Customer makes claims against Tasca Ford employee
Reporting by Kirsten Glavin
A YouTube video gone viral in Cranston is causing a headache for the local Tasca Ford car dealership.
The video is from a 2013 Mazda-3 dash cam, and shows a foreman taking a customer’s car out for a ride.
The foreman was supposed to have the car for the weekend in order to diagnose the problem. But, the vehicle’s owner now claims the foreman was speeding, and possibly even driving drunk.
In the video, you also hear a fearful child in the car saying he’s scared, and you hear the driver talking about drinking.
The car belongs to Alex Leach. He posted the video to YouTube, blasting Tasca for allowing their foreman to drive in a reckless manner when working on his vehicle.
Bob Tasca Jr., President of Tasca Automotive Group, says his employee, Victor Simoes, was not driving irresponsibly or drunk.
"The customer thinks he was intoxicated. How could he make a statement like that."
He says that Simoes tasted wine that a satisfied customer brought in after his shift.
"I will stand behind my guy, Victor, 100%. He’s worked for this company for 25 years, and he was not intoxicated driving that vehicle. Absolutely not. "
Simoes describes himself as a happy-go-lucky kind of guy.
He says he likes to sing in the car, and joke around with his son, who he says was not afraid.
"I think it’s pretty pathetic that I can’t joke around with my son in the car and all that."
He also says he was not speeding, and that the video paints a false picture of what really happened.
"The whole speeding situation through the towns… if you have a dash cam right on the dash, things look a lot worse than they really are."
Tasca Jr. and the vehicle owner plan to meet next week to discuss the incident, face-to-face.
(C) WLNE-TV 2015
