SHARONVILLE, Ohio – Alert staff of a car dealership helped catch a man who scams auto dealerships by buying cars with bogus checks, police said.
Harry Teal Jr. called Busam Nissan Friday saying he wanted to buy a car. They picked him up and brought him to the dealership.
However, the sales team got suspicious because Teal seemed standoffish and nervous, sales manager Ronnie Locher said.
“The sale was going down extremely easy, very quick, very little negotiation, which is not common,” Locher said.
Teal was going to pay with a check for more than $20,000, Locher said. However, a quick check with U.S. Bank revealed that the account didn’t exist and the checks were no good.
Sgt. Walter Cordes said the Sharonville Police Department has had numerous contacts with Teal over the years over similar incidents. He even pulled the same scam at Busam Nissan in 2006 but was able to avoid conviction, Cordes said.
“What we've investigated Mr. Teal for in the past is purchasing a motor vehicle with a bad check, turning the car around and either selling it to another dealer or another person before the first party knows that the check is bad and then purchasing the car or trading the car in on another car,” he said.
Cordes praised the dealership’s staff for remaining cool and alerting the police.
“We're lucky that Busam had suspicions and called us right away and we were able to make contact with him before he was able to take off and go somewhere else,” Cordes said.
