Overhaulin'

Is it against the law for a dealership to buy a car acting as your agent and then sell it to someone else?

Me and my friend were looking into buying a rare '98 quicksilver toyota supra with only 24k on the original motor and this is a 1 in 9 vehicals ever made mind you... some guy didnt know what he had and was selling it for 10,000... So my friend went to a toyota dealership and told them he would pay more then what they could get it for if they would finance him... so they called back after about a week and said the car is on the way and they only paid 8,000 for it and to bring his vehical in for appraisal and would sell it for 16k...he agreed... the next morning when he went to appraise his car they went through the whole speal and then offered 17,000 for his 2006 Eclipse GT and then said o but we sold you car on ebay for 150,000 sorry but to bad... legally wasnt the dealer acting as his agent for this vehical and they made over 142,000 profit off a car they had no idea about if it wasnt for us... so my question is... What would be my best bet... take legal action or cowboy up? No there was no Written contract but in court if you can prove a verbal agreement between two sides then it can hold its own just as much as a written statment

Public Comments

1. yeah it is illegal
2. Aha...where's the contract? Yeah, didn't think there was one either.
3. I hate car dealers, but unless you had a contract or something in writing their is really nothing you can do
4. talk to a lawyer as soon as possible...who knows!.
5. Cowboy up because unless you had a contract or had already signed paperwork the dealership just out dealed you. They have no legal obligation to sell to you unless it was a contracted deal. You just got took. Morally wrong maybe but not legally.
6. No, he wasn't acting as your agent, their was no relationship between the two that would give rise to a presumption of agency. Learning about the car from you creates no binding legal obligation. But you might be able to prove that there was an oral contract between you and the dealership where it was agreed that the dealership would sell the car to you, which they breached.
7. Did your friend sign a bill of sale on that car? If not then the dealership did not break any law.
8. COWBOY UP!! get hella drunk, and BURN THE FUCKER DOWN!!! maybe steal a few cars on the way out.
9. Verbal contracts aren't worth the paper they are written on. You lost out. Move on.
10. There was no relationship, there was no deal. You told someone at a dealer that you had a line on a car. They took your info and ran with it. If the roles were reversed, you would have done the same to someone asking you to buy a car for them. You have no contract, no nothing.
11. No written contract or agreement, no case in court. Tough lesson to learn from a foolish move on your friend's part. The dealership was taking legal advantage of a stupid decision by your friend to provide directions to a gold mine. I mean, weren't you looking to take legal advantage of the owner due to a stupid decision on his part? You should have gone to a bank or credit union for personal loan financing and paid the guy the $10k outright. Why didn't you do this in the first place? Verbal agreements are worthless in court unless you have multiple credible eyewitnesses, you and your friend are not enough.