May 29, 4:10 p.m. I am returning to the Gan HaPaamon (Liberty Bell Garden) municipal parking lot after a very depressing meeting with someone. The day before, my 2018 Toyota Landcruiser was serviced at an official dealership in Givat Shaul, and they told me that there might be some lingering problem with the airbag warning light. They also told me that I needed to balance the front tires.
Adjacent to the parking lot was a
Sonol gas station, and right behind it was a small auto garage, tire shop, and
carwash. I drove the car in and told the manager, who called himself Mohammed Siam,
to balance the tires. He opened the lid to the engine (why?!) and started
poking and yanking around things, making me a bit nervous. Then he told me that
there was a problem with the airbag indicator light. I got the impression from
him that the light was just a symptom of a much more serious problem. He
invited me to sit in his office, and in a few minutes he would give me an
estimate for the cost.
In the small, messy office, there
was a desk with a sign that read, “The BOSS,” and behind it a picture of an
older man posing at a similar type of joint. I gathered it was probably his
father. (I was right.)
Mohammed came back and told me that
he had uncovered a serious problem and that it was dangerous to drive the car
in its present state. Due to my depressive state of mind, my thinking was
murky. I imagined the airbag inflating while I was driving at high speeds and
causing me to crash, G-d forbid. He said it would take a few hours to fix but
it was too late to wait for the car today. Instead, I should leave the car with
him overnight, and he would have it for me the next day.
I explained to him that I had
to have a car for an appointment the next day. I had a very important
appointment with a professor of gastroenterology in Rishon Letzion, and I
absolutely needed the car for the early morning appointment. He had an
immediate solution. “I have very close ties with the Avis car rental manager
next to the King David Hotel. I can get you a greatly reduced price. But DON’T
take a chance driving your car on the highway.”
“How much will this repair job cost
me?” I asked. I don’t remember his answer, but I do remember it sounded quite high.
Anyway, I agreed to his terms, gave him the car key and alarm code, and let him
take me to Avis. As Siam drove me to Avis, just four minutes away, he opened up
to me about some aspects of his private life as if we were the best of friends.
He was amazingly charming and disarming.
Just before we walked into Avis, he
asked me for a cash down payment. That was the first early radar warning sign
that something wrong was afoot. I asked him why he didn’t ask me for a credit
card back at the shop. He told me that he doesn’t take credit cards. That was
the second troubling sign. We got to an ATM machine (in Israel, they are called
caspomats) and asked me for my credit card and the code number. That was
the third red light indicator that flashed in my mind. I took out the money
without giving him the card.
We entered the Avis office and went
straight to the back where he knocked on the door of a private office. We
entered and there sat a Jewish woman in her late twenties. She was the office
manager. It was clear that she recognized Mohammed and had dealt with him
before. I got a car and drove home.
About two hours later, after
reviewing the events in my head and talking it over with a friend, I decided “thank-you-but-no-thank-you.”
I called Siam up to tell him I wanted to cancel the order. No answer. I had a
meeting with someone at 7:30, then Maariv at 8:30. At 9:45 p.m., I saw that
Siam had called me twice. I had put the phone on mute. He texted me that it was
urgent. I called him back.
“You won’t believe this,” he told
me. “I took your car to a garage in Mishor Adumim (an industrial zone near the
town of Maaleh Adumim) to have it fixed. I arrived just before the place was
about to close. The manager told me to come back tomorrow. As I drove away, I fell
asleep at the wheel and smashed into a tractor-trailer. Your car is totaled.
This has never happened to me before.”
His voice sounded desperate and
frantic. I was in shock.
“I thought that you were repairing
my car in your place. Who gave you permission to drive
the car!” I said in anger and disbelief.
“You are right,” he answered in a contrite
tone. “But that is the situation. Come to my office tomorrow and I will make
things right.”
* * *
That was the last time I called him
on WhatsApp. From now on, I would call him on a regular cellular line and
record each message.
It was Wednesday. Next day, Thursday,
I would be out of town in the morning, and Siam said he wasn’t available in the
afternoon. Friday was his Shabbos. We agreed to meet next week.
I was so rattled that I couldn’t
think straight. Why didn’t I call Ituran, an Israeli version of LoJack, and ask
them to pinpoint where my car was? I called my lawyer. She agreed to meet me at
Siam’s office that coming Monday.
We met on Monday at Siam’s office. Siam
told the lawyer what he had told me. “The car was totaled,” he said. The lawyer
told me to call my insurance agent. The agent told me that she didn’t think
that they could compensate me because I willingly gave the keys to Siam. But
she wanted a picture of the wreck. Siam complied. Sure enough, I said to
myself, that’s my white Landcruiser! The front end was smashed badly. I reacted
the way the patriarch Yaakov did, “Joseph was surely shred to pieces!”
I lacked the peace of mind to go
over the photo with a “magnifying glass.” First of all, the license plates’
numbers were not visible. Second, the street was lined with onlookers who
looked like Arabs. What were Arabs doing in the Jewish area of Mishor Adumim
late at night?
The insurance also asked for a
picture of his driver’s license. Siam sent something to my lawyer who forwarded
it to me. Had I looked more carefully, I would have realized that it wasn’t a
driver’s license but his teudat zehut – his official government identity
card. (More on that later.) If there is one thing that cons do, it’s keeping
you constantly rattled so that you can’t think.
Siam explained to me and my lawyer
that, due to the condition of the car, the only feasible way to pay me back was
by selling the parts. In fact, he would get even more money than if he
had sold the car in one piece. My lawyer went to the website of Levi Yitzchak
price list (https://levi-itzhak.co.il) to get the selling price of my car. It
came out to 210,000 shekels. She then asked Siam how long it would take to pay
me back. He said in about a month. He made two requests: 1) He wanted to be
granted power of attorney (yipuy ko’ach in Hebrew) in order to sell the
parts. 2) He requested that we not file a complaint against him with the police
during that first month.
My lawyer asked him about paying
for a rental car for me over the next month while he is busy getting the
payment together. He agreed. She drew up a contract, and both of us signed it. Then
Siam took me back to Avis. But Avis needed a credit card number, and Siam
didn’t have any credit cards. The manager (Siam’s Jewish partner in crime) required
me to give my credit card number but told me that I could rest assured that Siam
was going to pay and that they were not going to charge my card. It was just a
technical thing that I had to do. (In the end, Siam didn’t pay and Avis did
charge me.)
There was a place in the nearby
German Colony neighborhood that had all kinds of official papers that had to do
with commercial transactions. Siam drove me there and told me to wait in the
car. He came back with a form and barked at me to sign it. Sweet, friendly Siam
turned into Molotov cocktail Siam. I hesitated. I wanted to read it – slowly. I
got so scared that I just caved in and signed it. He came back with a copy.
Later that evening, I noticed that it wasn’t a power-of-attorney form; it was a
change of auto ownership form! I called the lawyer and told her what was
happening. To my shock, she told me not to worry.
* * *
A month goes by and no money from
Siam. The lawyer keeps calling him, but he always has an excuse. I am getting
fed up. I look up Mohammed Siam online. He has over 20 files on him with the
courts. I also see that his driver’s license was revoked. A chavrusa of
mine offered to have his son help me. The teenager had a way of scaring people
on the phone. He didn’t tell me how. I said, “Okay. Let’s give him a chance to
try.” Over the next two weeks, the 17-year-old yeshiva student (without me aware
of what he was doing) called Siam several times impersonating a police
officer. He threatened Siam with arrest if he didn’t pay up in time. Siam eventually
figured out the ruse and called me about the guy. I admitted that I knew about
him but flatly denied I was aware of his tactics. Then my gym trainer offered
his help. The baldheaded, hot tempered Moroccan rode to Siam’s garage in his
motorcycle and verbally gave it to Siam.
It still didn’t help me – but it
helped Siam.
Three days later, I went to the
Moriah police station in Talpiot to file a formal complaint against Siam. The
month was over, and Siam was in “breach of contract.” The police checked the
computer and told me to come to a certain room. When I entered, the policewoman
informed me that I was under investigation for harassment and
impersonating a police officer. Siam, who begged me not to report him, had
filed a police complaint against me. I was questioned under oath for an hour
and had my fingerprints and a mugshot taken.
I came back to the interrogator’s
office feeling like Haman after King Achashverosh told him to dress Mordechai
with the royal garments: shocked and humiliated.
The policewoman smiled at me and
told me not to worry. She realized that this was a setup and could tell who the
real con was. But procedure was procedure. She assured me that in a month, the
police would drop the case against me. And she was right.
Two more months went by. Siam came
several times to my lawyer. In the end, he gave her only 25,000 shekels.
Then I got mail from two companies:
Kvish Shesh (Highway Six), a semi-national toll road that bills me every month,
and Pango, a software application through which you pay for parking – there are
no more parking meters in Israel – informing me that the car with my
registration number had changed owners.
In other words, the “wreck” was
fully functioning, and Siam had sold a perfectly fine, undamaged car to someone
else!
* * *
My gym trainer had a client who was
a very capable lawyer. He recommended him highly but warned me that he was
expensive. A short while later, my present lawyer (whom I had completely lost
faith in) also recommended him. I spoke to a friend who told me not to bother.
Neither the police nor the courts set Arab criminal activities as a high
priority. Furthermore, he warned me, these criminals leave no money trail. It was
a waste of time and money.
Others urged me not to let this guy
go scot-free. By not seeking justice I would allow him to commit further
crimes. In the end, my sense of tzedek tzedek tirdof (you shall pursuit justice) prevailed. I asked
the gym trainer to ask the lawyer to take on my case. He initially refused,
telling the trainer that he usually takes on much bigger cases, but the
insistence of the trainer and his own hatred of injustice made him change his
mind.
I sat down with him and his assistants
and gave them everything I had. Text messages, phone recordings, pictures, and
documents. The big hurdle was how to sue Siam if he had no bank account and no property
in his name.
Siam had brothers who, like him,
operated car washes in the city. (In fact, one of them services the police
department!) My lawyer sent his assistants to all the branches, including the
one I went to, where they demanded receipts. They all issued the same business
receipts. After more investigation, he demonstrated that they were really one
big family business, even though they tried to make it look like each branch
was independent.
My lawyer sued all the brothers. We
went to the Jerusalem District Court for the trial. Two of the brothers (but
not Mohammed) showed up – with a Jewish lawyer. The judge was a woman in her
forties. As the case dragged on, she was becoming increasingly skeptical of the
Arab brothers. She looked at the documents provided by my lawyer, looked warily
at my opponents’ lawyer, and finally called a recess. In the end, her decision
was in my favor. The brothers had accounts with several big-time rental
companies (not Avis!). The court ordered the companies to send their checks to the
escrow account my lawyer had set up for me instead of to the brothers. The
brothers could receive only enough money to pay their workers.
In the end I got the money for the
car plus my legal expenses. I didn’t pay the first lawyer a shekel. Justice
had been done, but the story wasn’t over.
Over the next few months, Mohammed
went to my lawyer and screamed and threatened him. My lawyer, whose mother was
from Libya, didn’t flinch. Siam’s shenanigans had no effect on him. Siam
disappeared.
* * *
Two years passed. My nephew told me
that he saw on a Facebook group that many people were complaining about a carwash
near Gan HaPaamon – Siam’s carwash! He also told me that a friend of his was a
police officer who was building a case against Siam and would be interested in
contacting me. I told my nephew that I would be glad to help, and shortly after
that, I got a call from the police. They requested that I come to their station
in Har Choma near East Jerusalem for questioning. It wasn’t about anything I
did but about a man named Mohammed Siam. He was in jail! And the police wanted
him to stay in jail. He had apparently continued to steal cars and cheat
people. The only thing he had learned from his experience from me was how not
to get caught again.
I spent over five hours at the
police station. The policeman was very nice and spoke English. We went through
all my documents, one by one, just as I did with my lawyer. They even called in
my first lawyer for questioning!
Who knows? In the end, maybe this
man with a criminal personality will finally learn that crime doesn’t pay. But
that depends on the police testimony and the judge. We can only wait and hope.
