TAMPA — The Florida Highway Patrol says two more people came forward with fraud accusations against Hillsborough County car dealer Eddy Rossi.
RELATED: Hillsborough County car dealer accused of fraud
FHP has also confirmed they are looking through a treasure trove of information provided by another car dealership that also claims to be victimized by the 36-year-old Rossi.
“We were looking to buy other dealers’ paper at the time in order to grow our business.” Miranda Jones, who helps run a family owned dealership in Tampa, said.
Jones says she and her family met Rossi about two years ago. He needed someone to help finance loans and help him purchase inventory.
She says all of the paperwork seemed legitimate for the first several months. In fact, she was happy with the arrangement. Then, payments started to come in late. When her company called folks who they thought weren’t paying their bills, they made a gut-wrenching discovery.
“About 90 percent of the, let’s say 100 deals, that we bought from him turned out to be fraudulent,” she said.
Loan after loan, title after title, even insurance information appeared to be fraudulent.
She says some of the customers even told her they never bought a car from Rossi.
“They would say, ‘We’ve never heard of you before. I don’t know Eddy Rossi. I didn’t buy a car from him.’ Or 'I met Eddy, he sold me a car but I bought it cash,’” she said.
She says the alleged fraud has cost her business more than $700,000. And, because her business’s name is on much of the paperwork, it’s also been dragged into several lawsuits.
Her business is in the middle of a civil suit against Rossi. She and her family have also handed all of the documentation over to FHP.
Investigators confirmed they are digging through all of those documents. FHP has only arrested Rossi on charges stemming from one of his sales, but are looking at if he was selling the same cars to several different people as part of the scam.
