Category: Scams

501(c)(4) social welfare group circulates information on the Haitzs

The above mailer was recently sent to homes of prospective Grand Junction voters by the Best Slope Leadership Project, a 501 (c) (4) social welfare group based in Grand Junction.

Andrea Haitz and Greg Haitz are a married couple who over the last few years have been seeking more power in Grand Junction. Andrea is currently District 51 School Board President and Greg is trying to get onto Grand Junction City Council in the upcoming election.

Better Business Bureau puts red alert notice on Red Rock dealerships

These days, if you visit the Better Business Bureau web pages for Red Rock Hyundai, Nissan and Kia, you’ll see a red warning at the top of the page like this:

BBB has “conducted a file review and found that this company has a pattern of complaints alleging contract issues and customer service issues. Specifically, consumers have alleged contract issues with requests to remove items from their contract. Issues with receiving inconsistent information for vehicle repairs. And receiving delayed responses for assistance and complaints.”

Mesa County Commissioner Bobbie Daniel endorses fraudster Greg Haitz for City Council

Greg Haitz

Greg Haitz’s campaign sent out a mass email today, March 20, that appears to be from Mesa County Commissioner Bobbie Daniel, saying Daniel endorses him for a seat on Grand Junction City Council and asking people to send a minimum donation of $50 to his campaign.

If Commissioner Daniel actually endorses Haitz for Council, then she is endorsing someone who is openly perpetrating a fraud on Grand Junction citizens by selling a “dangerous” and “reckless” weight-loss program on his business website, RimRockWellness.com.

Bobbie Daniel (R), shown here with indicted former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters

“Dangerous” and “reckless” are the words the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) uses to warn people about the type of weight loss program Haitz is currently promoting for $199 — a discount from his usual much higher price of $399, according to his website.

First hint of accountability for Red Rock

A copy of a letter sent to Red Rock Nissan by the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Auto Industry Division. This copy of the letter came to Michelle Mondragon, whom Red Rock Nissan initially charged over $15k above the price they advertised for her truck. The Mondragons filed a complaint with the Auto Industry Division against Red Rock last October. The letter warns Red Rock that their dealer’s license could be in jeopardy.

Michelle Mondragon, whose hair-raising story about buying a vehicle from Red Rock Nissan last year was featured in this blog November 1, 2022, received the above letter from the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Auto Industry Division last week indicating they have finally taken some action against the dealership, albeit a very weak action.

The letter warns Red Rock they “may have” violated several laws and regulations in the Mondragons’ case regarding deceptive advertising and sales of vehicles, and says “No action will be taken against your dealer’s license at this time. However, any further violations may be referred to the Motor Vehicle Dealer board,” and “your dealer’s license may be subject to disciplinary action that could include fines, suspension or revocation of your license. It is imperative that you take measures to correct the matters within your organization.”

This is likely just the beginning.

The Mondragons submitted their complaint against Red Rock last October. Since then, many more Red Rock customers have submitted complaints about how Red Rock defrauded them.

If you review paperwork from your deal at Red Rock and find irregularities like forged signatures, charges for items you never agreed to like extended warranties, special coatings or detail packages, or if you check with your lender and find Red Rock lied to them about your gross income, monthly rent or mortgage payment or the features of the vehicle you were buying, file a complaint with the Auto Industry Division at this link.  Be prepared to upload images of your paperwork to substantiate what you found that was fraudulent.

 

 

Grand Junction City Council candidate rundown 2023

For this article, I drew from publicly available sources, including the candidates’ own websites and social media accounts, newspaper articles, the candidates’ financial disclosure statements filed with the City of Grand Junction, background-checks done on TruthFinder.com, and public records requests to the Grand Junction Police Department (GJPD) for records of any contact the candidates had with local law enforcement agencies. I felt the law enforcement piece was necessary after seeing Mesa County voters elect people to public office who were later involved in theft, falsifying time cards, embezzlement, assault, plagiarism, DUI, double-dipping, election tampering and other offenses.

These City Council candidates are asking voters to hire them for a job. City taxpayers pay their salaries. The candidates should be background-checked.

Fox Network hosts privately ridiculed Trump’s election fraud lie while continuing to pump the lie out to viewers


Mesa County’s many, many supporters of Donald Trump (pdf) must be super-bummed this week to find out Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch has acknowledged that Fox News anchors Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo and others knowingly lied to them by repeating Donald Trump’s fraudulent statements that the 2020 general election was “rigged” and he actually won.

Murdoch acknowledged under oath in a deposition in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox Network, that Fox News hosts knowingly lied to viewers by endorsing false election fraud claims while at the same time they were privately ridiculing such claims. Murdoch further admitted he should have ordered Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who were lying to the public about the election, off the air, but didn’t.

Criminal investigator who was investigating Red Rock quits & goes to work for Red Rock

Dale Sundeen (Photo: Auto News)

Dale Sundeen, the Colorado Department of Revenue Auto Industry Division’s criminal investigator who was investigating Grand Junction’s Red Rock dealerships, quit his job with the state and went to work for Red Rock Auto Group as their “Corporate Director of Compliance.”

Tina Peters tries to con someone out of a parking pass so she can park illegally at the state Capitol — and it wasn’t just anyone

“Support America”: Tina Peters trying to get someone to abet her parking illegally at the state Capitol in Denver. (Photo: Taylor Corpier via Facebook)

Heidi Hess was at the state Capitol for lobby day February 13 when she was approached in a parking area by none other than former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who tried to con Hess out of her parking pass.

Not just any guest

Making the encounter even more ironic was the fact that Hess had been Mesa County’s registered elector who served as the plaintiff in Secretary of State (SOS) Jena Griswold’s 2021 lawsuit to block Peters from administering elections in 2021. That August, 2021 lawsuit asked the Court to remove Peters as the County’s Designated Election Official and install Wayne Williams and Sheila Reiner in that capacity instead.

The Court granted Griswold’s request.

So Peters had previously faced Hess in Court when she had testified against Peters in that case in 2021. Peters lost, and never again ran an election.

Second criminal investigator brought in to help with Red Rock investigations

AID Investigator John Bulman (Photo: Golden Police Dept)

The Colorado Department of Revenue’s Auto Industry Division (AID) has assigned a second criminal investigator to help the with the Red Rock dealership cases.

The first investigator looking into Red Rock is Dale Sundeen, who’s been with the Colorado Department of Revenue since 2008 and has been the agency’s western slope investigator for over ten years.

The additional investigator is John Bulman, who joined the Auto Industry Division in 2022 (pdf) after working for the Golden Police Department, where he was awarded Golden Police Officer of the Year in 2020.

Evidence shows Red Rock manipulating online reviews

Red Rock GMC on First Street

Former Red Rock dealership employees have told AnneLandmanBlog that the dealerships coerce both employees and customers to leave positive reviews online, and a customer said the Red Rock dealership she patronized several years ago had paid her $2,500 to take a bad review of them off her Facebook page.

These manipulations of online reviews were discovered around the same time Red Rock introduced a new “Forever Promise” on their websites, in which the company promises to “earn your trust” and “be transparent.”

A reader supplied AnneLandmanBlog with screenshots of a 2019 Facebook Messenger conversation in which she told another person that Red Rock had paid her $2,500 to remove a Facebook post describing a bad experience with a Red Rock dealership:

Buyer beware: A tale of two car-purchasing experiences in Grand Junction

Two western slope residents purchased 2022 Hyundai Kona EVs around the same time last year. They both shopped at Red Rock Hyundai in Grand Junction. One ended up buying their car from Red Rock, while the other went to Red Rock first, felt uncomfortable, and ended up buying from Ralph Schomp Hyundai in Aurora, Colorado. Neither buyer left the western slope to complete their purchase or obtain their vehicles. The two report having had two vastly different experiences, as well as incurring vastly different total expenditures for their purchases.

Here is a side-by-side comparison of their buying experiences:

Shake up at Red Rock

Brantley Reade (far left end of check)

As of today, Brantley Reade, Platform Manager for Red Rock Nissan, is no longer with the Red Rock Auto Group. He was formerly the designated person to call if you had been victimized by a deal at Red Rock’s Nissan or Kia dealerships.

So now, if you were a victim of a deal at a Red Rock dealership in which your digital signature was added to a contract without your being able to first see and expressly approve or reject any charges added to it (like extended warranties, maintenance agreements, protective coatings, key fob insurance, GAP insurance or other items), or if you found your signatures have been forged on any documents from your deal, or if your gross income, monthly housing payment, description of your vehicle or any other information was misrepresented to your lender on your loan application and Red Rock got you into a loan too big for you to handle, contact Red Rock owner Bryan Knight at (801) 792-3711 or email him at bryank@tdauto.com to make an appointment to discuss your situation and give him a chance to make it right.

KREX-TV broadcasts 5 minute news segment about Red Rock forgeries

KREX-TV last night ran a 5 minute news segment about Red Rock dealerships, which are currently under investigation by the state for problems including forgeries of customers’ signatures on legal/financial documents like contracts, Powers of Attorney, title and loan documents, and the addition of thousands of dollars worth of extras to customers’ contracts without their knowing, like extended warranties and special coatings.

Below is the full statement of a former title clerk who worked at Red Rock. This person asked to remain anonymous. This statement was included in the KREX news segment, but it merits fuller attention because of its gravity. This person’s employment at the dealership has been verified, and they had experience with the Mesa County Department of Motor Vehicles before going to work for Red Rock:

Why does Red Rock go to such lengths to push “Portfolio” extended warranties?

A common theme running through customer complaints about Red Rock dealerships is that the customers discovered thousands of dollars in extended warranties added to their contracts without the dealership telling them about it, and they spotted these extra charges only after their signatures had been affixed to their contracts electronically. Customers repeatedly say they did not want these warranties and never agreed to them, only to find they had been added to their contracts anyway when they finally saw their paperwork. Once saddled with them, the customers had to go through the ordeal of trying to cancel them quickly, because the warranties are only fully refundable within 60 days after purchase.