Written by Southwest Florida Online – Sunday Morning News
Better Business Bureau Rates Fuccillo Kia Of Cape Coral Huge “F”
You’ve seen Billy Fuccillo on TV and either hate the commercials or love them. Selling Kia brand automobiles at his Cape Coral dealership, he claims to be the largest Kia dealer in the world and closes every commercial with “It’s Huge.”
But, like his advertisements, it’s not always the whole truth you get. In the car business, there’s lots of tricks to sell cars and Fuccillo is a master of most of them. A little puffery here and a little misleading word there,,,it’s all part of the game to get cars sold fast.
Fuccillo plays up his “huge” dealership and gifts and prizes he regularly give to buyers but unless customers check carefully they’ll miss one huge red flag, the local Better Business Bureau review of Fuccillo Kia.
The West Florida Better Business Bureau has given Fuccillo Kia of Cape Coral a failing or “F” grade for at least the last year.
The BBB says the grade was a result of the “complaints filed against business, Failure to respond to 2 complaints filed against business, 4 complaints filed against business that were not resolved, and the Length of time business has taken to respond to complaint(s).”
The BBB cites 38 complaints against the Cape Coral dealer in the last three years with 14 in the last 12 months. From the total over three years, 18 complaints were about service or products, 14 for advertising and sales issues, 4 for billing and collection issues, and 2 for warranty issues.
And is Fuccillo Kia the largest Kia dealership in the world as Fuccillo claims? One Florida Kia dealer might take issue with that.
Rick Case Kia in Sunrise, Florida has a giant 260,000-square-foot dealership standing five stories high claiming it’s the world’s largest Kia dealership. It’s so large that it holds the dealership’s entire inventory of 600 new and used cars all inside in a climate-controlled environment, as one trade magazine story reported.
But it all depends on what the word “huge” means. Announcing a new store in Wesley Chapel, Florida, a news release in May, 2015 said “The Fuccillo Automotive Group, the largest Kia dealership in the world 7 years running..” So maybe Billy Fuccillo is talking numbers of Kia stores.
He sell reportedly near a 1,000 cars a month in Cape Coral, quite a percentage to financially challenged buyers with less than great credit, so maybe it’s the number sold. Five years ago Fuccillo’s New York store won the number one title for the most Kias sold via internet leads.
What Billy Owns In Florida – A Huge Success Story
Fuccillo started in the car business back in 1980, two years after attending Syracuse University on a football scholarship. He started buying car dealers’ trade-in vehicles, reconditioning them and selling them at dealer auctions for a nice profit splitting it with the dealership for which he worked.
Having saved a large nest egg from his car sale profits, he bought a Dodge dealership in 1989 in Adams, New York, with $125,000. He bought a second dealership in 1990, beginning a string of dealership purchases all over the country. He says he liked to buy a dealership cheap, and then sell it two years later for a big profit.
He’s owned automobile dealerships in California, Nevada, New Mexico, and the Carolinas. His base, however is New York.
William B. Fuccillo owns Fuccillo Ventures of Florida, Inc. and Fuccillo Enterprises of Florida, Inc. since May 2014 and Fuccillo Associates of Florida, Inc. started in 2011 and Fuccillo Affiliates of Florida, Inc. started in 2010, all based in Cape Coral but with an Adams, New York mailing address.
Other Florida corporations he solely owns: It’s Huge Of Florida, Inc., WFB Aircraft Management, Inc., a new corporation in 2015, WFB Reinsurrance of Florida, Inc., WFB Properties of Florida, Inc., and four other real estate corporations.
Link to More stories about Fuccillo Kia
I’ve only bought a few cars in my life, 1 used and 2 new and they were all Saturns. The finance charge averaged 15%. Then I went to a “everybody get’s approved” Chevy Dealerships, common in CT. and bought a beautiful 3yo Silverado.
Completing the paperwork is when I was told the interest rate was 34%. I went berserk. Not wanting to chance missing out on the Truck, I signed the papers knowing that my bank would refi me at 19%. I went to do that the very next day.
Everything went smoothly and the charge to get out of the first contract, after an overnight, was $785! I know Fucillo Kia uses the practice of financing everybody and zero refusals. Some people are poor and desperate as I would be today if my 30yo Chevy Truck dies tomorrow; I’d have only 1 option, take a pounding on the Finance charge.
Another way I think this practice misrepresents the performance of Fucillo Kia is in the number of cars sold. You can practically give them away if there’s such a high fee in the background and it counts as a sale.
I will say one thing. The amount of complaints vs # of vehicles sold and New or Used may change the value of the BBB rating and often if you pay all the BBB fees you can get a better rating. Still, the BBB is a fairly good indicator of whether you’ll have a good experience or not.
Please deport this guy to Italy, I hate the commercials,, stay in New York please. Please.
He gets you in a vehicle, you may take it up the tail pipe, but you get a ride, they wait til the very end to stick you as that is the deal, you either take it or leave it. I’m paying over 100 dollars a month in just interest, could had a better vehicle if they didn’t hammer you on interest. But it is what it is, buying any new vehicle anywhere is a losing proposition. Also the banks fucked us all, they failed, and have the balls to give us a credit rating? THEY RUINED THE ECONOMY AND GOT BAILED OUT, WE GOT THE BILL AND HIGH INTEREST RATES, NOW THAT’S SOME BULLSHIT!