There’s no pain quite like spending years working on a project car — pouring in blood, sweat, tears, and effort — only to have it stolen. That’s what Youtuber Kies Motorsports is going through after having its BMW M3 stolen. Worse yet, a bank’s negligence might bear some of the blame in the situation.
In a video posted to YouTube, Kies Motorsports CEO Bryan Kiefer gave a brief rundown on the whole situation. Kies has spent the last five years building out an F80 BMW M3. Kiefer says over $175,000 has been invested in the car over the years. The result is a 1,000-hp monster of an M3. For whatever reason, recently Kies and Kiefer decided that it was time to sell the M3, so it was listed for sale online.
Kiefer says a man by the name of John Clay reached out and expressed interest in buying the car, making an offer of $75,000 for the M3. Kiefer agreed and they set up a meeting so that Clay could purchase the M3 in person. On January 18th, Clay came to Kies Motorsports with a friend and met Kiefer to get the sale of the car squared away.
Kiefer says that Clay had a cashier’s check in his name all ready to go for $75,000; security footage from the shop shows all of this going down. Before anything, Kiefer says he and Clay went down to the local bank so that they could make sure everything about the check was legit. The bank gave the OK on the check, and the money was deposited into Kiefer’s account.
They parted ways, and Clay has his new M3. Four days later, the bank contacted Kiefer to inform him that the check had “false” routing and account numbers on it. Instead of depositing funds, it had actually taken those funds out of Kiefer’s account. The check was fake. Remember, the this is the same bank that gave the check the green light — in person, inside a branch.
Kiefer contacted Clay to request a return of the car by 4 PM that day; it was a generous move giving the buyer benefit of the doubt while also requesting the theoretically unsold car return to the seller.
But the 4 PM deadline came and went, and Clay was a no-show. At that point, Kiefer got law enforcement involved. The police contacted Clay and convinced him to leave the car at a random location in New Jersey where they’d come pick it up. Kiefer says he was trying to give him an out before things got worse. Clay agreed to meet at 5 p.m. off a random exit on the New Jersey Turnpike.
Kiefer and law enforcement searched the area for over three hours and found no evidence of Clay. After a random text from a companion of Clay’s saying that this person was driving the car back up to New Jersey, Kiefer and officers now have no idea where the M3 is.
Kiefer says they’ve been “fed lie after lie.” In the aftermath, Kiefer and police learned that Clay isn’t the buyer’s real last name, it’s Pascal. Now, they’re asking for the public’s help with any information on locating the car. If anyone knows or has seen anything regarding the M3, or Clay (Pascal), they should email Kies at [email protected].
