Dealer scammed me :(
 

So if you remember I was debating between a grey or black Nissan 370z last week. Well I finally bought one, in black, only to get a phone call from the dealer today telling me "sorry man, the financing fell through, we have to raise your rate to get you refinanced for the car". This is actually a rather common scam from dealerships, a type of bait and switch on the purchase price for the car. Their strategy is that you will either fall in love with the car and just accept the price hike, or be too stupid to know it's a scam and just eat it.

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But I said **** that ****, and took the fucker back. Ordinarily I would be subject to all sorts of fines for putting miles on it and so forth, but they made one huge fuckup. The mileage on the sales receipt is different from the miles on the inspection report, which I found in the glove box, which they forgot to remove. The inspection report states the vehicle had 200 miles on it. The sales receipt stated 19. This already pissed me off once I learned about it since it basically means my car was a ******* demo unit used for test rides. I'm sure every ******* that drove it around the block did so at 8000 rpm's, and anyone who knows anything about cars recognizes this as a big no-no.

My wife's mother is a lawyer and she gave me all the legal verbiage to use against them basically voiding the entire sales contract and just handing them back the keys. So now I'm back cruising around in my fully loaded altima again. I'll miss my Z, was fun getting a 7 day test run out of it. But this all worked out for the best since now I'm just gonna wait for the 2012 model and probably get better financing out of the situation anyway going to a bank myself. If there's one thing I learned from this, never EVER do dealership financing. I've done this 3x before and I knew I wasnt getting the best rate, but now I've been burned hard and wont ever let it happen again. People, ALWAYS go to your local bank or credit union, or even an online loan service, get the loan, and bring a blank check to the dealership to write for the cash value you intend on paying to drive the car home. This way you never even set foot into a financier's office.

:eek:

Wow, man. I'm glad you stood up for yourself. That is sooooo shady. Good for you! :tup:

Yeah. I never take dealer financing. But this time I did only because it was a better rate than the rate I got from my bank and the financer was my own credit union. So I trusted it.

Glad you got out of that deal, it was shady from the get-go. Hey, you live and you learn, never go by what the dealer tells you, don't let the dealer dictates how the deal with go down. They are NOT your friend.

Redline is 7500 RPM, so those ******* that test drove your car wouldn't have driven it around the block at 8000 RPM. :stirthepot: :roflpuke2:

Good on you though on the outcome. :tup:

Breath deeply...its OK :) a few redline runs when warmed up is not going to grenade an engine. Those 7 miles on brand new cars? How do you think they get accumulated? Lots of cold starts and moving the car a few hundred feet is how...its OK, they survive fine.

As for the financing, I don't think it was a scam: sounds simply like a royal fsck-up on their part. There is no way you should have left the dealership without first signing finance paperwork which lists the lender, the rate etc...meaning its an approved load.

I agree: very strange, but doesn't mean dealer financing sucks. I have done it several times as well and the rates were the same as many banks...credit unions are where the best rates often are (so I refi'd my load after the fact :D)

Learn and move on...its all good.

- b

Glad you were able to walk away unscathed.


This somewhat puzzles me. Did you not look at the odometer? Did the car have 7 or 200 miles on it when you bought it? If it had 7, why would you think it was a demo unit? If it had 200, then shame on you for not looking at the ODO.

Sucks. That apparently is a common scam. At least you got them to take the car back

Oh I did sign paperwork. I went through the exact same process I've been through in all my other purchases. About 10 yellow carbon copy documents half a mile long, dozens of signatures, and what appeared to the same overall receipt I am used to getting. I had my apr on there, the car's sale price, my trade in value, the bank the loan was from, interest payments, total financed, etc etc etc.

What I didnt notice was at the top of every single page was a title saying "Conditional sales agreement". Keyword -> Conditional. At at the bottom of page one is fine print saying "this sales agreement is conditional upon lender financing at the dealers sole discretion". There's the scam. Aside from the fact that the entire thing is engineered to look like your normal sales agreement, even after you get approved the dealer can reject the approval if they arent satisfied with it, i.e. 2.75% APR is just too low for them and they want to artificially inflate it a couple of points and pocket the difference. The whole experience was so legit in appearance I didnt even once consider the paperwork wasnt final. They did good.

This is actually my bad. I noticed the ODO immediately when I turned it on at the dealer, but I chose to ignore it because I just wanted to drive my new baby home. I then quickly self-rationalized that maybe it wasnt flatbedded to the dealer but instead couriered and that there was nothing that could be done about it, so I might as well just live with it.

Its done now, but you could have gone to your credit union or bank when they notified you, got a loan and just brought a check in to pay them for it.

I always have had the dealers give me the best rates, Especially if there are incentives on the sales (example: 1.9% fixed 5 years)...I never had a problem, but now I know to look out for this. Thanks. :tup:

Crazy story!

I've heard of it happening to others before too.

At least now you're back to square one and your pocket book didn't take a hit. Now get your sh!t together, watch the tapes, learn from your mistakes and take another shot at it.

Another common thing that dealers do is offer to contact your bank for you, and then they add percentage points on top of what the bank offers. They call it "making a point" on the loan. They get the extra interest kickback to make up for giving you a lower price on the car (or so you think, because you typically end up spending way more on the interest)

I'm glad you got outta that because you were extremely leary of your car purchase. Good luck on your 2012.