October 16, 2025 • 39 mins
Veteran auto dealer Larry Dawson joins Ask the Expert to reflect on nearly four decades in the car business — from pioneering West Virginia’s “We Buy Cars” model to navigating a post-COVID landscape now crowded with digital buyers and national chains. Larry shares advice on titles, liens, and protecting yourself from online scams, while stressing the value of local trust, personal relationships, and the one-on-one service that still sets his approach apart in an automated world
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Unlock your dream property with Meeks Realty Group, where Rich
the realtor makes real estate dreams a reality, whether it's
residential or commercial. We've got Charleston to Huntington covered. Your
key to exceptional real estate experience is start here Meeks
Realty Group. Contact us at Meeks dot us.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight WCCHS
it's employees or WVRC Media. Twenty one minutes.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Past the hour that would be the hour of eight
o'clock in the morning. You're listening soon five ADWCHS the
Voice of Charleston in studio with us this morning. Larry
Dawson is here with us this morning, taking your phone
calls if you have any questions about the auto industry.
As far as the mind cars, Larry boscars. That's what
I've heard.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Anyway, there's a rumor there's.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
A room I cars.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
You've done that for a little while now, I think.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
You know this interesting.
Speaker 5 (01:01):
I started by business in eighty seven and I sold
in two two four, so I was there thirty seven years.
When I went in, I had very little money and
very small inventory. So I took white shoe polish and
wrote we buy cars, and it's stuck. And I've been
doing that and I actually have the copyright on we
(01:22):
buy cars in state of West Virginia. But where I'm
going is since COVID, since the shortage of cars happened
and actually started really in twenty one, that how many
institutions now are advertising we buy cars. It's not I mean,
you have the Big Boys, which is on the Internet
(01:44):
and pushing your number, but just about every dealership has
a adversement in their website somewhere that you know they'll
buy your car. So it's got very busy out there
were for the longest time I was referred from dealerships
to buying cars. The approach they are taking is that
(02:07):
you know, they need cars for inventory, and they're not
treading on my in my lane. I got it. I'm
just a dot now. But I really started that. I mean,
I'm the yeah right, I started that. I mean, you
can go.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
And it wasn't until COVID until just became like a
relatively thing that everybody did. I mean, you were like
the lone person in the in the wilderness for the
longest time.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
I think I started this radio station in O two
and possibly three. So let's say COVID really inventory started
dropping in twenty one ish later part of twenty one,
so you take for twenty years. Let's just make it
twenty years. You know, I came on the radio and
we talked about me buying cars. I was the only
(02:50):
one in that lane. I mean occasionally somebody would, you know,
take it back to the dealer they bought it from.
But that's what I did, and so I had let's
say I had a twenty year head start. Now it's
a very busy lane. I mean, everybody everybody's advertising that
what's that the guy called the gas monkey.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
I mean he's on there.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Everybody is advertising now. And they got these fancy little abs.
You can put ven numbers in and and you know,
you can get a number. It's it's not always successful,
but you know, most of the time it.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Does work out.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
It may not be exactly the exact amount of money.
So I look at this approach now that I'm getting
I'm outside the circle looking in. I'm not a retell
everyday dealer. I am a license automobile dealer, and I'm
still within the guidelines of the Department of Motor Vehicles.
But I'm just kind of mean now, you know. It's
(03:45):
it's I've I've entered into semi retirement. But I really
liked it and enjoyed and I think I I think
that was my strong point, was buying cars. So I've
decided and I have to continue to do that. You know,
first of all, occupy my mind, you know, occupy my space,
and that's what I do. I don't work near like
(04:08):
I used to, and I tell people I kind of
I really don't work. I got a hobby, and I
really like this hobby. It just happens to be what
I used to do. But now that I'm really not
that retel dealer coming here, please buy a car from me,
and all that and pushing the product. Is how many
phone calls I get from people that I once did
(04:30):
business with that doesn't feel that pressure that I'm going
to try to sell my car. They call and ask
for some advice, and sometimes it's in state. Actually, the
last call or two I got was out at the
state and it involved a lady I know that's acquainted
with a really good friend of mine in a real
estate business, and she was baying she and she had
(04:53):
questions and she had no one to ask, so she
called and left the message.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I called her back.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
I always called my when if you leave me a message,
I'm going to call you back. And so we talked
and I helped her through it well. Then she got
the title, and she didn't quite understand titles and how
they were and pay the taxes, and she was somewhat
inquiring about a lien that was on a title and
(05:20):
what I'll explain to her. And the listening audience is
probably going to have had this happen to them, or
in the future they're going to have it because they're
going to continue buying cars. But some states, unlike West Virginia,
the leanholder holds the title. In other words, you buy
a car, you finance it down at the local lending institution.
(05:41):
The dealer perfects the lean by paying the sales tax,
and the title is sent to the lending institution. Then
when you pay your vehicle off, the lending institution releases
the lian that is on the front of the title
and they mail it to you. They don't know where
you live. All they have is the dress that you
(06:04):
once lived at. So if you moved it can get
lost in the shuffle. And that's what I tell people.
Whether the bank didn't melt to you well or to me,
I said, they may have, but do you live the
same address as you did when you bought the car,
because all they have is the a dress at the
time of purchase, because it's on the front of the title.
(06:26):
Now I moved, Well that might be the problem. And
so now you have a lost title possession and you go,
I paid it off.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
There's no lean on it.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
And you go down to the DMV to get a
lost title application and you fill it out and you
stand in line only to find out there's a lean
in your car.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
And you go, well, I paid it off.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
I know, but the bank only the bank released the
lean and they sent to you, but they don't notify
the DMV. So in the world of titles, you know
that they're pretty important. So you have to follow it
and if you do move, update your mailing address, especially
if you're paying it off. And once you have it
(07:07):
paid off, on the front of that title is a
lean release. So therefore you have a free and clear
title to your car. Now, if you put that in
the Bible and put it up in the closet and
you forget about it and you need that title for
whatever reason. And there's where I come in at is
(07:29):
that Uncle Joe died. We can't find this title. That's
very common. That's very common. And they've looked and looked
and look, and they said, we'll go get you a title.
And I said, well, wait a minute before you go
down there to get that title.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Was there ever money owed on that car? Yes, but
he paid it off.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
I said, I know, but the DMV doesn't know that
because you're gonna go down and stand that line to
get frustrated. You need a release of lean from that
lender to company the title application for a lost title.
Then they will know that the lean has been paid off.
He gets a little complicated, especially when we don't know
(08:11):
where Uncle Joe had to loan at. And so as
I walk people through this as I'm buying their cars,
now let's go outside the box. Let's take me out
of the scenario. Call that one eight hundred numbers and
see if they'll walk you through that. You think they care,
They don't care. Of course, They're just a number. They're
(08:31):
just playing that numbers game. And so that's where I
still feel that I'm different from all the other ones
because I have this thing called time or my side,
I have the essence of time, because you know, I'm
not being pushed to buy the buy or sell to sell.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Do you think that there's an element There was a
time during COVID when things were sort of upside down
and dealerships were finding a way to actually make a
snip an amount of money off of reselling the stock
that they repurchased. You know, that was a thing for
a while. I personally kind of felt like, and maybe
you make such an investment, there's no real way to
get into this. But I personally felt like that that
(09:12):
moment kind of moved one. But dealerships still tried to
make it work. And without that moment being exactly what
it was and things like that, you've had to change
exactly what that means to you, And it's not what
it started out as, which means that it just gets
less of what it was. It reminds me of. And
I don't think this is much of a stretches of
an analogy back we've talked about before. I used to run
(09:34):
a franchise of bookstores. I had a bunch of book
stores and stuff, and we started relatively early, just after
Amazon started, and we kind of mimicked what Amazon did
for a large portion of time.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
We started with books.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
We incorporated CDs and DVDs and games like that and
stuff like that later on, but our core business when
we first started is that we would still go out
to state sales, to library sales and different things like that,
and we would find not only bulk books, but we
were targeted to see books that had value and I
don't mean like you would find a thousand year old
copy of something. I mean like a textbook or a
(10:06):
nonfiction book of some kind, and you would get used
to this and know what had value. And when that
industry first started, that was extraordinarily profitable for us, and
we actually built our business off of that model. Or
we would go and find at library sales and estate
sales and goodwill and different places like that. We would
be able to go out and find some of these
things that we would put in our store also to
be able to sell online because we were doing that
(10:27):
at the time, and then it was profitable for us.
The problem that had we did this for a long time,
and the problem that happened is everybody started doing that.
Everybody started to be like going to a good will
and buying all the books and then reselling them on eBay,
and they weren't targeted. They would just buy everything because
they didn't have the specialized knowledge that we had. They
would just go in and get everything and then throw
everything at the wall see what they could turn around
(10:47):
on eBay and stuff like that. Eventually, the library systems
and stuff like that got smart, and so they stopped
putting out some of these books that were worth money.
Estates and stuff like that started being like, oh wait
a minute, we better run these through eBay before we
put them out in the estate selle because we might
get more money that way. Eventually it became extraordinarily non profitable,
unprofitable for us to do it, although that's how we
(11:08):
built our business because there was just too many people
that were in the game. However, we had some people
that were not really contractors for it, but they still
ran that type of business on the side, but they
didn't have any other overhead. I had a full business
by the time. I had tons of people that I
had to pay. I had a department, basically an acquisition
department that I paid to go out and do these things.
It became where I was losing money doing it because
I had overhead doing it. The people that would occasionally
(11:30):
still come to us that only did that as they're
living still did it quite fine, got by quite fine.
They could find the deals still because it was at
a much smaller level and they were still touching things.
They were still there where they could touch the industry
a little bit on that side of things, And that
seems almost kind of similar. It's like these people were
still able to do it because they were still on
that ground. They understood the specialization of the industry where
(11:51):
I had no choice but to grow, and really the
business didn't make a lot of sense for me anymore.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
It's a moving target in COVID. Most people will say
that COVID changed the world, and it changed the world,
But I tell you what it did. It watered down relationships,
the relationships that I have built over the years. I
won't say I lost the relationships, but I wasn't as
(12:19):
needed as I once was, and dealerships grew. You know,
there's been a lot of by seals throughout the valley
and throughout the West Virginia and throughout the world. You know,
the dealerships acquiring other and they're putting them under I
call them rooftops where they have to have CFOs and
coos and you know, those were words that I never
(12:42):
heard of as I was being brought up in the
automobile world. You know, I knew most of the dealers
by name, played golf with them, played rickaball with them,
or they've been at my house, or I'd been at
their house. That's not like that anymore so that one
on one, and I've noticed this. You know, I'm pretty
involved starting to fred out there. I'm pretty involved in
(13:03):
watching sports on a local level. Those signs that I
used to see on the baseball field and the football field,
or the area around the school, the billboards or the
four but eight signs, I don't see car dealers. I
(13:24):
can't tell you how many teams I've sponsored. I sponsored
a little thing just because it's Harvey Payton's secretary. She's
been with Harvey a long time. I spons she had
all Horse paryed in Buffalo. Well that doesn't sound like much,
but in Buffalo, West Virginia, that's a lot. And they
had I think they raised a lot of money for
(13:47):
hospice and they had lots of horses, and it's an
all horse preyed on Buffalo, West Virginia. That means a lot.
I don't think Carvana or all these big stores are
going to go down there and advertise it. I provided music.
It's my way of paying back and saying thank you.
The little town of Buffalo is located across the river
(14:09):
from Winfield, where I live, where I went to high
school at And yes, I buy cars, and I bought
cars on that side of the river, and that side
of the river really doesn't get a lot of attention.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
And when Moonie.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Asked me about the music, I said, sure, I'll take
care of him. Put a banner up, and I'm sure.
Unfortunately I wasn't there. I was in Pickens, West Virginia's
side to side writing, but I understand that they rolled
a red carpet out and it was quite, you know,
an ordeal. And once again, if you look around, you
(14:40):
do not see these large stores with their name on
the back of these jerseys. I still get inquiries about
donating money to small schools with small functions. I know
why I'm getting it. I'm a nobody. I'm almost not
existence because they can't get attention of the big person.
(15:04):
It's just those dollars are going digitally somewhere else. And
I'm just old school, and I guess they'll bury me.
I'll still do my own thing. And it doesn't work
for everybody. But when you have a circumstance and frustration
hits you, and it's very easy to do, you know,
trying to use a computer to do anything, if you're
(15:26):
north of fifty years old, or trying to converse with
somebody that is probably AI, it's call me, call me,
just like this lady did in Florida. She didn't quite
understand what this lean on this title of this jeet
that she bought was in some states, and that I
got off track there. Just meant to tell you what
(15:48):
you know how to do West Virginia. But in some
states that you carry the title with you and it
has the lean and you go to the courthouse, the
county seat when you pay your car off to get
a release of lean. Kentucky's that way, so because I've
sent many payoffs to the county seat in Kentucky, and
(16:13):
so it gets complicated if that's not what you have done,
and if you're out trying to solo and do it
by yourself. You can get in a position you don't
want to be and you have no one to call.
And as these larger stores get larger, and yes they
say they're going to buy cars, let there be a
(16:35):
situation or a problem and see how much.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Attention you get.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
I at Least I have commercial property and I just
ended a lease with Trust. I least trust, which is
a large bank. It's a national bank. We just ended
and when they left it, they didn't leave the building.
I would say any condition that I would left it.
They shortly leave it and CONDI they got it. So
(17:03):
with some phone calls and pushing, they came and removed
some other items. I'm still not happy about what I'm
gonna have to do. Was caught to clean up. But
that's okay. I'm a big boy. The other company I
at least too, is a national health care company. They
are ending their least because they've been bought out by
another national health care company. But all of a sudden
(17:25):
now is when they sent me the termination notice, they
had to give me ninety days. As we get very
close to the ninety days, they realized they needed that building.
What for a while longer well. The company that I
could not ever get a hold of to end at
least to do the walkthrough. All of a sudden they
(17:47):
needed me.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
Oh hey, hey, look here we are.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
And started calling, and I finally got a hold of
someone that that we were okay, we could, we could share.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
I mean we could, we could talk.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
I think we're on the same page because I gave
them an extension. But the lady I was talking to
start talking over me and telling me what they're going
to do and how they're going to pay me, and
their lease had finalized, and I just let her go
through her spill because I couldn't get a word in.
(18:20):
I me every time I broke my mouth, she was
talking over me. And you do that with me, You
start telling me, I'll shut down on you and then
you'll figure it out. And so how, somehow I intercepted
an email between the lady I was not communicating well
(18:40):
with and the guy that I would think I was
communicating well with was She says he just won't return
my cause.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
And I thought, imagine that.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
I've called you for six months over the property IX
because you've not paid them. Goodness, But that's okay. We
got that resk because I found somebody that liked to talk.
And if you can talk and we can understand each other,
we're going to be good. Let me speak and then
you can speak, and we're going to find the happy
meeting point. But when you take that ball and you're
gonna tell me what you're gonna do with my building.
(19:13):
And I think people gets caught up in selling their cars.
They make the invite of the national company into their world,
you know, into their world, their little space on Beech
Street in Charleston, West Virginia, to sell mama's car. And
then here comes the big boys and they'll come in
and start dictating, and you catch the right person, they'll
(19:34):
overwhelm you and then they take all this information from you.
And once they're gone, they have all your information. And
that's where I once again, I'm different. There's not gonna
be information stored in a computer. It's gonna be you
and I. And if Grandma is involved and we have
to get a fire of attorney or someone's past, and
(19:55):
I've done that, I've went to the house. I went
to many houses. Now, I can't tell you how many
houses I went to with circumstances that involved let's just
say illness, death, divorced situations that we all have to
deal with we do not want to deal with. So
we got to slow it down because there's emotions of aldiness.
(20:18):
I mean, I can show you a text or my
phone a person thanking me for going to their mother's
house because it was the last raw, it's the last car.
And we I did a follow up. I said, is
she okay? And he said, wonderful. It will work out fine.
I don't think it would have worked out fine without
that one on one were sitting in that living room.
(20:41):
And I've done that and I'm accustomed to do that,
and I feel like it's my obligation I pay back
to society all those that helped me along my journey.
Gentleman owns a fireplace store in Cross Slane. Steve has
been there for gosh, I don't know, forty or fifty
years longer than I was in business. He was one
(21:01):
of the last customers we sold a car too. And
he called me last week and he said, is there
anybody doing what you did and that little niche you
had because I have an employee And I said, no, Steve,
there's not not like the way I did it because
I didn't chase price. I wanted quality, and I said
that's that. Unfortunately we have drifted away from that. And
(21:24):
once again I was small and I was like the
house flipper, but I didn't go by.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
The cheap stuff. I bought the good stuff.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
So when you got the house, the plumbing didn't leak
that I missed things.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Well, I'm sure it did.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
But you had a really good cetubrations in your car,
and really good set ofators are in your car. And
there was where I stood different. And I think in
me buying cars, where I stand different is that I do.
I am a person. You know, I have connections in
this community. I have connections with this radio station, and
so I want to represent what little bit and I
(22:00):
have left to me in buying cars. I'm going to
treat it like I did day one. So I think
that's the difference when you get out to it, because
it's crowded. It's very crowded out here, and we buy
car lane.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
And you've been doing it longer than anybody else and
still can operate in that low overhead specialized area, which
really is what gives you an advantage. Not only the
depth of knowledge that goes back nearly forty years or more.
But also just the fact that you can operate on
your own time, doing your own thing, making the right situations,
which which is very unique. It gives you that ability
(22:38):
where you can operate only where you're comfortable, and that's
very appantageous not only for you, of course working in
your retirement, but the people that you choose to do
business with. That only helps them. Yes, there's no question
about that. Let's do this. Let's take a break. If
you have any questions for Larry, and there's all kinds
of things that we can talk about. If you want
to talk about something going on in Nitro, or you
want to call and give a testimonial about Larry, or
maybe you have a unique situation that you want to
(22:58):
kind of wind through or share it and go to
some kind Welcome to goes a call this morning. Three
zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight three
four five fifty eight fifty eight. You can give us
a call and we can get you right on the
line with Larry Dawson. Let's do this. Let's go ahead
and take a break, Welcome back, and wrap up the
program after that, It's about sixteen minutes until the top
of the hour, and you're listening to Larry Dawson Owen
A's The Expert, Five Adwhs Boys to Charleston.
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Speaker 7 (23:49):
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You can also watch Princeton and Beckley Matt's Calm against
Greenbrier Wes, Parkersburg South in Morgantown, Scott and Rone County
and Winfield versus Shady Spring All on Metro News TV,
brought to you by the Thrasher Group. Marshall University had
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(24:12):
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Speaker 8 (24:20):
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Speaker 2 (24:51):
This update is brought to you by Fourth Avenue Financial.
A good retirement takes planning. Let's get started today, Happy
Wednesday morning. This is Deale Cooper with a check of traffic.
We do have one occurrence we need to pass along
to you. It's just dense traffic in downtown Charleston, not
sixty four eastbound. All of the downtown exits right now
are experiencing some delays just from the dense traffic that
(25:12):
is coming into town. Also, dense fog has been developing
overnight and throughout the morning. Portions of the trywind to
work will have greatly reduced visibility to half them out
or less. So you want to be careful of the
fog as you're driving in this morning. Otherwise things are
moving okay. You just need to be careful head and
wherever you're going.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
It is fourteen minutes at the top of the hour.
You are listening to ask the expert. Do you see
hs the voice of Charles, And we put out a
phone number for folks to give us a call. You're
more than welcome to gifts to call this morning three
zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight, and
we have some folks that did that. Suzanne is up first.
Richard will come up next. Susan, you're on the line
with Larry Dawson. Go ahead, right.
Speaker 9 (25:56):
My name is Susanne. And back in twenty sixteen, my
husband passed away and I called Larry and we had
almost a brand new F one fifty were super nice,
and my son was driving a hand me down car.
It was a Volvo that was an older car and
(26:19):
because of expenses we needed to reduce it to one car.
And I called Larry and Larry said, sure, bring it
in and I brought him in and the Volvo was
too old for Larry to make any money on that.
(26:40):
He said, you know what, We're going to take both
of them. We're going to do this for you. We're
going to take care of you. And he just sent
the Volvo off to auction. He knew he couldn't do
anything with it, but he knew I needed help. And
in twenty twenty three, my father passed away. In twenty
four my mom needed to sell her car. The first
(27:01):
thing I said was, don't trade it in. Call Larry.
She called Larry and he gave her a wonderful price, Sport,
And I just wanted to assure everybody what Larry says.
He's a real thing.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Susane. Didn't I come to your house in Crystal Springs
about cad Like one time?
Speaker 9 (27:21):
Yes, car too. I've forgotten about that, ye, Cadike.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
It was in Hickorymeal and yeah, yeah, that's I remember.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
So she's a wonderful lady.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
And I knew her husband, and and thank you, thank
you very much, Susanne for saying that, because that's what
I do.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Do you know? That's well?
Speaker 9 (27:47):
And I'd forgotten about the Cadillac. But yeah, you're You're
the real deal and I have told many of people
about you.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Okay, thanks Suzanne, thank you very.
Speaker 9 (27:59):
Much, Thank you.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
You have a good one, Bay Susan.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
We appreciate that call. Thank you so much for calling in.
And we have Richard that's called in this morning as well.
That leaves a phone line open for you with three four,
five fifty eight fifty eight Richard of the morning. How
you doing this morning.
Speaker 10 (28:09):
I'm well at the intersection of Ralph sixty and thirty
four at Hurricane on the southwest corner. It is a
tremendous automobile lot. Do you know what that operation's all about.
I'll listen on the radio. Thank you, Thanks Richard.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
Yeah, that's co Part and co Part is a national
chain that does liquidations of mostly totaled vehicles. In other words,
let's just say you are an automobile accident. They totaled
your car. They will pick your car up and that's
the closest co Part and they take them there and
(28:47):
co Part runs a salvage auction. In other words, you
can go on line as a dealer and buy and
that maybe as an individual. I don't exclusively say dealer.
But I am stood with Copart and I could go
down there. And it's not that I can't remember if
I've ever sent a car there that I bought that
(29:08):
was deemed wrecked or totaled.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
But he's right.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
It's it's huge, and he's exactly right in the location.
And it's called co Part.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
But it is a national.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
Company and they do liquidations, fire car bent on, fire,
flood or just an automobile accident. But that's the name
of the company's coat. It's called co Part. Hey, you
called the right guy to find out. Larry knew what
it was.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
By the way, Larry Dawson, you can get ahold of
Larry if you have any questions things that we talked
about on the show. If you're looking at maybe selling
a vehicle, threes are four five, four five zero two
one one. Threes are four five, four, five zero two
one one For Larry Dawson, he buys cars.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
Still tell you a quick story, and it happened right
here in this station. The Mayor Winfield is a very
good friend of mine. Unfortunately he lost his father. Father
had a truck called me about evaluation. I shared with
him what I thought went by city hall there set
the truck. I wheeled in there. I was going to
the farm. Called Randy and he said, hey, I just
(30:09):
don't leave up. I'm just like two minutes away.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Pulled in.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
He and I talked, had a nice truck, and I said,
my neighbor, which is rich the realtor, is looking for
a truck for his stepson.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Said here's his number. You might call him.
Speaker 8 (30:27):
Now.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
I have nothing in this, okay. And other than my
neighbors said hey, here, I want to find a truck
my son that you know, and I said okay. Then
I saw the mayor's and I thought, well, I'll put
these two together. Well, as I was telling this story
about a month ago, and I mentioned rich Therilder, Richie
Klein and the mayor and the truck. There's a lawyer
(30:53):
and Timmy Lafon heard it me talking about it in Charleston. Well,
he's our city attorney, I said, on the board. And
well in Winfield and Nitro, so lawyer Lafawn calls Mayor
Bart and says, hey, that truck. He said, I want
to you know, I want to buy the truck. And
he said, well, how do you even know about it?
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Larry Dawson.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
So if you share with me, I might share it
with someone else that's a Byron. Then once again I
have nothing in this now. Mayor Bert sold the truck.
It was his father's and Lawyer la Fawn bought it
which he needed for whatever reason, and Larry was the messenger.
Larry worked free on that one. But maybe Lawyer Lafawn
(31:39):
or Mayor Bart will have one next time that I'm
going to be able to buy. Actually, I pulled in
to uh gus, I've got look in the truck and
I thought, you know, somewhere I know somebody.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Yeah, I might buy that truck.
Speaker 5 (31:51):
And Randy doesn't even know this that I pulled in
there the second time only to find this story out
that I think his name is Tim Lafawn. Is Larry
Lafaun's brother or cousin was brother. I think Larry's a
retired auto dealer, but he You never know when you
when you share information, especially with the old car guy,
(32:13):
the old guy that hangs around tutors.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
I'm that guy now. Now, one thing I'm not gonna be.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
I'm not going to be the guy that gets on
the fake book and complain about everything. I just laugh
and take a pretty picture of Pickings, West Virginia.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
You know, and put on there. But that's what I do.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
I'm kind of the information highway, kind of the car guy.
I'm not gonna try to sell your car. I'm gonna
try to buy your car. And if I can't buy
your car, I might know somebody wants to buy your car,
and I can't buy them all, especially today, you know,
I'm just a one on one guy. Normally I spot
a car and and uh, over the years, I have
a rollodex full of dealers that one dealer that might
(32:55):
excel in buying this one certain brand or one certain
price French car I know here right, and then I
have the lower end guy and the higher end guy.
And so it's all in my mind. I mean, if
I cracked my head hoping one day all these little
cars are going around, I'm gonna bleed out in cars.
Speaker 9 (33:12):
Well.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
One of the things that really strikes me when you
talk about this though, you know, back in the you know,
when I was growing up and when people wanted to
you know, they had their car they paid off. Maybe
it was their kid's car that they finally paid off,
or or the older sister gave her younger brother her car,
and then he decided he was going to sell that
to turn around and buy another car. Whatever it might be,
that this stuff used to happen all the time, and
there was nothing to stick a sign in the in
(33:33):
the in the windshield. Maybe you would ask a friend
of yours whose dad owned a local business if you
could pull it into the parking lot there or something
like that and put a phone number on it for
people to uh to give you a call to be
interested in the vehicle. Absolutely nothing wrong with that in concept,
there's nothing wrong with it today. The problem is is
number one, the people that are out looking at that
car aren't necessarily the person that needs the car. They're
(33:53):
they're looking for numbers of people to call, and then
they're going to come and get you and try to
broke her a deal with you. And they're going to
try to pin into this, and pinion to that and
and and try to talk you into something because they're
gonna be dangling a you know, where they're claimed to
be a check in front of you. Who knows if
it's going to clear or not, but that's what they're
going to claim. It's it's less authentic than it used
to be. It used to be the person that calls.
It was the person that wanted the car, and that's
who you still are. You're still the guy that wants
(34:14):
the car. You're not trying to act, and you're not
trying to to, uh, to be the bigger company that's
coming in and taking all the cars. You know, I
got to have them all. You know, you're still acting
on a on a one on one basis. You are
exactly that person that if you're contacting that person because
you want the car. And it's just different in that
way like it used to be, rather than today where
people are trying to well, let's go get all the
(34:35):
cars and we can bring them on our lot and
we can sell them, and then we can put a
little bit of money into this and sell it for
this much more and so on and so forth. It's
just and the expansion of it being bigger, it's made
it less authentic and uh, it's harder to find the
solid deals.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
You probably are aware of this that these scammers or
telemarkers can sp I don't know if this is the
right word. They can spoof the number to make it
look like the phone call is originating from whatever business.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Hey, they can make it look like it's coming from
your own number. Yeah yeah, oh yeah, they can do
whatever number they want.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
In the last day's or earth of anyone, we have
to use this thing called a funeral unfortunately. And I
want to leave this vegue because this happened to a
friend of mine that they got to follow up call
from the funeral home. They thought they just used.
Speaker 11 (35:33):
Needing immediate payment, and an immediate payment was made out
of maybe not having all their wits together at that moment.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Same way with.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Wow, that is how disaster is that somebody who's going
through such grief?
Speaker 4 (35:50):
And then oh my goodness, so you.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
Better be careful when you reach out and then they
contact you back.
Speaker 4 (35:57):
Now, how do you know? How do you know? That's
the company with me?
Speaker 5 (36:04):
You can take You can get a cell phone number
that I've had since nineteen eighty nine. You can google it.
It will show you my house. I'm not going nowhere,
And that's what I try to slow people down. Once again.
I can't buy them all. I'm not going to try to.
I just get one here and there and have something
to do. I've helped so many people. But be careful
(36:26):
when you reach out, especially.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
When you give your Yeah, if you're online and you're like, oh,
maybe somebody wants to buy my car. Because all they're doing,
I mean, this is isn't real secret, but they're just
collecting your information, putting it on a list and selling
it to people. That's why suddenly you get one hundred
email contacts and phone numbers you don't recognize calling in
stuff like that. You just voluntarily gave your information to
(36:49):
a list broker. I mean, that's the bottom line what happened, and.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
They sell off. People are intriggued when they have conversation
or if they google one thing like cowboy boots. Maybe
I'm wanted a new pair of cowboy boots. Look how
many times it will pop up on your phone. Oh yeah,
And you better be careful when you especially in that
world where it involves money and merchandise, because that money
(37:14):
and that merchandise it could be different than what you
think it is. And you know, there's temptation. That didn't
pt Barms say there was a full born every.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
Day, and you got to be careful.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
They know the weakness and they you know you can
go once again, you can google my number.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
It will tell you my age.
Speaker 5 (37:37):
I mean, I have no secrets, but I'm not a
young spring checking anylong. You know, I'm sixty seven years old.
And as I age, they know that. Predators know that.
You know, where do you become a week in life
or the end of it? And not only mentally, but physically.
And I think sometimes maybe a lot of times, that's
(38:00):
taking advantage.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Other Oh sure it is.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
There's an entire industry out there that's, as we speak,
creating customized fingerprints for basically every single person you meet
everybody else. And I don't mean like actual fingerprints, I
mean your digital fingerprint. What you'll be able to do
is you'll be able to you know, how all this
data that we give people are supposed to be anonymized.
You know that you can't identify anybody. Well, what's going
to be happening soon is you're going to be able
(38:24):
to match up specific tailored ads and things like that
for a particular person. I mean you see that more
in a general sense now, but I mean this kind
of data that's being collected and being sold off not
only to commercial companies but to the government and stuff
like that. It's basically soial security data, your IRS data,
your medical data. I mean all these things are now
being tied into one location and people can buy that information.
(38:47):
You're going to have stuff that is just so customly
tailored to exploit. It's just it's a scary time for
those types of things.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
Well, look happened Calvin Coalty. Yeah, I mean that's elected official.
Fish will go out and do that. What do you
think somebody that you're giving information?
Speaker 3 (39:04):
That's the truth, man, that's Larry Dawson. Larry Dawson's auto
sells and you can find Larry up.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Give him a call.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Three zero four five four five zero two one one. Larry,
Thanks so much for your time. We'll see you back
here next month. Thank you for having me. Thank you
so much for tuning in. This is Ask the Expert
w s HS, the Voice of Charleston.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
W c HS AI W two four three d r
f M Charleston, W two eight three HU Cross Lanes
a WVRC media station. We're proud to live here too,
Unlock your dream property with Meeks Realty Group, where Rich
the realtor makes real estate dreams a reality, whether it's
residential or commercial. We've got Charleston to Huntington covered. Your
key to exceptional real estate experience is start here Meeks
Realty Group. Contact us at Meeks dot us.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight WCCHS
it's employees or WVRC Media. Twenty one minutes.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Past the hour that would be the hour of eight
o'clock in the morning. You're listening soon five ADWCHS the
Voice of Charleston in studio with us this morning. Larry
Dawson is here with us this morning, taking your phone
calls if you have any questions about the auto industry.
As far as the mind cars, Larry boscars. That's what
I've heard.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Anyway, there's a rumor there's.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
A room I cars.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
You've done that for a little while now, I think.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
You know this interesting.
Speaker 5 (01:01):
I started by business in eighty seven and I sold
in two two four, so I was there thirty seven years.
When I went in, I had very little money and
very small inventory. So I took white shoe polish and
wrote we buy cars, and it's stuck. And I've been
doing that and I actually have the copyright on we
(01:22):
buy cars in state of West Virginia. But where I'm
going is since COVID, since the shortage of cars happened
and actually started really in twenty one, that how many
institutions now are advertising we buy cars. It's not I mean,
you have the Big Boys, which is on the Internet
(01:44):
and pushing your number, but just about every dealership has
a adversement in their website somewhere that you know they'll
buy your car. So it's got very busy out there
were for the longest time I was referred from dealerships
to buying cars. The approach they are taking is that
(02:07):
you know, they need cars for inventory, and they're not
treading on my in my lane. I got it. I'm
just a dot now. But I really started that. I mean,
I'm the yeah right, I started that. I mean, you
can go.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
And it wasn't until COVID until just became like a
relatively thing that everybody did. I mean, you were like
the lone person in the in the wilderness for the
longest time.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
I think I started this radio station in O two
and possibly three. So let's say COVID really inventory started
dropping in twenty one ish later part of twenty one,
so you take for twenty years. Let's just make it
twenty years. You know, I came on the radio and
we talked about me buying cars. I was the only
(02:50):
one in that lane. I mean occasionally somebody would, you know,
take it back to the dealer they bought it from.
But that's what I did, and so I had let's
say I had a twenty year head start. Now it's
a very busy lane. I mean, everybody everybody's advertising that
what's that the guy called the gas monkey.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
I mean he's on there.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Everybody is advertising now. And they got these fancy little abs.
You can put ven numbers in and and you know,
you can get a number. It's it's not always successful,
but you know, most of the time it.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Does work out.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
It may not be exactly the exact amount of money.
So I look at this approach now that I'm getting
I'm outside the circle looking in. I'm not a retell
everyday dealer. I am a license automobile dealer, and I'm
still within the guidelines of the Department of Motor Vehicles.
But I'm just kind of mean now, you know. It's
(03:45):
it's I've I've entered into semi retirement. But I really
liked it and enjoyed and I think I I think
that was my strong point, was buying cars. So I've
decided and I have to continue to do that. You know,
first of all, occupy my mind, you know, occupy my space,
and that's what I do. I don't work near like
(04:08):
I used to, and I tell people I kind of
I really don't work. I got a hobby, and I
really like this hobby. It just happens to be what
I used to do. But now that I'm really not
that retel dealer coming here, please buy a car from me,
and all that and pushing the product. Is how many
phone calls I get from people that I once did
(04:30):
business with that doesn't feel that pressure that I'm going
to try to sell my car. They call and ask
for some advice, and sometimes it's in state. Actually, the
last call or two I got was out at the
state and it involved a lady I know that's acquainted
with a really good friend of mine in a real
estate business, and she was baying she and she had
(04:53):
questions and she had no one to ask, so she
called and left the message.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I called her back.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
I always called my when if you leave me a message,
I'm going to call you back. And so we talked
and I helped her through it well. Then she got
the title, and she didn't quite understand titles and how
they were and pay the taxes, and she was somewhat
inquiring about a lien that was on a title and
(05:20):
what I'll explain to her. And the listening audience is
probably going to have had this happen to them, or
in the future they're going to have it because they're
going to continue buying cars. But some states, unlike West Virginia,
the leanholder holds the title. In other words, you buy
a car, you finance it down at the local lending institution.
(05:41):
The dealer perfects the lean by paying the sales tax,
and the title is sent to the lending institution. Then
when you pay your vehicle off, the lending institution releases
the lian that is on the front of the title
and they mail it to you. They don't know where
you live. All they have is the dress that you
(06:04):
once lived at. So if you moved it can get
lost in the shuffle. And that's what I tell people.
Whether the bank didn't melt to you well or to me,
I said, they may have, but do you live the
same address as you did when you bought the car,
because all they have is the a dress at the
time of purchase, because it's on the front of the title.
(06:26):
Now I moved, Well that might be the problem. And
so now you have a lost title possession and you go,
I paid it off.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
There's no lean on it.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
And you go down to the DMV to get a
lost title application and you fill it out and you
stand in line only to find out there's a lean
in your car.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
And you go, well, I paid it off.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
I know, but the bank only the bank released the
lean and they sent to you, but they don't notify
the DMV. So in the world of titles, you know
that they're pretty important. So you have to follow it
and if you do move, update your mailing address, especially
if you're paying it off. And once you have it
(07:07):
paid off, on the front of that title is a
lean release. So therefore you have a free and clear
title to your car. Now, if you put that in
the Bible and put it up in the closet and
you forget about it and you need that title for
whatever reason. And there's where I come in at is
(07:29):
that Uncle Joe died. We can't find this title. That's
very common. That's very common. And they've looked and looked
and look, and they said, we'll go get you a title.
And I said, well, wait a minute before you go
down there to get that title.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Was there ever money owed on that car? Yes, but
he paid it off.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
I said, I know, but the DMV doesn't know that
because you're gonna go down and stand that line to
get frustrated. You need a release of lean from that
lender to company the title application for a lost title.
Then they will know that the lean has been paid off.
He gets a little complicated, especially when we don't know
(08:11):
where Uncle Joe had to loan at. And so as
I walk people through this as I'm buying their cars,
now let's go outside the box. Let's take me out
of the scenario. Call that one eight hundred numbers and
see if they'll walk you through that. You think they care,
They don't care. Of course, They're just a number. They're
(08:31):
just playing that numbers game. And so that's where I
still feel that I'm different from all the other ones
because I have this thing called time or my side,
I have the essence of time, because you know, I'm
not being pushed to buy the buy or sell to sell.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Do you think that there's an element There was a
time during COVID when things were sort of upside down
and dealerships were finding a way to actually make a
snip an amount of money off of reselling the stock
that they repurchased. You know, that was a thing for
a while. I personally kind of felt like, and maybe
you make such an investment, there's no real way to
get into this. But I personally felt like that that
(09:12):
moment kind of moved one. But dealerships still tried to
make it work. And without that moment being exactly what
it was and things like that, you've had to change
exactly what that means to you, And it's not what
it started out as, which means that it just gets
less of what it was. It reminds me of. And
I don't think this is much of a stretches of
an analogy back we've talked about before. I used to run
(09:34):
a franchise of bookstores. I had a bunch of book
stores and stuff, and we started relatively early, just after
Amazon started, and we kind of mimicked what Amazon did
for a large portion of time.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
We started with books.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
We incorporated CDs and DVDs and games like that and
stuff like that later on, but our core business when
we first started is that we would still go out
to state sales, to library sales and different things like that,
and we would find not only bulk books, but we
were targeted to see books that had value and I
don't mean like you would find a thousand year old
copy of something. I mean like a textbook or a
(10:06):
nonfiction book of some kind, and you would get used
to this and know what had value. And when that
industry first started, that was extraordinarily profitable for us, and
we actually built our business off of that model. Or
we would go and find at library sales and estate
sales and goodwill and different places like that. We would
be able to go out and find some of these
things that we would put in our store also to
be able to sell online because we were doing that
(10:27):
at the time, and then it was profitable for us.
The problem that had we did this for a long time,
and the problem that happened is everybody started doing that.
Everybody started to be like going to a good will
and buying all the books and then reselling them on eBay,
and they weren't targeted. They would just buy everything because
they didn't have the specialized knowledge that we had. They
would just go in and get everything and then throw
everything at the wall see what they could turn around
(10:47):
on eBay and stuff like that. Eventually, the library systems
and stuff like that got smart, and so they stopped
putting out some of these books that were worth money.
Estates and stuff like that started being like, oh wait
a minute, we better run these through eBay before we
put them out in the estate selle because we might
get more money that way. Eventually it became extraordinarily non profitable,
unprofitable for us to do it, although that's how we
(11:08):
built our business because there was just too many people
that were in the game. However, we had some people
that were not really contractors for it, but they still
ran that type of business on the side, but they
didn't have any other overhead. I had a full business
by the time. I had tons of people that I
had to pay. I had a department, basically an acquisition
department that I paid to go out and do these things.
It became where I was losing money doing it because
I had overhead doing it. The people that would occasionally
(11:30):
still come to us that only did that as they're
living still did it quite fine, got by quite fine.
They could find the deals still because it was at
a much smaller level and they were still touching things.
They were still there where they could touch the industry
a little bit on that side of things, And that
seems almost kind of similar. It's like these people were
still able to do it because they were still on
that ground. They understood the specialization of the industry where
(11:51):
I had no choice but to grow, and really the
business didn't make a lot of sense for me anymore.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
It's a moving target in COVID. Most people will say
that COVID changed the world, and it changed the world,
But I tell you what it did. It watered down relationships,
the relationships that I have built over the years. I
won't say I lost the relationships, but I wasn't as
(12:19):
needed as I once was, and dealerships grew. You know,
there's been a lot of by seals throughout the valley
and throughout the West Virginia and throughout the world. You know,
the dealerships acquiring other and they're putting them under I
call them rooftops where they have to have CFOs and
coos and you know, those were words that I never
(12:42):
heard of as I was being brought up in the
automobile world. You know, I knew most of the dealers
by name, played golf with them, played rickaball with them,
or they've been at my house, or I'd been at
their house. That's not like that anymore so that one
on one, and I've noticed this. You know, I'm pretty
involved starting to fred out there. I'm pretty involved in
(13:03):
watching sports on a local level. Those signs that I
used to see on the baseball field and the football field,
or the area around the school, the billboards or the
four but eight signs, I don't see car dealers. I
(13:24):
can't tell you how many teams I've sponsored. I sponsored
a little thing just because it's Harvey Payton's secretary. She's
been with Harvey a long time. I spons she had
all Horse paryed in Buffalo. Well that doesn't sound like much,
but in Buffalo, West Virginia, that's a lot. And they
had I think they raised a lot of money for
(13:47):
hospice and they had lots of horses, and it's an
all horse preyed on Buffalo, West Virginia. That means a lot.
I don't think Carvana or all these big stores are
going to go down there and advertise it. I provided music.
It's my way of paying back and saying thank you.
The little town of Buffalo is located across the river
(14:09):
from Winfield, where I live, where I went to high
school at And yes, I buy cars, and I bought
cars on that side of the river, and that side
of the river really doesn't get a lot of attention.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
And when Moonie.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Asked me about the music, I said, sure, I'll take
care of him. Put a banner up, and I'm sure.
Unfortunately I wasn't there. I was in Pickens, West Virginia's
side to side writing, but I understand that they rolled
a red carpet out and it was quite, you know,
an ordeal. And once again, if you look around, you
(14:40):
do not see these large stores with their name on
the back of these jerseys. I still get inquiries about
donating money to small schools with small functions. I know
why I'm getting it. I'm a nobody. I'm almost not
existence because they can't get attention of the big person.
(15:04):
It's just those dollars are going digitally somewhere else. And
I'm just old school, and I guess they'll bury me.
I'll still do my own thing. And it doesn't work
for everybody. But when you have a circumstance and frustration
hits you, and it's very easy to do, you know,
trying to use a computer to do anything, if you're
(15:26):
north of fifty years old, or trying to converse with
somebody that is probably AI, it's call me, call me,
just like this lady did in Florida. She didn't quite
understand what this lean on this title of this jeet
that she bought was in some states, and that I
got off track there. Just meant to tell you what
(15:48):
you know how to do West Virginia. But in some
states that you carry the title with you and it
has the lean and you go to the courthouse, the
county seat when you pay your car off to get
a release of lean. Kentucky's that way, so because I've
sent many payoffs to the county seat in Kentucky, and
(16:13):
so it gets complicated if that's not what you have done,
and if you're out trying to solo and do it
by yourself. You can get in a position you don't
want to be and you have no one to call.
And as these larger stores get larger, and yes they
say they're going to buy cars, let there be a
(16:35):
situation or a problem and see how much.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Attention you get.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
I at Least I have commercial property and I just
ended a lease with Trust. I least trust, which is
a large bank. It's a national bank. We just ended
and when they left it, they didn't leave the building.
I would say any condition that I would left it.
They shortly leave it and CONDI they got it. So
(17:03):
with some phone calls and pushing, they came and removed
some other items. I'm still not happy about what I'm
gonna have to do. Was caught to clean up. But
that's okay. I'm a big boy. The other company I
at least too, is a national health care company. They
are ending their least because they've been bought out by
another national health care company. But all of a sudden
(17:25):
now is when they sent me the termination notice, they
had to give me ninety days. As we get very
close to the ninety days, they realized they needed that building.
What for a while longer well. The company that I
could not ever get a hold of to end at
least to do the walkthrough. All of a sudden they
(17:47):
needed me.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
Oh hey, hey, look here we are.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
And started calling, and I finally got a hold of
someone that that we were okay, we could, we could share.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
I mean we could, we could talk.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
I think we're on the same page because I gave
them an extension. But the lady I was talking to
start talking over me and telling me what they're going
to do and how they're going to pay me, and
their lease had finalized, and I just let her go
through her spill because I couldn't get a word in.
(18:20):
I me every time I broke my mouth, she was
talking over me. And you do that with me, You
start telling me, I'll shut down on you and then
you'll figure it out. And so how, somehow I intercepted
an email between the lady I was not communicating well
(18:40):
with and the guy that I would think I was
communicating well with was She says he just won't return
my cause.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
And I thought, imagine that.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
I've called you for six months over the property IX
because you've not paid them. Goodness, But that's okay. We
got that resk because I found somebody that liked to talk.
And if you can talk and we can understand each other,
we're going to be good. Let me speak and then
you can speak, and we're going to find the happy
meeting point. But when you take that ball and you're
gonna tell me what you're gonna do with my building.
(19:13):
And I think people gets caught up in selling their cars.
They make the invite of the national company into their world,
you know, into their world, their little space on Beech
Street in Charleston, West Virginia, to sell mama's car. And
then here comes the big boys and they'll come in
and start dictating, and you catch the right person, they'll
(19:34):
overwhelm you and then they take all this information from you.
And once they're gone, they have all your information. And
that's where I once again, I'm different. There's not gonna
be information stored in a computer. It's gonna be you
and I. And if Grandma is involved and we have
to get a fire of attorney or someone's past, and
(19:55):
I've done that, I've went to the house. I went
to many houses. Now, I can't tell you how many
houses I went to with circumstances that involved let's just
say illness, death, divorced situations that we all have to
deal with we do not want to deal with. So
we got to slow it down because there's emotions of aldiness.
(20:18):
I mean, I can show you a text or my
phone a person thanking me for going to their mother's
house because it was the last raw, it's the last car.
And we I did a follow up. I said, is
she okay? And he said, wonderful. It will work out fine.
I don't think it would have worked out fine without
that one on one were sitting in that living room.
(20:41):
And I've done that and I'm accustomed to do that,
and I feel like it's my obligation I pay back
to society all those that helped me along my journey.
Gentleman owns a fireplace store in Cross Slane. Steve has
been there for gosh, I don't know, forty or fifty
years longer than I was in business. He was one
(21:01):
of the last customers we sold a car too. And
he called me last week and he said, is there
anybody doing what you did and that little niche you
had because I have an employee And I said, no, Steve,
there's not not like the way I did it because
I didn't chase price. I wanted quality, and I said
that's that. Unfortunately we have drifted away from that. And
(21:24):
once again I was small and I was like the
house flipper, but I didn't go by.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
The cheap stuff. I bought the good stuff.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
So when you got the house, the plumbing didn't leak
that I missed things.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Well, I'm sure it did.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
But you had a really good cetubrations in your car,
and really good set ofators are in your car. And
there was where I stood different. And I think in
me buying cars, where I stand different is that I do.
I am a person. You know, I have connections in
this community. I have connections with this radio station, and
so I want to represent what little bit and I
(22:00):
have left to me in buying cars. I'm going to
treat it like I did day one. So I think
that's the difference when you get out to it, because
it's crowded. It's very crowded out here, and we buy
car lane.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
And you've been doing it longer than anybody else and
still can operate in that low overhead specialized area, which
really is what gives you an advantage. Not only the
depth of knowledge that goes back nearly forty years or more.
But also just the fact that you can operate on
your own time, doing your own thing, making the right situations,
which which is very unique. It gives you that ability
(22:38):
where you can operate only where you're comfortable, and that's
very appantageous not only for you, of course working in
your retirement, but the people that you choose to do
business with. That only helps them. Yes, there's no question
about that. Let's do this. Let's take a break. If
you have any questions for Larry, and there's all kinds
of things that we can talk about. If you want
to talk about something going on in Nitro, or you
want to call and give a testimonial about Larry, or
maybe you have a unique situation that you want to
(22:58):
kind of wind through or share it and go to
some kind Welcome to goes a call this morning. Three
zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight three
four five fifty eight fifty eight. You can give us
a call and we can get you right on the
line with Larry Dawson. Let's do this. Let's go ahead
and take a break, Welcome back, and wrap up the
program after that, It's about sixteen minutes until the top
of the hour, and you're listening to Larry Dawson Owen
A's The Expert, Five Adwhs Boys to Charleston.
Speaker 6 (23:20):
Why do people trust Peyton Law Firm for personal injury
claims in West Virginia? Simple, Tom and Harvey are from here.
They live here and they're proud of it. If you've
been hurt and you want no nonsense representation that gets results,
you want the Peyton Law Firm. Don't let insurance companies
take advantage of you. Call three zero four seven five
(23:41):
five fifty five fifty six today for a free consultation.
Discover more at Peytonlawfirm dot com.
Speaker 7 (23:49):
The high school football season continues Friday night with our
Game of the Week Cable Midland and Parkersburg presented by Gomar.
You can also watch Princeton and Beckley Matt's Calm against
Greenbrier Wes, Parkersburg South in Morgantown, Scott and Rone County
and Winfield versus Shady Spring All on Metro News TV,
brought to you by the Thrasher Group. Marshall University had
on Mountaineer Challenge Academy stream the action live on Metro
(24:12):
News Television. Download the free Metro News Television app or
visit WV metronewstv dot com for more information.
Speaker 8 (24:20):
I'm John Carruthers, the owner of Best Virginia Heating and Cooling.
I'm born and raised right here in West Virginia. I've
got three daughters, so I absolutely care who comes into
my home. Every technician we send to your home has
been drug tested and background check. I guarantee the best
client experience or your money back. We have the best
team and the best processes that built around a five
(24:41):
star experience. Call Best Virginia today at six's eight one
six five five one two one four.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
This update is brought to you by Fourth Avenue Financial.
A good retirement takes planning. Let's get started today, Happy
Wednesday morning. This is Deale Cooper with a check of traffic.
We do have one occurrence we need to pass along
to you. It's just dense traffic in downtown Charleston, not
sixty four eastbound. All of the downtown exits right now
are experiencing some delays just from the dense traffic that
(25:12):
is coming into town. Also, dense fog has been developing
overnight and throughout the morning. Portions of the trywind to
work will have greatly reduced visibility to half them out
or less. So you want to be careful of the
fog as you're driving in this morning. Otherwise things are
moving okay. You just need to be careful head and
wherever you're going.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
It is fourteen minutes at the top of the hour.
You are listening to ask the expert. Do you see
hs the voice of Charles, And we put out a
phone number for folks to give us a call. You're
more than welcome to gifts to call this morning three
zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight, and
we have some folks that did that. Suzanne is up first.
Richard will come up next. Susan, you're on the line
with Larry Dawson. Go ahead, right.
Speaker 9 (25:56):
My name is Susanne. And back in twenty sixteen, my
husband passed away and I called Larry and we had
almost a brand new F one fifty were super nice,
and my son was driving a hand me down car.
It was a Volvo that was an older car and
(26:19):
because of expenses we needed to reduce it to one car.
And I called Larry and Larry said, sure, bring it
in and I brought him in and the Volvo was
too old for Larry to make any money on that.
(26:40):
He said, you know what, We're going to take both
of them. We're going to do this for you. We're
going to take care of you. And he just sent
the Volvo off to auction. He knew he couldn't do
anything with it, but he knew I needed help. And
in twenty twenty three, my father passed away. In twenty
four my mom needed to sell her car. The first
(27:01):
thing I said was, don't trade it in. Call Larry.
She called Larry and he gave her a wonderful price, Sport,
And I just wanted to assure everybody what Larry says.
He's a real thing.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Susane. Didn't I come to your house in Crystal Springs
about cad Like one time?
Speaker 9 (27:21):
Yes, car too. I've forgotten about that, ye, Cadike.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
It was in Hickorymeal and yeah, yeah, that's I remember.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
So she's a wonderful lady.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
And I knew her husband, and and thank you, thank
you very much, Susanne for saying that, because that's what
I do.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Do you know? That's well?
Speaker 9 (27:47):
And I'd forgotten about the Cadillac. But yeah, you're You're
the real deal and I have told many of people
about you.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Okay, thanks Suzanne, thank you very.
Speaker 9 (27:59):
Much, Thank you.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
You have a good one, Bay Susan.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
We appreciate that call. Thank you so much for calling in.
And we have Richard that's called in this morning as well.
That leaves a phone line open for you with three four,
five fifty eight fifty eight Richard of the morning. How
you doing this morning.
Speaker 10 (28:09):
I'm well at the intersection of Ralph sixty and thirty
four at Hurricane on the southwest corner. It is a
tremendous automobile lot. Do you know what that operation's all about.
I'll listen on the radio. Thank you, Thanks Richard.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
Yeah, that's co Part and co Part is a national
chain that does liquidations of mostly totaled vehicles. In other words,
let's just say you are an automobile accident. They totaled
your car. They will pick your car up and that's
the closest co Part and they take them there and
(28:47):
co Part runs a salvage auction. In other words, you
can go on line as a dealer and buy and
that maybe as an individual. I don't exclusively say dealer.
But I am stood with Copart and I could go
down there. And it's not that I can't remember if
I've ever sent a car there that I bought that
(29:08):
was deemed wrecked or totaled.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
But he's right.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
It's it's huge, and he's exactly right in the location.
And it's called co Part.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
But it is a national.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
Company and they do liquidations, fire car bent on, fire,
flood or just an automobile accident. But that's the name
of the company's coat. It's called co Part. Hey, you
called the right guy to find out. Larry knew what
it was.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
By the way, Larry Dawson, you can get ahold of
Larry if you have any questions things that we talked
about on the show. If you're looking at maybe selling
a vehicle, threes are four five, four five zero two
one one. Threes are four five, four, five zero two
one one For Larry Dawson, he buys cars.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
Still tell you a quick story, and it happened right
here in this station. The Mayor Winfield is a very
good friend of mine. Unfortunately he lost his father. Father
had a truck called me about evaluation. I shared with
him what I thought went by city hall there set
the truck. I wheeled in there. I was going to
the farm. Called Randy and he said, hey, I just
(30:09):
don't leave up. I'm just like two minutes away.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Pulled in.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
He and I talked, had a nice truck, and I said,
my neighbor, which is rich the realtor, is looking for
a truck for his stepson.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Said here's his number. You might call him.
Speaker 8 (30:27):
Now.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
I have nothing in this, okay. And other than my
neighbors said hey, here, I want to find a truck
my son that you know, and I said okay. Then
I saw the mayor's and I thought, well, I'll put
these two together. Well, as I was telling this story
about a month ago, and I mentioned rich Therilder, Richie
Klein and the mayor and the truck. There's a lawyer
(30:53):
and Timmy Lafon heard it me talking about it in Charleston. Well,
he's our city attorney, I said, on the board. And
well in Winfield and Nitro, so lawyer Lafawn calls Mayor
Bart and says, hey, that truck. He said, I want
to you know, I want to buy the truck. And
he said, well, how do you even know about it?
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Larry Dawson.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
So if you share with me, I might share it
with someone else that's a Byron. Then once again I
have nothing in this now. Mayor Bert sold the truck.
It was his father's and Lawyer la Fawn bought it
which he needed for whatever reason, and Larry was the messenger.
Larry worked free on that one. But maybe Lawyer Lafawn
(31:39):
or Mayor Bart will have one next time that I'm
going to be able to buy. Actually, I pulled in
to uh gus, I've got look in the truck and
I thought, you know, somewhere I know somebody.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Yeah, I might buy that truck.
Speaker 5 (31:51):
And Randy doesn't even know this that I pulled in
there the second time only to find this story out
that I think his name is Tim Lafawn. Is Larry
Lafaun's brother or cousin was brother. I think Larry's a
retired auto dealer, but he You never know when you
when you share information, especially with the old car guy,
(32:13):
the old guy that hangs around tutors.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
I'm that guy now. Now, one thing I'm not gonna be.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
I'm not going to be the guy that gets on
the fake book and complain about everything. I just laugh
and take a pretty picture of Pickings, West Virginia.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
You know, and put on there. But that's what I do.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
I'm kind of the information highway, kind of the car guy.
I'm not gonna try to sell your car. I'm gonna
try to buy your car. And if I can't buy
your car, I might know somebody wants to buy your car,
and I can't buy them all, especially today, you know,
I'm just a one on one guy. Normally I spot
a car and and uh, over the years, I have
a rollodex full of dealers that one dealer that might
(32:55):
excel in buying this one certain brand or one certain
price French car I know here right, and then I
have the lower end guy and the higher end guy.
And so it's all in my mind. I mean, if
I cracked my head hoping one day all these little
cars are going around, I'm gonna bleed out in cars.
Speaker 9 (33:12):
Well.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
One of the things that really strikes me when you
talk about this though, you know, back in the you know,
when I was growing up and when people wanted to
you know, they had their car they paid off. Maybe
it was their kid's car that they finally paid off,
or or the older sister gave her younger brother her car,
and then he decided he was going to sell that
to turn around and buy another car. Whatever it might be,
that this stuff used to happen all the time, and
there was nothing to stick a sign in the in
(33:33):
the in the windshield. Maybe you would ask a friend
of yours whose dad owned a local business if you
could pull it into the parking lot there or something
like that and put a phone number on it for
people to uh to give you a call to be
interested in the vehicle. Absolutely nothing wrong with that in concept,
there's nothing wrong with it today. The problem is is
number one, the people that are out looking at that
car aren't necessarily the person that needs the car. They're
(33:53):
they're looking for numbers of people to call, and then
they're going to come and get you and try to
broke her a deal with you. And they're going to
try to pin into this, and pinion to that and
and and try to talk you into something because they're
gonna be dangling a you know, where they're claimed to
be a check in front of you. Who knows if
it's going to clear or not, but that's what they're
going to claim. It's it's less authentic than it used
to be. It used to be the person that calls.
It was the person that wanted the car, and that's
who you still are. You're still the guy that wants
(34:14):
the car. You're not trying to act, and you're not
trying to to, uh, to be the bigger company that's
coming in and taking all the cars. You know, I
got to have them all. You know, you're still acting
on a on a one on one basis. You are
exactly that person that if you're contacting that person because
you want the car. And it's just different in that
way like it used to be, rather than today where
people are trying to well, let's go get all the
(34:35):
cars and we can bring them on our lot and
we can sell them, and then we can put a
little bit of money into this and sell it for
this much more and so on and so forth. It's
just and the expansion of it being bigger, it's made
it less authentic and uh, it's harder to find the
solid deals.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
You probably are aware of this that these scammers or
telemarkers can sp I don't know if this is the
right word. They can spoof the number to make it
look like the phone call is originating from whatever business.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Hey, they can make it look like it's coming from
your own number. Yeah yeah, oh yeah, they can do
whatever number they want.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
In the last day's or earth of anyone, we have
to use this thing called a funeral unfortunately. And I
want to leave this vegue because this happened to a
friend of mine that they got to follow up call
from the funeral home. They thought they just used.
Speaker 11 (35:33):
Needing immediate payment, and an immediate payment was made out
of maybe not having all their wits together at that moment.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Same way with.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Wow, that is how disaster is that somebody who's going
through such grief?
Speaker 4 (35:50):
And then oh my goodness, so you.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
Better be careful when you reach out and then they
contact you back.
Speaker 4 (35:57):
Now, how do you know? How do you know? That's
the company with me?
Speaker 5 (36:04):
You can take You can get a cell phone number
that I've had since nineteen eighty nine. You can google it.
It will show you my house. I'm not going nowhere,
And that's what I try to slow people down. Once again.
I can't buy them all. I'm not going to try to.
I just get one here and there and have something
to do. I've helped so many people. But be careful
(36:26):
when you reach out, especially.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
When you give your Yeah, if you're online and you're like, oh,
maybe somebody wants to buy my car. Because all they're doing,
I mean, this is isn't real secret, but they're just
collecting your information, putting it on a list and selling
it to people. That's why suddenly you get one hundred
email contacts and phone numbers you don't recognize calling in
stuff like that. You just voluntarily gave your information to
(36:49):
a list broker. I mean, that's the bottom line what happened, and.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
They sell off. People are intriggued when they have conversation
or if they google one thing like cowboy boots. Maybe
I'm wanted a new pair of cowboy boots. Look how
many times it will pop up on your phone. Oh yeah,
And you better be careful when you especially in that
world where it involves money and merchandise, because that money
(37:14):
and that merchandise it could be different than what you
think it is. And you know, there's temptation. That didn't
pt Barms say there was a full born every.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
Day, and you got to be careful.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
They know the weakness and they you know you can
go once again, you can google my number.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
It will tell you my age.
Speaker 5 (37:37):
I mean, I have no secrets, but I'm not a
young spring checking anylong. You know, I'm sixty seven years old.
And as I age, they know that. Predators know that.
You know, where do you become a week in life
or the end of it? And not only mentally, but physically.
And I think sometimes maybe a lot of times, that's
(38:00):
taking advantage.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Other Oh sure it is.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
There's an entire industry out there that's, as we speak,
creating customized fingerprints for basically every single person you meet
everybody else. And I don't mean like actual fingerprints, I
mean your digital fingerprint. What you'll be able to do
is you'll be able to you know, how all this
data that we give people are supposed to be anonymized.
You know that you can't identify anybody. Well, what's going
to be happening soon is you're going to be able
(38:24):
to match up specific tailored ads and things like that
for a particular person. I mean you see that more
in a general sense now, but I mean this kind
of data that's being collected and being sold off not
only to commercial companies but to the government and stuff
like that. It's basically soial security data, your IRS data,
your medical data. I mean all these things are now
being tied into one location and people can buy that information.
(38:47):
You're going to have stuff that is just so customly
tailored to exploit. It's just it's a scary time for
those types of things.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
Well, look happened Calvin Coalty. Yeah, I mean that's elected official.
Fish will go out and do that. What do you
think somebody that you're giving information?
Speaker 3 (39:04):
That's the truth, man, that's Larry Dawson. Larry Dawson's auto
sells and you can find Larry up.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Give him a call.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Three zero four five four five zero two one one. Larry,
Thanks so much for your time. We'll see you back
here next month. Thank you for having me. Thank you
so much for tuning in. This is Ask the Expert
w s HS, the Voice of Charleston.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
W c HS AI W two four three d r
f M Charleston, W two eight three HU Cross Lanes
a WVRC media station. We're proud to live here too,
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