BELLEVILLE — A woman claims an Edwardsville car dealership sold her a vehicle with a foul odor and then failed to provide her with the sales document and valid title.
Frances McCarty filed a complaint Feb. 25 in the St. Clair County Circuit Court against Cardinal Buick GMC Inc., and Santander Consumer USA Inc., alleging violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act.
According to her complaint, McCarty purchased a 2017 Ford Escape from Cardinal Buick in April 2020. She paid $1,500 cash, paid $500 with her debit card, received a $1,600 trade-in allowance and financed the remainder through Cardinal Buick. She alleges she was not provided any sales documents or a title to the vehicle at the time of the sale. McCarty claims that throughout the month of May she contacted the dealership and was repeatedly promised the documents would be mailed, so she continued to make her monthly loan payments. However, she alleges the defendant failed to supply the sale documents.
McCarty further alleges the vehicle "had an odor that smelled like someone had died in the car" and that she wanted to rescind the sale and loan transaction.
She claims Cardinal Buick committed fraud by not supplying the sale documents, by selling her a car without a valid title and by selling a car with an odor that caused its fair market value to be less than $1,000.
McCarty seeks monetary relief of more than $20,000 and all other just relief. She is represented by David Duree of David M. Duree & Associates PC in O'Fallon.
St. Clair County Circuit Court case number 21-L-0184