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Owners of car dealership accused of cheating customers
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Published: October 9, 2008
Millers Creek, NC - Authorities are searching records they seized from Welborn Auto Sales that indicate there may be dozens of people affected by financial problems at the used automobile dealership, according to inspectors of the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles.
Owner Judy Combs Welborn, 48, was arrested Tuesday on five counts of felony worthless check and six counts of felony conversion by a bailee, a crime that involves taking property and fraudulently converting it to cash for a person's own use.
Her husband, Randy Robert Welborn, 48, was arrested Tuesday on six counts of felony conversion by a bailee.
Since then, two more people have filed complaints about Welborn Auto Sales with the Wilkes County Sheriff's Office and investigators there expect more people to come forward, said Capt. Steve Cabe.
Cabe said the Welborns would sell a used car or truck on consignment, and then write a bad check to the vehicle owner. The victim lost his or her vehicle and was left with a worthless check.
Darren Betbeder of North Wilkesboro filed a complaint with authorities Wednesday saying that's what happened to him when Welborn Auto Sales sold his pickup truck and gave him a check for $4,250.
"(Wednesday) I went to cash the check and the lady at Wachovia said, 'Sorry, there's insufficient funds in this account and you need to go down to the sheriff's office,'" he said.
Betbeder, 27, said he'd had no reason not to trust the Welborns, whom he'd known for many years. He'd mowed their grass when he was a teenager and gone to church with them. They'd sold a vehicle for him before.
This time, he said, when he placed ads to sell his truck on his own, Judy Welborn contacted him and said they'd sell it for him. He told her that he and his wife had just had a baby and money was tight.
She sold the truck at an auction in Statesville, he said, but they kept putting him off about the check. She said she finally wrote him the check on Sept. 20 but asked him to hold it until Oct. 1. Then, on Oct. 1, Randy Welborn called and asked him to hold it another week, he said.
But on Oct. 2, sheriff's officials got the first complaints about the business and started investigating, authorities said.
Betbeder's wife drove by the car lot Tuesday night and saw that the vehicles were gone and black plastic was taped over the sign on Boone Trail Road. When he went out the next day to cash the check, he got the bad news.
"I don't know what they did with that money," he said. "I asked the DMV what the chances are of getting back our money and he said 'slim to none.'"
When Betbeder went by the magistrate's office Wednesday, he saw the Welborns sitting there.
"I asked them what was going on," he said. "They just kind of shrugged. They said they're sorry, they'll try to get the money back.… I'm still pretty shocked."
The Welborns have been released on bond. They did not return a phone message left at their home yesterday.
Authorities said they don't know how much money is involved in the cases yet. The Welborns have a Dec. 17 court date.
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