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Comment by DiabloD3 | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, I hope he wins.

The Ford dealership that he sold his vehicle to cannot reasonably claim innocence, and has put this man's, and his family's, life in danger.

Now, whether if the Ford dealership is legally liable, I don't know. However, they're basically screwed: they'll forever be remembered as the dealership that sold a vehicle to terrorists (no matter if that is technically true or not; they immediately unloaded it at a car auction like all dealerships do if they don't have a local buyer already lined up).

I'd like to see an investigation, however, why a perfectly working truck was shipped overseas and left the American market. I know working computers are "recycled" (ie, dumped in a hole in the ground somewhere in China, India, or Africa), but I wasn't aware we did the same to vehicles.

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There is a massive export market in Africa and the middle east for vehicles from North America, Europe, Japan, Australia, certainly other places as well. Most of the importing nations have far less restrictive (or any) restrictions on things like emissions and road-worthiness, and often have highly competitive local secondary markets. New vehicles are often much more expensive then they would be in western markets as well.

Sell any low-cost used 4x4 vehicle in North America and you are likely to at least be approached by somebody intending to ship it to West Africa. East Africa is serviced by huge japanese auction sites such as beforward (http://www.beforward.jp).

Ford and Toyota trucks are highly valued because they're the easiest to find spare parts for. High demand and low supply pretty quickly justifies the expense of shipping over a container and (maybe) paying import duties.

What here needs to be investigated?

  What here needs to be investigated?

Presumably we have a trade embargo with ISIS?

I'm not an expert on military strategy, but if our aim is to bomb all their equipment, we should probably investigate the possibility of not selling them replacement equipment?

I think the challenge is that markets in Africa are quite fluid. The car's don't get sold directly to ISIS - they get sold to a broker, who then sells them to another dealer, and so on..

Easier said than done. Even if the cars originate from within the United States, they pass through so many brokers and middle men that it will be quite a challenge to track their final destination. I would even argue that ISIS doesn't source their cars from the US. Instead they look to the United Arab Emirates, who remain the number one importer of used US car (in containers) by quite a margin. [1]

[1] http://www.wcshipping.com/hubfs/D_OfferPDFs/PDF/2015_Q3_Fina...

people will also lease cars on good credit (soon to be terrible credit, or just straight up identity theft), and just ship them out of the country illegally, for a huge lump sum of cash.

when i lived in sf, i knew of (friend of a friend of a friend) foreigners who were here on visas that did this, somehow. maybe exaggerated.

either way, when i lease cars i need to sign a piece of paper that says i won't ever take it out of the country, so it must be a problem.

> The Ford dealership that he sold his vehicle to cannot reasonably claim innocence, and has put this man's, and his family's, life in danger.

Sure, they can; they can, for instance, deny that the oral promise to remove the decal ever occurred, and suggest that it was concocted by the plumber to place the blame elsewhere after the images of the vehicle became public.

> I'd like to see an investigation, however, why a perfectly working truck was shipped overseas and left the American market.

An investigation? Someone thought that the overseas resale value was high enough that, even with the cost of exporting it, it was worth them offering more at auction then anyone else, including domestic purchasers. This isn't exactly a mysterious or unusual event.

> I'd like to see an investigation, however, why a perfectly working truck was shipped overseas and left the American market.

There is a massive amount of used cars in the US, and historically a large demand for these types of vehicles in Africa and the Middle East, where import taxes are lax and it's far easier to register a gray market vehicle than it is in the States. Trucks like this can fetch a much greater premium in those areas, and it is profitable for import/export companies to ship them there.

"The Ford dealership that he sold his vehicle to cannot reasonably claim innocence"

Why do you say that? You don't think that it's quite reasonable that the process of removing a decal happens at another point in the disposal chain (later on, not at the dealer by convention)? Further to this point do you think that the standard of care should be "remove at dealership (and take a picture to document) because maybe this truck will be one that is used by ISIS (or someone who commits a murder or other crime)? Can he sue the dealer? Of course. But by a reasonable standard this is not an anticipated event. Also there are many trucks that are around where the decals are removed but you can still see the residue and previous information. What do you expect ... that they are going to paint over every single vehicle because maybe it might fall into the wrong hands? This is not a big problem relative to the amount of trucks or cars that end up being used in crimes. And we don't need more laws to prevent this type of outlier event, we have enough already.

> But by a reasonable standard this is not an anticipated event.

It might not apply in this case, but there is a legal doctrine called the "Eggshell Skull Rule"[1] which roughly means you're responsible for any outcomes of your negligent or intentional misbehaviour, even if those outcomes were comepletely unforeseeable. I'd be interested to know whether something similar applies here.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull

I think the standard of care should be that, if you make an agreement to remove the decal before reselling, you have to remove the decal before reselling.

That seems like fairly basic contract law to me?

Although verbal contracts are binding in most cases, it's going to be difficult for the plaintiff to prove the dealership agreed to remove the decal if they claim that isn't the case.

"why a perfectly working truck was shipped overseas and left the American market"

Presumably because someone overseas would pay more money for it?

It'll get settled out of court. Everyone knows car dealers are a bunch of slime balls and jury pools absolutely reflect that.

I'm convinced it's part of the reason Tesla is doing so well.

"they'll forever be remembered as the dealership that sold a vehicle to terrorists"

Actually it's quite possible that they will have a net gain from the publicity. I think a person with normal intelligence would realize that this is an unfortunate occurrence and that obviously the dealer did not "sell the car to terrorists" (seriously..) Would it prevent you from buying a car from them? (Wouldn't bother me at all).

This isn't just any dealership. This is Autonation, a fortune 500 company, hence, the lawsuit.

I'd like to see an investigation, however, why a perfectly working truck was shipped overseas and left the American market.

Take a drive along the miles of used/salvage car lots on the outskirts of El Paso. USA has a giant supply of used autos, and most developing nations have large demands for same. Really it's hard to imagine the situation could be otherwise.

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