Dealer offers lower price for $240K Ferrari after secretly totaling it, TX suit says

A Texas couple hired a Ferrari dealership to sell their $240,000 car, and the vehicle ended up being totaled, according to a lawsuit.

It kept getting worse after that, the lawsuit says.

The 2014 Ferrari 458 Spider was in “near-mint condition” when Ryad and Diana Bakalem dropped it off at Ferrari of San Antonio in August, the lawsuit says. They agreed to pay the dealership a sales commission to keep the sports car and find the highest price.

About three months later, an employee at the dealership took their Ferrari to “hot rod” around town and totaled it, according to the lawsuit.

“In response, Ferrari acted quickly to not only cover up the wreck, but in the most audacious and appalling of moves, seek to spin the situation into a profit,” the lawsuit says.

The dealership contacted Ryad Bakalem on the day of the crash to let him know a “client” had offered $220,000 on the Ferrari — with the dealer taking a $10,000 commission, according to the lawsuit. There was no mention of the wreck, the lawsuit says.

The couple didn’t immediately accept the offer, and a sales agent “doubled-down on her pressure tactics,” the lawsuit says.

“I need to give my client a response,” she said, according to the lawsuit. “Yesterday, I did not work but he called me all day waiting for your response.”

The dealership kept pressuring for four days, all the while not telling the Bakalems about the wreck, the lawsuit says. Then Diana Bakalem received paperwork to sell the car not to a third party but the Ferrari dealership itself for below listing price.

Less than an hour later, the dealership told the couple about the wreck, according to the lawsuit.

“The wreck had been deliberately concealed to close the deal,” the lawsuit says.

Grenville Lewis, the general manager of the Ferrari dealership, disagreed with the Bakalem’s story, saying the agreed listing price was $231,900, the San Antonio Express-News reported. Lewis said a buyer had offered $220,000 before the Ferrari was wrecked, which would have netted the couple about $210,000, the newspaper reported.

“The car was wrecked and I still offered to pay them the $210,000, which they agreed to sell a car (for) that hadn’t been wrecked,” Lewis told the San Antonio Express-News, later saying, “I tried to do the right thing and continue to pay them what was agreed.”