When Josh Ribakoff went to test-drive a Lexus RZ450e last week at the Serramonte dealership in Colma, he immediately knew something was off.
The way the salesperson dangled the car’s keys in front of him and demanded Ribakoff provide his phone number were red flags. Ribakoff’s intuition seemed to be confirmed the next morning, when his phone began blowing up with calls and texts from the salesperson and from other numbers he didn’t recognize. Infuriated, he texted the salesperson back, telling him to “Fuck off.”
That’s when things got extreme.
Ribakoff claims that an employee from the dealership has subjected him to a campaign of harassment since then, sharing his personal cellphone number with car sellers around the country and posting flyers with job listings containing his contact information around San Francisco. As of Tuesday, he said, he’s received 21 calls and at least 30 messages from various dealerships, including Honda and Audi businesses. He has called the Lexus corporate office six times to complain, but the company says it can’t do anything to help, he said. He also reported the harassment to the San Francisco Police Department.
Nyomi Balatti, a client adviser at the Howard Street BMW dealership, said Ribakoff’s experience is unusual, and she couldn’t explain how or why a salesman would share a customer’s number with other dealerships.
“What’s the advantage of doing that?” Balatti said. “You want them to have a good impression of the store.”
Ribakoff, a software engineer for Bloomberg, was in the market for a new EV after having issues with two Teslas. He went to the Serramonte dealership on Feb. 26 and met with salesperson Tim Sai, whose behavior was peculiar, Ribakoff claims.
Ribakoff said when he told Sai he had to leave, the salesman kept asking him to wait to meet with a manager. He said Sai dangled the keys to the Lexus in front of him, saying he needed to provide a phone number before he could drive the car. To top it off, Sai “was smiling a lot.”
“I felt like that was odd even in the moment,” Ribakoff said in a text message. “Dangling the keys and asking for a phone number as we are beginning the test drive was already a red flag.”
Ribakoff said he got a call from Sai as he was leaving the dealership lot. The next morning, Sai called him two times, back to back, at 10:18, he claims. Call logs show Ribakoff had earlier received a call from the Lexus Serramonte front desk, at 9:20, and got two calls from another Lexus salesperson at 10:23.
Afterward, Sai texted him, and Ribakoff told him, “Fuck off.”
“I had kept hanging up on him, and it was like, he’s not taking the hint,” Ribakoff said. He later blocked his number.
Ribakoff said Sai and the Serramonte dealership stopped contacting him at that point. But within one minute of the text exchange, Ribakoff began receiving calls from numbers he didn’t recognize and text messages from dealerships as far away as Manhattan. He received a text message from an attorney with a firm that helps clients recoup compensation after buying defective cars. Many of the texts coincided with the calls from numbers Ribakoff didn’t recognize.
He believes Sai shared his phone number with other dealerships without his permission.
“I’m receiving calls from Houston out of the blue and, at the same time, getting texts from dealerships there,” Ribakoff said. “It seemed like he was just putting my number into dealership websites on their intake form.”
He said he had mentioned to Sai that he was in the market for a new vehicle after accepting a buyback under the state’s lemon law for his first defective Tesla. He also told Sai he had received a buyback offer for his current Tesla.
“When I shared this with the dealership, it’s like they were sharks smelling blood,” Ribakoff said.
The SFPD confirmed that officers took a report about suspicious phone calls on Feb. 27.
Ribakoff said his complaints to Lexus corporate were simply forwarded to the dealership, but a spokesperson for parent company Toyota later confirmed that it is investigating the matter.
Afterward, he noticed the deluge of calls and texts started to wind down and thought it was over. But on Tuesday, he got a text from a random number inquiring about a listing for a job as a personal assistant. The text included a photo of a flyer advertising the fake job, with Ribakoff’s personal number printed all over it. The flyer had been lodged under the windshield wiper of a car parked in Parkmerced. Ribakoff’s suspects Sai is responsible.
“Just his demeanor, the timing, the pattern of harassment,” Ribakoff said. “Just everything.”
SoMa resident Erick J. said he texted to ask about the listing — which offered $40 per hour — after a friend sent him a photo of the flyer. He later learned from Ribakoff that he was an unwitting accomplice in harassing one unlucky Lexus customer.
“I didn’t know anything about it,” Erick said. “I feel bad for them, just all the harassment. I hope they get who did it.”
Sai’s manager, Jack Zhang, would not confirm or deny the allegations but said Ribakoff hadn’t shared sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the salesman had harassed him. During a brief interview at the dealership Wednesday, Zhang grew irritated and said this reporter “snuck in” and should have made an appointment before dropping by.
Sai declined to be interviewed.
“You being here, it has made all of us very uncomfortable,” Zhang said.
Toyota spokesperson Ed Hellwig said the company is investigating Ribakoff’s claims and will contact him when it has more information. According to Hellwig, Lexus dealerships are independently owned and operated.
For Ribakoff, the ordeal holds an important lesson: Don’t give a car salesperson your phone number.
“Or get a Google Voice number or something,” he said.