Car Ad--an Invitation to Deception
The ad in The Times was terse:
“ ‘87 LEGEND L 4dr auto $12,450 . . . pp.”
The classified section shorthand was saying that a 1987 four-door Acura Legend luxury model with an automatic transmission was for sale for $12,450. It also said that the vehicle was being offered by a private party, rather than a car dealer. It seemed straightforward enough.
But the ad was an invitation to deception, a common trap for used-car shoppers who believe, with some justification, that it is more prudent to buy an automobile from a private party than from a dealer.
When a Times reporter called the phone number in the ad, he was given directions to an apartment on Magnolia Avenue in North Hollywood.
There, a small, slender, nattily dressed young man wearing low-cut boots identified himself as David Benvenitz. He led the way to a sleek black Legend parked in the basement garage, sorted through an array of keys, and invited the reporter--who did not identify himself as a newsman--to take a test drive.
Benvenitz was in the clothing business, he said. He had bought the car brand-new from a dealer on Van Nuys Boulevard. No, he couldn’t remember the name of the dealership. The vehicle had never been in a wreck and had been serviced regularly.
The reporter dickered with Benvenitz, agreed to pay $12,200 for the car, and asked to see the title or pink slip to the vehicle.
Back in the apartment, Benvenitz showed the reporter a driver’s license with his name on it as proof of his identity, but then produced a pink slip in the name of a Lloyd Kurtz.
Benvenitz explained that Kurtz was his stepfather and the car was in his name because he had helped to finance it.
When the reporter insisted on meeting Kurtz, Benvenitz said his stepfather would not be available until the following Tuesday.
The reporter said he would call back.
In the meantime, Lloyd Kurtz, a North Hollywood contractor, told The Times that on July 26, he sold the Acura Legend for $9,500 to a young man matching Benvenitz’s description who said his name was David Lavoi. Kurtz said that he is in no way related to Benvenitz, nor is he even acquainted with him.
Kurtz went on to say that he himself bought the Legend used last December, and it had been in a serious accident and repaired before he bought it. He said the car had been owned by several different people before he purchased it. Kurtz produced copies of bills of sale showing that the vehicle had changed hands at least three times before he bought it.
When the reporter called Benvenitz on the following Tuesday and asked for his stepfather, the young man said:
“I had a small fight with him. He won’t talk to me unless I pay him.”
Informed that he was talking to a reporter and asked if he had in reality bought the car from Kurtz in July, Benvenitz replied:
“Maybe.”
When told that Kurtz said he was neither Benvenitz’s stepfather nor did he even know Benvenitz, the young man replied:
“He must know me if he sold me a car.”
The Benvenitz ad represents a serious problem, says Gordon Lowe, complaint manager for The Times’ classified ad section. Such ads have been on the increase over the last 10 years, he said.
Lowe says The Times cooperates with DMV investigators and also tries to screen phony private party come-ons, sometimes rejecting as many as 100 suspicious used-car ads in a week.
Even so, Lowe said, it is an uphill battle because of the volume of ads and the sophistication of some slickers.
DMV officials say that unlicensed car dealers commonly buy vehicles from legitimate private parties and then advertise them for sale. The unlicensed dealers pose as relatives or friends of the former owners and resell the cars at higher prices--usually after sprucing them up and claiming that the cars are one-owner vehicles.
Such dealers not only dupe used-car buyers, but they avoid DMV fees and sizable state taxes by not registering the cars in their own names, authorities say. That also makes it more difficult for DMV investigators to pick up the paperwork trails of unlicensed dealers.
Benvenitz denied that he was in such a business.
“I wouldn’t do anything like that,” he said. “I work in clothing.”
