GTcarz - Automotive forums for cars & trucks. - Leasing company hunts down woman on Facebook

This is Jennifer Moss' cautionary tale -- one that involves a 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix, an exorbitant lease and masquerading creditors who used Facebook to hunt her down and humiliate her in front of family and friends.

The 21-year-old Oshawa woman learned the hard way that there's no such thing as privacy when you use a social networking site -- and few things as nasty as a leasing company spurned.

In February, she and fiance Bruce Strickland were desperate for a car to get him to his job at a sod farm. So they walked into a used car dealership and chose the $10,725 Grand Prix off the lot.

The deal they got from AJM Leasing was outrageous. But when you're poor, with no credit and just starting out, you don't have many options. So they signed on the dotted line: They would be paying a whopping 29.9% lease rate of $436 a month for four years.

They had no trouble for the first five months. But in July, they both lost their jobs and it was downhill from there. "We just started going further and further into the hole," she explains.

Their July payment bounced because of a bank mix-up and Moss immediately got an angry call from AJM warning they'd send a tow truck unless she wired the amount to a private account, which she did.

For the next four months, the couple couldn't make their payments. Moss was hoping AJM would work with them until they got back on their feet, but in fairness to the leasing agency, they're not in the sympathy business.

They wanted their money, or they wanted their car.

So began a game of cat and mouse as Moss and her fiance tried to negotiate while AJM tried to hunt them down. At first, the leasing company's methods were quite old fashioned -- calling Moss' mom, warning their family was being watched, offering a reward to the couple's reference for the car's location -- even though Moss insists they weren't trying to hide it.

When all that didn't work, they used a more crafty technique -- they tracked them on the Internet.

Strickland received a message on Facebook from an Ashley Hyde who said he looked familiar. Soon, they were chatting online and he was telling her about his Grand Prix -- not exactly the brightest move, but then his Facebook photo had him posing beside it as well.

A few weeks ago, Hyde told him she was coming into Oshawa and they should meet up at Burger King -- and by the way, he should bring his Grand Prix because she was thinking of buying one.

When Moss found out that he was thinking of meeting a woman he'd met on Facebook, they had a huge fight and split up.

Meanwhile, Moss was befriending Eric Kay on Facebook after he said he shared her love for Eagle Talon cars. But she grew suspicious as he became increasingly curious in their chats -- why had she broken up with her boyfriend? Where did she work?

Pretty soon, she and Strickland figured out that Kay and Hyde were setting them up.

Kay finally admitted as much to her online. "Listen in have a confession," he wrote Moss on Nov. 13. "If you help us find the car i (sic) will take you off the lease."

She was in Welland but promised she'd get the Grand Prix back to him by Monday. "I told him that I know I'm in the wrong and the car is yours."

Her offer wasn't good enough. If she didn't turn in her ex-fiance immediately, he threatened to post a bounty on them to all her Facebook contacts.

And Kay did just that: "We are currently looking for Jennifer Moss and Bruce Strickland or thier (sic) 2004 Grand Prix (black). We are offering a cash reward for their information. Please message me for details. If we will locate the vehicle on your tip you will get paid."

WORRIED FRIENDS

His offer was sent out to more than 150 friends and family members on her list. She was soon inundated by messages from people worried she'd been kidnapped or in trouble.

They returned in the car shortly after.

Moss knows they were in the wrong but she can't believe they would use Facebook against her.

"I never thought a company would go that far."

In an e-mail response, the executive vice president of The Kaptor Group, which owns AJM Leasing, said he's prevented from discussing Moss' file due to confidentiality -- which she finds ironic. "They can't give you the information they were willing to give all my friends?"

Shalom Romm could only say "the information you were provided or relying on is incomplete and fraught with inaccuracies" and that the high interest rate they charge is "commensurate with such involvement and risk" of dealing with those who can't get financing otherwise.

Humiliated, Moss remains on the hook for a $20,000 lease, with her relationship nearly ruined and her financial problems known to all.

But she's learned at least a few lessons out of this fiasco. "I'm going to delete my Facebook account."

And never lease again.

Original story: Grand Prix, grand shame | Michele Mandel | Columnists | News | Toronto Sun