PASADENA, Texas – A single mom says she was duped out of $1,500 after she tried to buy a used car from a business in Pasadena.
Alicia Butler says Strawberry Road Auto Sales took her money and the manager refused to return it after she wanted to leave.
“I was really looking for a car that I could just pay cash. Like, that’s it,” Butler told KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding. “He goes to the car lot, he tries to run, start the car, and it doesn’t start.”
The same thing happened to several cars, she said. That’s when the manager pulled her inside the office to talk money without even having a car lined up.
“So, none of the cars work. Then we go back to the office. The accountant comes in and she’s like, ‘Okay, so we have other cars, but the owner wants to make sure we could take all the cash.’ So, she takes the cash. It’s 20s, takes the cash and she leaves out the door. When she comes back, she’s like, ‘Here you go.’ She gives me a paper receipt and it says $1,500. And it doesn’t say anything else. It just says $1,500 cash down.”
She says she went into the business to see if she could get her money back only to be told the money was already in a safe and only the owner could get it out.
“From there I was like, ‘Well, can I just get my money back? Like, because I don’t like how this just went down,’” Butler explains. “She’s like, ‘Well, it’s already in a safe. We have to wait till the owner gets here.’”
To this day, the Butler says she still doesn’t have a car or her money.
So, KPRC 2 reporter Gage Goulding and Photojournalist Oscar Chavez went undercover to see if the same thing would happen to him.
Wearing a microphone, but without a camera, Goulding got the keys to a Jeep and with the salesman, started the engine and talked about test-driving the vehicle. At that point, he informed the salesman who he was and why he was there. The salesman invited him inside the business to speak with the manager, David Estrada.
That’s when things took a turn.
Without warning or telling our crew to leave, Estrada grabs the camera and begins pushing.
Arms were twisted and elbows were thrown at Photojournalist Oscar Chavez.
The manager was arrested by police shortly afterward and was charged with two counts of assault.
