Dealership Accidentally Gives Jeep Cherokee To Car Thief

The service department at a Jeep dealership is still trying to figure just how it happened. A man, who didn’t own a vehicle, tricked the dealership staff into giving him the car.

River Oaks Jeep in Houston, Texas accidentally gave a 2014 Jeep Cherokee SRT to someone only posing as the vehicle owner. A man showed up in the waiting area of the service department seeming very concerned about the 2014 Cherokee. He asked the service department how much longer it would be working on it, and continually walked around to monitor the progress of the repairs.

Dealership owner Alan Helfman told KTRK, “He even went to the mechanic that was working on it in the trim department and said how much longer is it gonna be for me to get my car. The mechanic said about an hour, I have work here to do.”

Eventually, the man who was pretending to be the Jeep’s owner acted as though he was about to pay for service on the vehicle. As Helfman told KTRK, “Well, he was in the cashier’s office, telling another guy to go get my credit card. So, the girls behind the counter were thinking this was a normal scenario.”

Eventually the car thief was given access to the Cherokee with keys inside and calmly drove it off the lot. It wasn’t until he was gone dealership staff realized the mistake and had to call the real owner of the vehicle, who missed the car by 15 minutes.

Have you ever heard of a criminal posing as a vehicle owner and being given the a vehicle in for service? This store has since vowed to double-check paperwork before handing keys to customers. What’s your policy when it comes to returning vehicles to your customers?