Karma Automotive Dealer Principal Vladimir Ranguelov joins Karma Automotive President Marques McCammon at the opening of the Jacksonville dealership in March 2024. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on June 18, 2025 at 1:23 pm
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The Karma Automotive dealership in Jacksonville in under investigation on allegations of fraud and forgery, just 15 months after the business opened to sell luxury electric sports cars and sedans — then shut down completely in recent weeks.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office investigated three customer complaints of title forgery or fraudulent vehicle sales at the dealership, and watched five other luxury vehicles repossessed there June 5, a police report states.
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Karma Automotive and its sister dealership — Bul Auto Sales in Albany, N.Y. — are both shut down. Their websites say, “We regret to inform you we have ceased operations.”
Police in Albany, New York, are also investigating complaints against Bul, according to News Channel 13, WNYT-TV.
Both dealerships are locked up, their lots empty of the exotic cars like McLaren 720S, Porsche 911 and Corvette ZR1 they used to sell.
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Calls to the Jacksonville and New York dealerships go to voicemail. On top of the three cases under investigation by Jacksonville police, the Colonie Police Department near Buffalo, New York, said it has multiple complaints about issues at that dealership.
Vladimir “Val” Ranguelov, the dealer principal, could not be reached for comment. There was no response to multiple emails to Karma Automotive, based in Southern California, or its president, Marques McCammon, who was at the opening of the Jacksonville dealership in 2024.
New York customer Michael Abatecola has been vocal on social media about the Lamborghini he ordered from Ranguelov for $250,000, then found it had been sold to someone else as well. Abatecola finally got the car a week ago, but at the expense of the other customer, leaving him with “mixed emotions,” he said in his latest video.
“My glass is filled, but somebody else had to become a victim, unfortunately,” Abatecola said. “Earlier, I said that I shouldn’t have even been in this situation, even having to be happy and sad about getting something that was rightfully mine, but at the same time I had to take it away from somebody else. If you guys watched, victim No. 2 is now in hock for $250,000.”
Henrik Fisker created Fisker Automotive in 2007. It’s first vehicle was a plug-in hybrid sports sedan called the Karma, with a gas generator to charge its battery.
After about 2,000 were sold, his battery supplier filed for bankruptcy, then Fisker Automotive did the same in 2014. China’s Wanxiang Group purchased the assets, changed the company name to Karma, renamed the sedan the Revero, and based itself at Karma Automotive in Irvine, California
Ranguelov officially opened Jacksonville’s 17,000-square-foot Karma dealership in early March of last year, saying he spent more than $5 million to buy and convert a former furniture store at 11619 Beach Blvd. into the dealership. Karma Automotive planned to sell two more luxury electric vehicles and has other Florida dealerships in Orlando, Naples and Miami.
Then in June, three local victims filed police reports about issues with the dealership.
A 62-year-old Mandarin man told investigators he had bought a McLaren 720S on Feb. 16 and sent the dealership a $260,000 wire transfer. He drove it for three months, not knowing that it “was never registered in his name,” the police report said. Before learning this from state motor vehicle officials, he said the dealership told him someone wanted to buy his McLaren.
“(The owner) … stated he started getting the run-around from (the dealership), who kept coming up with excuses like the financing fell through,” the report said.
Assuming his McLaren had been sold, the owner also agreed to buy a Rolls-Royce for $300,000 from Karma Jacksonville and signed a promissory note, leaving him with a total loss of $560,000, the report said.
“He wants his money back and the (dealership owner) to face consequences for his actions,” the report says.
A second report involves a 63-year-old man’s deal to have the dealership sell his 1994 Porsche 911. He was told it sold for $155,000, but police found no record of a new owner.
A third report details how a Dallas man bought a Corvette for $235,000 and wired the money to the dealership. But he could not get the vehicle, even after flying to Jacksonville on June 4. The report indicated that the Sheriff’s Office seized the Corvette.
Abatecola said he also had an earlier problem. Ranguelov bought his Rolls-Royce in August and never paid off the remaining loan on it or another car eight months later, Abatecola said.
“You don’t think you are going to be taken advantage of,” he said in a video. “Now it is November, December; bank is still calling for a payment, so we are still making payments, so I ask, ‘Val, what’s going on?’ He goes, ‘I’m sending it out next week.’ …. Car’s still not paid; neither cars paid.”
The dealership’s business license is still active, according to the Florida Division of Corporations website. Ranguelov is listed as the registered agent.
