‘They Know a Wounded Animal When They See One’

You want to buy a car, so you do your homework. You consult the Kelley Blue Book and study MSRPs and figure you’re good. You won’t be taken for a ride.

Hold that thought, says Young Walgenkim.

“A lot of people think they got a good deal and they don’t even know they got ripped off,” says the Salem-based attorney, whose firm, Hanson & Walgenkim, specializes in representing clients who’ve been defrauded by new and used car dealers.

Car dealerships, says Walgenkim, “know the mental game. They know the psychology. … You go into a dealership and you spend about four hours negotiating with the dealer. They go back and forth. They say, ‘I got to check with my manager.’ They’re not checking. What they’re doing is wearing you down.”

Four hours, Walgenkim adds, is the dealer’s magic number. “He knows you’re tiring, that you’re not looking as carefully at the documents he sets in front of you. … A lot of times you’ve agreed to buy a whole bunch of third-party products that you don’t even know about,” says Walgenkim—things like paint sealants and extended warranties. “That’s where dealerships make the big money.”

Other scams: dissuading you from bringing a car for an independent inspection; telling you he’s secured financing at a certain rate.

“When they say, ‘We got you financed,’ what they’re meaning is the dealership has agreed to finance you, and then they’re going to go sell that contract to a lender,” Walgenkim says.

And if the dealership can’t sell it within 14 days, or chooses not to finance it in-house, they can call the buyer and say, “Bring the car back.”

Because consumers are often unfamiliar with the laws, they become the unwitting victims of any number of tricks, says Walgenkim. “[Dealerships] don’t take advantage of people who’ve done their homework—it’s the people who look vulnerable,” he says. “They know a wounded animal when they see one.”

Kim’s parents were among that group back in 1988. The family had just moved to the U.S. from South Korea, and Walgenkim’s father spoke little English and his mother none when they bought their first car in Los Angeles. “It was a Dodge station wagon that was overheating all the time,” says Walgenkim, who was 9 years old then. “My parents just thought, ‘That’s just what happens when you buy a used car.’”

All of this helped determine Walgenkim’s career path. “It’s what made me want to be a consumer lawyer,” he says. “I realized, oh man, there’s a huge need for people like my parents.”

Walgenkim keeps up with all the sales schemes: dealers telling you your under-warranty car is kaput when it’s not, then fixing it up and selling it. With a bit of legwork, you can gird against these and other common scams.

What you’re never fully prepared for, he says, is the charm offensive. Even the legal system isn’t. “I had a case where we proved that [the dealership] forged my client’s signature. They admitted it,” says Walgenkim. “But because the salesman and the manager were just so credible, according to the eyes of the arbitrator, the arbitrator didn’t agree with us.”

So what are the best strategies to avoid being scammed? Generally, if you’re buying a new car, Walgenkim says, don’t pay more than the manufacturers suggested retail price, skip the add-ons, and get the financing up front and in writing.

As for used cars, his firm’s website, ISueCarDealers.com, includes a top 10 list of things to keep in mind. Among them: Take someone with you, and be prepared to walk away from a deal.

Knowing how it often goes, Walgenkim was expecting the worst when he recently bought a new car, but it wasn’t bad, he says. “I go into the financing office to see what kind of add-on products they are going to sell me. They said, ‘Are you interested in any?’ ‘Not really.’ That was it.”

Why was it so easy? Walgenkim shrugs. “I know what dealers to go to,” he says. Or maybe, since he’s name partner in the only firm in Oregon specializing in suing car dealerships, they have his picture up in the back? “Could be,” he says.