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Car and cash withheld from Holland mother of two simply awaiting repairs

Posted at 6:25 PM, Aug 04, 2015
and last updated 2015-08-04 18:56:29-04

HOLLAND, Mich. -- Imagine buying a used car only to have it break down days later. What sounds like a raw deal got even worse for one Holland woman.

"I just had a baby. She's three months old, and I have a 5-year-old son that I need to get to doctors appointments and school's coming up," Torrie Hamm said.

The Holland mother of two needed reliable transportation and spotted a 2000 Ford Taurus on the side of road in Ottawa County. In May, she called the owner and was told it was a very good car.

Hamm said, "We came back and bought it with cash."

She said her $2,200 investment began having problems immediately.

"The airbag was up a little bit. So his mechanic came and put the airbag down, and then that messed up the airbag, the lights, all the emergency lights in the dashboard. And the windshield wipers. All that didn't work," Hamm explained.

Two weeks after she bought it she said the vehicle's transmission started acting up. She was referred to Felipe Gonzalez who would fix the car. Hamm said Gonzalez picked the car up in June, and that's the last time she saw it.

Time passed and she just wanted her money back or the car back fixed. However, she said Gonzalez rarely picks up the phone. When he does, she said "there's just story after story after story."

"What do you think's going on?" FOX 17 asked Hamm. She replied, "I have no idea. That he's trying to take the car and the money."

The FOX 17 Problem Solvers tried tracking down the seller and the car with some success.

Watch the video for more