Taken for a Ride? : Dealer Fails to Take Back Car Sold to an Alzheimer’s Victim

When 80-year-old Weldon Beezley set out to buy himself a car, he called a dealership in Escondido, was picked up by a salesman, picked out a car, was driven to the bank for the cashier’s check, driven back to the dealership to finish the paperwork, then driven--in his new car--back home to Lake San Marcos.

It’s no wonder, his children say, that Dad had to be picked up and driven around. He’s got no driver’s license and hasn’t driven in years.

And that’s nothing, they say. Dad is senile, and doesn’t even remember buying the car. His doctor says he suffers moderate to severe dementia from Alzheimer’s disease.

Now Beezley’s children are trying to get the dealership, Murray Buick Oldsmobile Volkswagen, to take the car back, and return to Beezley his $9,567.01.

The dealership on Monday was refusing.

“Their response was simply, ‘We did nothing wrong,’ ” said Beezley’s son, Brian, of Vista.

Executives at the dealership on Monday declined comment, promising to call back but not doing so. Later Monday, an employee of the dealership who declined to identify himself insisted that Weldon Beezley was pleased with the car and doesn’t want to return it.

“It’s the son who’s wrong,” he said. “It’s an inheritance thing. It’s the son who has the gripe.”

Meanwhile, the Beezley family isn’t giving up.

They’ve written letters. They’ve hired an attorney. They’ve taken doctors’ reports to the dealership that document Weldon Beezley’s dementia and proving, they say, that he was unable to coherently make a decision as significant as buying a car.

For two weekends, they’ve picketed the dealership--an action that sparked an angry reaction, they say, from one car salesman and offers of help and sympathy from passers-by. A neighboring dealership offered the use of its restroom.

In the meantime, the family has moved--belatedly, they admit--to place their father’s business dealings in a conservatorship.

“We previously had taken away all his checks. He didn’t have access to a car, and he had no way of getting around. We thought he was safe,” Brian Beezley said. “We never thought he was capable of doing this .”

For years, Beezley was tended by his wife. But when she died a year ago, the family patriarch lived alone in the couple’s Lake San Marcos home, where twice a day an aide would fix him meals, the son said.

On May 7, Beezley saw a newspaper advertisement for a Volkswagen and called the dealership, apparently intent on buying it, according to Brian Beezley’s reconstruction of events.

His father called the dealership, beckoned a salesman to pick him up and take him back to the lot. Instead of buying the Volkswagen, he apparently was smitten by a 1988 Buick.

The salesman then drove Beezley to the bank, where he arranged for a cashier’s check for $9,567--the cost of the car and a maintenance policy that cost nearly $1,000, Brian Beezley said.

From the bank, his father was driven by the salesman back to the dealership, where he signed the necessary papers and had the salesman drive him back home in the car. Someone else from Murray Buick followed along.

By chance, Brian Beezley was at his father’s home, wondering about his whereabouts, when he showed up with the car.

No way, Brian Beezley protested. Let me call your boss. But the salesman took off, Beezley said, before the matter could be resolved.

Later, the dealership offered to rescind the deal if the Beezleys could provide proper medical documentation showing that the 80-year-old was incompetent to make such a deal.

That documentation was provided, the son said, “But the dealership said it wasn’t on the doctor’s letterhead, and it wouldn’t suffice.” So he got a handwritten letter from the doctor that said, in part: “He is not capable of understanding or making any decisions with regard to finances, business transactions, contracting or other such dealings.”

Even Beezley’s banker wrote a note that said the old man “is having trouble remembering day-to-day events, and we have been helping the family control his financial affairs.”

Unfortunately, Brian Beezley said, there was nothing to prohibit the bank from issuing the cashier’s check with his father’s funds--and it couldn’t be recalled.

The family then hired attorney Jerrold Bloch of Santa Ana, who wrote a letter demanding action. “While Mr. Beezley may have exhibited, for a short period of time, normalcy on the date in question, it is inconceivable that his mental state did not exhibit itself at some point” during the purchase, Bloch wrote.

The sale, he complained, “smacks of overreaching and is certainly not the type of activity that makes for a good reputation in the consumer community.”

But the dealership, Bloch and Brian Beezley say, still refused to discuss the matter.

Several days ago, Brian Beezley returned the car keys to the dealer’s controller--an acceptance, the Beezleys hope, that means the dealership may have rescinded the deal. In the meantime, the car sits in front of Weldon Beezley’s home, undriven.

The Beezleys aren’t sure what is next. The attorney said he is ready for court but hopes for a friendly solution.

“We just want them to unwind the deal,” Bloch said. “It’s not like it was a new car that went down in value thousands of dollars when it left the lot. And then we’d be happy to attest that they’ve been good citizens and did the right thing.”

For his part, Weldon Beezley is confused by the whole thing. In an interview that his son said was typically incoherent and rambling, the elder Beezley said on Monday he “wanted to buy the car” but, in the next breath, said he had no use for it and didn’t know how it showed up in front of his house.

“I haven’t driven a car for ages,” he said. “I wouldn’t touch that car with a 10-foot pole.”