- A New Zealand car dealer sent his customers offensive images after they asked for a refund on a faulty car they never received.
- Christopher Schwartz from iSeeCars Limited emailed two pictures of excrement after the couple took him to a tribunal over NZ$15k ($9k).
- Schwartz received a refund from the original supplier of the car but failed to pass it on to his own customers.
There are plenty of honest car dealers out there who are pleasant to deal with and win the trust of customers who reward them with repeat business. And then there are the other kind of dealers, the ones who give the whole trade a bad name. Dealers like Chris Schwartz who reportedly stole his customers’ money and sent them images of human feces over email.
Schwartz is the boss of iSeeCars Ltd in New Zealand and was in a dispute with Johannes and Chizelle Cilliers, who had agreed to buy a hybrid Nissan Skyline from him. Due to mechanical problems with the Skyline, the couple were never able to take custody of the car and applied three times without success to reject it and get a refund, the New Zealand Herald reports.
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When Schwartz still hadn’t refunded their NZD$15k (US$8,883) a month later, the Cilliers took him to a tribunal, where the adjudicator heard that Schwartz had pocketed the money. He had written to the company that sold him the car, Autofleet Capital Limited, telling them he had refunded the Cilliers – which he hadn’t – so Autofleet refunded Schwartz, who then failed to pass the money on.
Tribunal Decision And Ongoing Struggles
Although the tribunal found in the couple’s favor, Schwartz threatened to liquidate his dealership company, which would have meant the Cilliers losing out. But then they received an email that initially appeared to offer some hope.
“Please see attached paid in full,” Schwartz wrote. “Have a fantastic great day, I split it in two payment parts.” But the two attached files weren’t proof of payment; they were images of what appeared to be human excrement.
A Prank Gone Too Far
One picture showed feces smeared on the outer rear seat of a used SUV and the other a toilet bowl with poop splattered over the underside of the lid. Both situations likely required a surprising level of agility from the culprit.
Schwartz’s previous company has been declared bankrupt but he has opened a new one, iSeeCars Holdings Limited, that’s registered to the same address as the liquidated business. He has since described his bizarre actions as a “terrible prank amongst staff that should never have happened to a customer.”
“I did try to recall all emails sent however was unable to do so,” he told the New Zealand Herald‘s owners, NZME, explaining that he now wanted to repay the money owed. “I fully regret the actions regarding this, I and my previous company are deeply remorseful and fully regret any and all of these actions.”
Schwartz’s New Venture and Apology
The Cilliers said that, despite the ruling, they’re still not entirely sure where they stand. They’re still registered as the owners of the car and still technically have money owing on it.
“Who can you trust? We don’t know how this situation will affect our credit score, and whether we’ll even be able to finance another car in the future,” Chizelle Cillier said. “We just wanted to buy a car. Instead he essentially took our money and then sent us pictures of poo. Who does that?”
A Pattern of Disturbing Behavior
But this strange incident wasn’t a one-off for Schwartz. Stuff reports that the feces-obsessed dealer sent an image of…poop in a pizza box to another man, claiming that the were really emailed by a former employee who had access to his phone.
