Respect The Grudge - Ohio Woman Who Had Car Repossessed Has Retaliated By Purchasing The Car Dealership's Untrademarked Name and Taking Them to Court for Fraud
The Drive – As it’s being reported, Tiah McCreary bought a 2022 Kia K5 at Taylor Kia of Lima, Ohio, last February. She got a note through Global Lending Services, which “provided preliminary approval to McCreary,” but weeks later decided the “available information regarding McCreary’s income was not sufficient to substantiate a loan in the requested amount,” per court documents. The dealership repoed the car on March 29, 2024.
In researching her legal recourse, McCreary reportedly discovered that “Taylor Kia of Lima,” the name the dealership is doing business as, was up for grabs. Turns out the Taylor Automotive Group, parent company of the Lima Kia store and other dealerships, including Hyundai and Cadillac, had forgotten to submit a renewal application to the state. The Ohio Secretary of State had canceled its registration of the name “Taylor Kia of Lima.”
McCreary then registered “Taylor Kia of Lima” herself and sent the company a cease and desist letter since, technically, the name is hers now.
In June, McCreary filed a complaint against the dealership’s parent company and the lender in Allen County Common Pleas Court, alleging fraud. But she also went for an injunction to stop the dealer from doing business under the Taylor Kia of Lima without her consent after claiming it.
Fair play from Tiah McCreary. This one's on you, Taylor KIA. You should have trademarked that name. You shouldn't have let that car out the door until you were certain your customer had the money. I can understand why you had to repossess it. The car never should have been sold to the customer in the first place. I'd imagine you weren't thrilled about having to do what you did either. But you fucked up.
Much like Jim Calhoun had to deal with Ryan Gomes hanging 26 & 12 on his head, Taylor KIA has to live with the consequences of their decision. As every business should know, when you've done wrong by a customer, you have to make sure the name of your business is trademarked so that they don't buy it for themselves and take you to court for fraud.
Especially if you're running a business that occasionally has to repossess a vehicle. Having your car repoed is infuriating (I would think). To walk out of work and see the repo man driving away with your car on two-wheels… it throws a Ron Jeremy sized wrench in your day. It throws a wrench in your life. Even customers who are 100% at fault for their cars being repossessed are liable to lash out in drastic ways. I've seen it happen myself.
It was only a matter of time before Taylor KIA repossessed the car of a person who:
A) Knew about trademarks
B) Had time that day
When Taylor KIA first heard a piece of Tiah McCreary's mind, and she told them, "You're going to regret this", I bet they thought worst they'd get was a scathing Yelp review. Or at most, maybe she had a halfway decent internet following who was capable of causing a minor stir on social media. That's typically the worst case scenario for a small town business. But most businesses never did wrong by Tiah McCreary. A woman who almost certainly works, used to work, or has a close friend/relative who works with trademarks. Somebody knew to look up whether or not "Taylor KIA of Lima" had registered their name. Because if "Taylor KIA of Lima" wasn't registered, Tiah could be really fucking annoying. She could actually make them regret ever crossing her.
Initially, the court dismissed the case so it could go to arbitration because of an arbitration agreement in the financing documents McCreary signed. It’s not uncommon for a company to have such a clause in a sales doc, because if there are issues like this, it’s usually cheaper and faster to settle a dispute privately than in court (that’s pretty much what “arbitration” means in this context).
However, McCreary appealed, and the appeals court sent the issue back up the chain because of the business name aspect. “Since this claim [the use of the name “Taylor Kia of Lima”] does not fall within the scope of the arbitration agreement, this claim should not have been dismissed and sent to arbitration,” the Third District court wrote.
So that’s where it stands now—the dealer has McCreary’s car, McCreary has the dealer’s name, and Ohio courts have yet to determine how it shakes out. It’ll be interesting to see what happens—I don’t think there’s ever been a case of a customer seeking restitution for a repossession quite like this before.
If Tiah has the money (although I'm guessing she doesn't, because she was recently denied a loan, and this would be expensive as hell), what she should really do is run local commercials to besmirch the "Taylor KIA of Lima" name.
"Stop on into Taylor KIA of Lima, where all of our employees are pedophiles."
I suppose in that case, she would technically be calling herself a pedophile. But you get my point. She's got the name now. She can do whatever she wants with it. If all she's going to do is spend money on lawyers to be a thorn in their side, Taylor KIA of Lima is simply going to change their name to "Lima Taylor KIA", and get on with their lives. Or maybe Tiah will get a small payout to go away. But regardless, people aren't going to stop buying cars. If she really wants to get revenge… it would behoove her to go nuclear.
Fair play, Tiah. I have to respect the grudge.