By Amy Davis

SUGAR LAND, Texas -- Imagine working years to pay off your new vehicle, only to find out you were signed up under a lease instead of an actual purchase plan.

It's just one of dozens of complaints investigative reporter Amy Davis has received since she first uncovered what some said are deceptive sales tactics at a Sugar Land car dealership.

Aurora Leal should be ecstatic. Her 2003 Chevy Silverado from Bill Heard Chevrolet will be paid in full next month. Or so she thought.

"The first of this year, I started to find out that it wasn't, that I was not buying the truck," said Leal.

After five years of monthly payments of $440 each, the bank told Leal that Bill Heard signed her up for a lease.

"All that money's thrown away," said Leal, holding back tears.

Leal said she even worked extra some months to send in double payments. She was told if she wants to keep the truck, she will need to pay a final balloon note of $9,000.

"And it's not only me," said Leal. "There's lots of people. A lot of people are complaining about it."

J.R. Todd is one of those people.

"What we signed was a purchase agreement," Todd told Local 2 Investigates.

He said he specifically told the salesman at Bill Heard that he did not want a lease because his wife had to drive long distances back and forth to work.

But when Todd went to trade in his Chevy Tahoe at Bill Heard a year later, he learned he was, in fact, in a lease.

"Typically the customer knows nothing about that," said Eddie Krenek, Todd's attorney.

Krenek filed a lawsuit against Bill Heard Chevrolet two years ago after he said he found the dealership had given Todd a purchase order, but it gave the bank a different document spelling out the terms of his lease.

"It adds on mileage, excess mileage charges. It adds on a huge balloon payment," said Krenek, referencing the document the bank received from Bill Heard.

The document showed Todd's only options were to give the Tahoe back and pay a $16,000 penalty for going over allotted mileage he didn't know about.

Leal said her bank also had lease documents with completely different terms than the purchase contract Bill Heard gave her.

"It is not correct. That is not right to have two different papers," said Leal.

Since the Local 2 investigation aired on Nov. 13, we have heard from several others with this same complaint.

"When you see this type of transaction repeat itself multiple times, it tells us and it should tell everyone that this is not just happenstance or an accident. This is a planned way or planned approach in how they sell vehicles," said Krenek.

Krenek said that from the beginning of the lawsuit, Bill Heard has claimed it lost Todd's sales documents.

That's a claim the dealership has made in other cases when consumers question their contracts.

Leal said she is looking for an attorney to handle her case.

We called the dealership for comment and the operations manager said she would call us back, but never did.