plumber, thereby losing current and future business?

Most small non-internet businesses are basically out of business without usable phones, and if this business is anything like my plumber, his number is stickered to every single piece of major work his company has done since 1984, and changing his number would undo all of that marketing effort. I'm certain I'm not the only one that calls the company that did the installation when I need service, at least if I'm happy with the original work -- Even if it's not a warranty issue, I know they deal with all of the brands of equipment installed, and they aren't going to claim the original installation was defective and charge me an arm and a leg fixing made-up issues with the original installation either.

$1M isn't much actual damages for current and future business, and some punitive damages would seem to be in order if the dealership failed to remove the logo as contracted, if that was part of the arrangement (which, admittedly, will likely be difficult to prove)

Re: bjoo hjoo

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't worry so much about the decals, but it's bordering on irresponsible by the dealer to not remove the plumber's machine gun before reselling the truck.

Re:In the US

[dcw3]

His life and his family's lives, and his business have all been put at risk. Tell us why you think the amount is frivolous? Oh, you meant frivolously low.