So about six months ago the Gazette published a front page story declaring a car dealership "apparently out of business" based on a tip from a blogger (not me), an empty car lot, and a office that was closed on a Sunday.
The very next day, probably in response to a threatened lawsuit, they published--also front page--a puff piece about the new and improved used car scheme the former VW dealership was about to morph into.
Yesterday the Daily Hampshire Gazette published a belated investigative piece about the used car dealership closing up--this time for good--leaving in its wake disgruntled consumers out thousands of dollars in deposits and cars that cannot be driven because of missing titles.
In other words, the kind of thing that if exposed a few months earlier could have saved their readers (and non readers) a major headache.
And I could not help but notice in yesterday's article they never mention the prominent incidents from only six months ago. Hmm...
5 comments:
If this were New Hampshire, or some relatively unregulated state, that would be one thing.
But this is the People's Republic of Massachusetts where you need to get permits to do anything and we have all kinds of consumer protection laws. And it involves vehicles, which have an even high level of scrutiny. And yet this happens?
Seems to me that somebody somewhere wasn't paying attention -- they charge license fees to sell cars and the stated purpose is to prevent stuff like this from happening....
As a community newspaper the Gazette is risk averse when it comes to villifying players in the community. Ironically, the risk to the greater community was of far greater import and at some point the Gazette knew about it but didn't fess up. Another good reason why community blogs like this one are vital.
To borrow from Dylan, "When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose."
One of the Gazette articles has an interesting fact - Volkswagen yanked the dealer franchise. That really is something they should have reported in the puff piece - if they weren't so worried about getting sued.
Larry, isn't it reporting 101 to call Volkswagen and confirm the facts as given to you by the guy before printing them?
And how can you force credit card payments be redirected to you without a judgement? If he has a legitimate second company that is in no way related to the first one -- corporations being people you know -- without a judgement I do wonder...
There's more to this, I think.
As predicted.
<December 13, 2011 9:52 PM
anonymous said...
They're no longer a Chevy dealer. Now they're no longer a VW dealer. Just call it next month's news today.
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