Today I’m going to tell you a true story about how a big, bad company tried to steal my money and how I told them kiss the part of my body that I sit on.
It all started when I decided to get rid of my expensive, stupid 350Z and buy a less expensive vehicle. That is a whole story by itself (which you can read here), but this story picks up right where I am signing my lease papers for a 2010 Toyota Camry. If you’re wondering why I decided to lease instead of buy, check it out.
Driving Off the Lot
I decided to lease a new car just days before taking a 1,200 mile round-trip journey to St. Louis. I was about to spend a week in my hometown with my girlfriend, and I wanted to get into a new car with better gas mileage and more space than the 350Z.
I decided on a Camry and was ready to make my purchase. I qualified for the 0% lease for 36 months, and also qualified for a $1,000 recent college graduate credit. I was underwater (owed more on the loan than the car was worth) on my 350Z so I had to pay a little extra each month to cover the difference. I also got GAP insurance, which would make sure I don’t lose thousands of dollars if I totaled the car, which was another eight or nine bucks a month.
My total monthly payments came to about $232. I was ready to start my lease so I gave the dealer about $2,000 for my first month’s payment and tax, title, and license fees. Which, by the way, is a great reason not to buy or lease new cars all the time. That stupid crap is expensive! I signed the papers, gave them the keys to my old car, hopped into my new Camry and drove away.
In a normal situation, this is where the story would end. They would just send me a monthly bill and I would pay it for the next 36 months. This, however, was not a normal situation.
“We Need More Information”
As I mentioned before, I literally bought the car days before taking a road trip from Dallas to St. Louis. I was in the car driving through Oklahoma when I got a phone call from the dealer.
“Um… I’ve already signed the contract and driven the car off the lot. How can you possibly need more paperwork?” I replied.
“We need your most recent paycheck stub because [insert B.S. reason here]. You were really supposed to give us that information before we gave you the car. Can you bring it in today?”
“I’m driving to St. Louis, and you never asked for that information. I won’t be back in Dallas for about a week. I will email it to you when I get a chance.”
“Okay great, thanks Kevin.”
He then proceeded to call me at least three more times over the next 36 hours asking for the information. I told him that I was on vacation and would get to it when I had time. I finally logged onto my work computer and sent it off, just to get him off my back. I thought it was finally over.
I thought wrong.
“We Need You to Sign Some Papers”
When I got back into town, I got another phone call from my friend Gregory House. “Hey Kevin, since we didn’t have your paycheck stubs, we had to redo your loan and you’ll have to come in and sign some more paperwork. Can you come in?”
At this point I was so tired of the phone calls, I just wanted to get this over with. Plus, they still had to pay off my old car loan, so if I didn’t make them happy and they didn’t pay off that loan, I would have started to default on the loan. I went into the office and talked to a woman I had never met before.
“Hi Kevin, I just wanted to let you know that it turns out you don’t qualify for the $1,000 recent college graduate credit. We get that credit from corporate and we thought you would be eligible I was just wondering how you would like to pay that balance.”
WHAT?!
There was no talk about signing these elusive “papers” they asked me to come in for. Nothing about re-doing the loan. No mention of the paycheck stubs they made me submit. Once I was in their office, they told me that I owed them $1,000.
Give Us $1,000
“I’m sorry ma’am, but I am not going to pay that balance,” I replied. “We already signed a contract. I’m going to pay $232 a month for this car, just like my contract says I will.”
“Well, the car isn’t actually more expensive,” she retorted. “It’s the same price, it’s just that we need the extra $1,000 from you instead of corporate.”
“I understand what you’re saying ma’am, but I wouldn’t have bought the car if I were going to have to pay an extra $1,000 for it. I’d like to speak with your manager.”
She left to get her manager, and a few minutes later he came in and told me the same story I heard from the woman a few minutes ago. He asked me what I wanted to do.
“Well, I’ll leave it up to you,” I said. “You have two options. You can pull my 350z around and give me the keys. You can also cut me a check for the $2,000 I already paid for tax, title and license. Then I’ll give you the keys to the Camry that has already been driven 1,500 miles, and we’ll call it even. Or, you can let me pay $232 a month like we agreed to originally.”
I knew that they had probably already sold my 350Z to a different car dealership. And if they hadn’t, they would have fixed the holes in the convertible top and given it a new paint job. I also knew they didn’t want the Camry back with 1,500 miles on it. At this point, I was actually hoping to get my 350Z back with thousands of dollars worth of free repairs.
“Well, you know what Kevin,” the manager replied. “$1,000 isn’t worth making you angry. I’ll take care of this. You just make your payments according to the original agreement.”
Thanks for Wasting My Time
At the end of the day, I didn’t pay a penny more than I agreed to in my original contract. I also never signed those imaginary “papers” they mentioned to get me to show up to the dealership. To be honest, I doubt I even got rejected for the college grad credit. They probably just said that to try to get more money out of me.
I learned a very valuable lesson from this situation. When you know you’re right, stick to your guns. Especially once you’ve signed a contract, don’t let anyone tell you something different from what you agreed to.
For the future, I’m a little worried about turning my car in at the end of my lease. I’m afraid they’ve tagged my name in their system and that they are going to try to make bogus claims about stuff being broken when I turn in the car. I’m going to get the car inspected by a mechanic I trust and take pictures and video of it before I turn it in. Hopefully this will be enough proof to fight any more or their lies.
Let me know what you think about this situation. Have you ever had such a horrible experience with a company?
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
Sounds like one of the many reasons you should have just sold your 350z on craigslist, and use the cash to go out and buy a decent 2005 Camry with low miles instead. Pretty much the same car, tiny bit more maintenance (my 1997 Camry with 160k miles I have had for 6 years takes about 500 to 1000 dollars per year to maintain), but NO PAYMENTS.
Unless you are committed and willing to having car payments for every singe month of the rest of your life, a lease is a bad idea.
Plus no need to deal with these idiots. Make sure to leave them an honest Yelp review. 🙂
I was underwater on my 350Z and it had some serious damage (holes in the convertible top, it was keyed). Even if I sold it to someone on craigslist, I still would have had negative equity and wouldn’t have had any cash to buy a used car. I’m fine with the payments because I’m guaranteed not to have any maintenance issues. If I have two $1,000 issues with my used car in a calendar year, that car becomes almost as expensive as a new lease.
I see your reasoning, and it makes sense for a lot of people. For me, I liked being able to guarantee no more than $231 a month for my car. I like knowing what’s going to hit my budget.
Thanks for replying! I can see that point. Keep in mind with a lease you are paying GAP insurance, collision/comprehensive insurance and likely interest. With an older car, you can really save there.
But let’s assume you purchased (not leased) a 2008 Camry on those 231 monthly payments. Likely there will still be warranty in the first year or two which I know you like. Let’s assume you like the car, and it is reliable (CR says it is extremely reliable). Every month you keep it past your last payment is going to save you 231 dollars. Also known as 2700 per year, or perhaps 4100 per year pre-tax if you were to divert that cash into a 401(k) of sorts. Just keep driving it until you run into that first big repair (which will likely take a long time) and then sell it and start over again. I can see that Camry go for 10 years or more, which means a TON of savings over trading it in on a new lease every time.
Cars have gotten so reliable over time that it has become an easy gamble (if you do some research on reliability at CR first). It makes no sense to me to throw 2700 dollars a year at driving a car problem-free to avoid that one 1,000 dollar transmission issue from 1996 that your uncle talks about every year at thanksgiving.
The key is to go as many months as possible without payments and major repairs. It is those months that will make a HUGE difference in your net worth. And with a lease, you will never see those months because you will always have payments.
“Owning” a car, also feels kind of great btw. 🙂
When it comes to cars, I think Niek here nails it.
Dude, that’s terrible! I recently got one of those “we’d like to buy your car back due to the high demand for Corrollas” emails recently. Needless to say when my wife and I got to the dealership, they tried to shmooze us into a brand new car for a ton more money. It was ridiculous. I hope next time I buy a car I don’t have to struggle and stress with the salesman…. although I’ll probably have to buy a Lexus or something to spare me the pain of negotiating.
Buying a car is one of my least favorite activities in the world. I hope it’s not too painful for you!
Oh Toyota you lousy lousy company.
Long gone are the days they made a quality product and provided honest service.
When we were in the market for a car last spring we had out list whittled down to a number of pretty-good-on gas CUVs. The Rav4 was one of them.
I called the dealer and told them which make / model we wanted to test drive – he said no problem. I called back to confirm the appoint and repeated the model we wanted – again, “no problem”.
We arrive on lot – during our lunch (so we had to drive to work and pay for down town parking that day) using up some of our gas to travel across pretty much the entire city. We get there and the sales guy says “oh, we don’t have that model on lot do you want to drive this other (more expensive) model”. I say “no, I want to test the car I may want to purchase.”. He tells us to wait a minute and 8 minutes later comes out of an office and says “we have one of those in Lindsay – do you want to head up there to test one – I have some spare time today”. Huh?! Do we want to spend 30 minutes in a car w/ a slimey Toyota sales rep? No way says us.
So the rep then says well lets take a look at numbers. I thought we were getting a quote, which I thought was odd. Nope, he comes back to the office another 10 mins later and gives us 2 sets of financing numbers!
At this point, lunch is over and we have to go. We get up and walk out grunting “bye” on our way out.
Two days later this rep calls me at work @ 9am. I use call display and don’t answer. Throughout the day he calls 3 more times.
I go to their website and find the General Manager’s email and write a scathing email about the sales person, their tactics and that if I hear one more word from them I will be ALL OVER the web writing the worst reviews ever for their dealership.
The emails and calls stopped. The GM didn’t call or write back.
This is why Hyundai is KICKING YOUR BUTT TOYOTA.
That sounds horrible. I’d really like to go back to Nissan for my next car. I loved my Sentra and would like to get another one, or maybe an Altima. Toyota is gonna have to do something incredible to keep me as a customer.
Our experience @ the Subaru dealership in northern NY State was awesome!
Interesting and yet very informative story. Glad you stuck to your guns. After all, the contract was signed, can’t change it. You snooze you lose, for the dealer, but like you said, they might have been asking about more money.
Fox
I just feel bad for the poor people who don’t know any better and would have given in. They tried to make me feel bad, like it was my fault.
That’s EXACTLY what the problem is. They prey on the “weak” and often win. Which is why they are considered such scumbags by most Americans. Luckily for you it was just a waste of time. (And a great article, I guess there is a win somewhere.)
What a bogs story, but good for you for fighting it! I am probably at times too quick to get pissy with customer service people, but the things companies try to get away with is just ridiculous. Here’s my story:
I got a new NFL add-on from Cox Cable, after talking to the sales rep about what it offered and deciding to go with it. Well, he basically told me wrong about what it did, even though I asked him several times to clarify and such. So when I got the service and decided it wasn’t for me, I called to cancel. The service rep said I couldn’t, because I was beyond the cancellation deadline. I asked to speak to the manager, who I again explained that I wanted to cancel, all the while citing the fact that their sales rep blatantly lied to me about the product. He kept saying they couldn’t refund me, so I said I wanted to cancel my service completely. Finally, he said they would check the audio tapes of my original phone call to see if I was telling the truth – why the hell would I make that up? Anyway, he called me back later to say the tapes weren’t available and they were refunding my money. If I hadn’t been so insistent, they would have just kept my money! Jerks. 😛
Congratulations on your persistence. It wasn’t easy, but you got them to refund you’re money! I think a lot of people would have given up.
After reading your original post about leading, I came across this link…
http://www.carbuyingtips.com/lease.htm
Seems to have some great info, but I’m not exactlysure about the Software and the Leasing Company it recommends…
Whether leasing or buying a car, seems like the consumer never completely wins.
As far as I’m concerned, the only way to truly “win” at the car game is to take the bus. Cars are horrible investments, but their convenience is essential to most people.
Man, that is one heck of a story! What a shady car dealership! I’m tweeting this to the Consumerist to see if it gets picked up!
I don’t know if they pick up stories that are a year old, but if they want to share, they are more than welcome to. Like I said in earlier comments, I just hope this doesn’t happen to anyone else.
That’s one reason not to lease a car. 🙂
It’s great that you stuck to your gun though. Those car dealers will try to stick it to anyone coming through the door especially a young person. Good job!
I don’t have any dramatic stories like this, but definitely have dealt with the cable company telling me at their local office that we could add a package for free, and then having it show up at it’s regualr price of $5/month on our bill. By then, my roommate was already addicted to some shows on that channel, and $5 extra split 3 ways didn’t seem worth it… that’s how it works I guess.
Also, my family owns 4 toyotas, and we always take them to the dealership for service. I’m not taking it there anymore though, since my old toyota dealer said my 60k service should be about $200-250, but the dealer I took it to near my new home charged me $500. For what? And oil change and their little 30 point inspection? Nothing was even broken.
I admit I have NOT read thru all the responses so sorry if this is a duplicate.
When I was at the end of my lease – the car (BMW) was under mileage and in excellent shape… I took it to CARMAX and got a quote. It turned out to “earn” me about $500. They handled the lease end stuff and I was able to walk away with $$ in my pocket. I did this because there was some sort of “new policy” at BMW and they wanted the car and $350 bucks from me. I thought that was crazy and so my son suggested CARMAX (just to let you know I am not affiliated with them and don’t know anyone who even works there). For me it turned out to be the least hassle possible and earned me some of my $$ back!
Good job. Unfortunately many others I am sure bow to the pressure the dealer (not Toyota remember – the dealiers are independent and by and large much less honorable than Toyota itself). Unfortunately dealers pay politicians a lot of money to have the politicians force car companies to accept the lousy service dealers provide (the dealers can’t be held to standards of service without enormous effort to beat their paid for and bought political protectors). Until the politicians stop protecting dealers bad practices we can expect dealers to keep trying to rip off the people the politicians say they work for (when in fact they work for those that give them cash). So watch out when going to dealers.
I hope you posted this everywhere they have a public profile. Businesses like that shouldn’t be in business.
That sounds pretty common. What happens is a sales manager will take a guess that he or she will be able to get bank financing for your terms, so they let you take the car home knowing you will be showing it off to friends, family and coworkers. Then when the bank denies the loan to the dealer, they call you back asking for a re-sign and possibly more money down. This puts the buyer in an unusual spot because you don’t want to turn it back in cause your friends will say “hey, where’s your new car”?
Thanks to Google reviews and such on the internet, you can easily find the most honest dealers in your area.
Me and my husband went through something similar with Toyota. They wanted to see our approved check from the bank which was way over the asking price of the truck. Then they told us that we were maxed out. They were going to add on a hole bunch of fees and unimportant upkeep packages. They must have thought we were young and ignorant. We ran out of that dealership!
I have that problem right now. It’s also a Toyota Dealership. I just purchased a used 2001 Toyota a week ago. I signed the paperworks, contracts and etc. They delivered the car the next day. Then the next day after they deliver the car, they called me back asking me to re-sign a new contract saying that my interest in the first contract that I had was not approve. They said I need to pay higher interest and higher payments. I am just so tired of this they keeps on calling and calling me to sign for another contract. And I just ignore those phone calls. It’s very frustrating because this is supposedly my first car but these greedy people need more money. I don’t like buying cars from this morons anymore.
I recently bought a 2012 Toyota Tacoma at a local Toyaota dealership 30 days ago. I received my payment book in the mail and made my first payment today. Then the dealership calls and says I need to stop by because there is a problem with the title. Once I got to the dealership they told me they didn’t allow enough money in the financing to cover the sales tax and asked me to pay $1200 to cover the difference. I told them I wasn’t going to pay and that their mistake is not my problem since I have a signed purchase agreement. Can they really ask me to pay the difference?