Well, shame on him, but im not going to get into a debate of his business practices as i don't know him or his company.
This thread was started with advise regarding abandonment. The vechile was abandoned, period, end of story. Time to move on.
The company may be bad, i dont know. 1300 miles straight thru is unsafe.... nobody says different. The issue is abandonment.
You really need to have a lawyer look at the contract. The ramifications of abandonment are huge.