Cars

Let’s say you’re 5 months late on your Prius payments, over $700,000 in debt (after a bankruptcy filing) and had to learn the hard way that real estate doesn’t sell itself. What’s a man to do? Find a way to recoup a small portion of his debt and blame it on the car. Thats just what Jim Sykes had to do to get out of his payments (for the Prius at least) when he really just had to apply the brakes or press the “Start/Stop” button for 3 seconds or not get caught speeding in the first place.

It’s really a shame when the any company takes a beating for one man’s financial gain as appears to be the case with this scammer. Now, to be fair, Jim explicitly denies wanting financial compensation for being the victim in this incident (he’s fine; not a true victim) but he would like a new Prius out of the ordeal and has retained counsel. Several Web sites are reporting on the dubious past-life of Jim Sykes: he ran a site called AdultSwingLife.com, had links to the pr0n industry, and even stole from a paralegal business he co-owned. In fact, his former business partner’s ears perked when he heard Jim’s name mentioned on the nightly news, “…I immediately woke up out of a dead sleep and thought “uh oh what the hell is this guy up to now?” He’s trying to do a scam, and get in on that lawsuit for the Toyota thing, that’s immediately what i thought.”

The technical details of this incident are getting more and more fuzzy as the days progress. Toyota issued a Tweet (http://bit.ly/dfljcx) proving Jim’s story about the brakes not working to be false, the 24-minute call to 911 doesn’t seem to be from a genuinely scared co-star of “Speed,” and Jim himself claims the late payment remarks are a mud-slinging misrepresentation (conveniently, he won’t provide current statements).

Jim, do us a couple favors. Admit you were too scared to set cruise control at the true top speed of your Prius (99MPH) and just settled on a comfortable 94; Admit you were actually just cruising at 94MPH in the first place, noticed a CHP RADARing and fabricated the entire story on the spot (truly brilliant); Admit you actually had the “brake override” installed on your particular car and knew about it; Admit you had at least one news station on speed dial (or a portable in-ear radio to listen to the news of your silly tale); And the final favor, leave the car industry alone, OK? Just because you’re too old for the swingers lifestyle doesn’t mean you have to ruin the fun of others by scaremongering good-natured Toyota owners who are up-to-date with their payments.