Car and Scam Update

So… The car flap subsided over the weekend but will start again first thing tomorrow morning.

I have to show up at the credit union at 9 a.m. to pick up a check, which supposedly I will present to the crooks at the car dealership, thereby ending the whole circus. My son has said he will come with me, which is much desired and appreciated given the way these people have taken advantage of me. But that will require me to drive all the way to the CU, then turn around and drive all the way back to his office a few blocks from my house, then drive way to hell and gone up the freeway to North Phoenix.

What a mistake it was to figure it would be OK to do business with SDXB’s ex-girlfriend, from whom we bought a car for my son when he was in high school. She’s lied to me, the so-called “financial manager” has lied to me, and now I’ve learned that what they’re doing is such a commonplace scam it has a name in the industry: the Spot Delivery scam. The goal is to drag you back in, rewrite the loan agreement, and add a ton of other expenses.

Where these people are concerned, they’re unhappy because I arranged my own financing at 1.9%, which they don’t want to accept. They’re trying to maneuver me into their own 2.9% loan, which I am not going to accept.

Typical in the Spot Delivery maneuver, when you show up there and announce you’re not going to do it, they tell you the car they took from you is sold or otherwise disappeared, so you’re pretty much screwed.

They also engaged in “payment packing,” in which the dealer adds as many expensive extras as possible.

The “financial manager” hustler hammered away at me for almost an hour trying to persuade me to buy an extended warranty above and beyond the 7-year, 100,000-mile CPO warranty. I refused. But they did  add to the bill of sale a “theft code” (which I thought was part of the purchase price: $289.90) and a “paint protection” finish (which I thought came with the car’s original new-car package: $195). They also charged a “document preparation fee” of $429 and $395 for an alarm, which according to the owner’s manual is part of the car’s standard equipment.

That comes to $1308.90 extra for items that I wasn’t even aware I was consenting to and at least of two of which were already on the car at the time they put it up for sale. There’s no way they could have applied a paint sealant while I was at the dealership: there wasn’t time for that, despite their keeping me waiting for hours. Nor is there any way they could have installed an alarm system while I was waiting. The saleswoman   told me she was having the car “detailed,” not that she was having it painted and adding equipment.

The credit union’s loan officer procured an agreement from the “financial manager” jerk that they would accept a check from the CU. But it remains to be seen whether they’ll do it. And it remains to be seen how much of our time they’ll soak up in this. My son has an overload of work and says he really can’t afford to take time off his job. But I really don’t have anyone else to help do battle with these people, and since I’m already losing, big time, I don’t feel I can take them on alone.

As soon as this is over, I’m filing a complaint with the state attorney general’s office. But meanwhile, the question is how to get it over.

The car itself is pretty cool. I’ve been reading the owner’s manual like a textbook. It does some pretty amazing things and has some very nifty features. One is, admittedly, left wondering “why?” Who really needs all this stuff? To my mind, electronic tools to accomplish things you can do with a flick of a finger look like more and more stuff to break.

It’s sad, how Toyota changed with success in this country. When they were first trying to get a foothold here — about the time I got my first Toyota, a Corona, and everyone was sick of Unsafe at Any Speed cars and dealers for whom rip-offs were SOP — Toyota’s sales and service were primo. They left American car dealerships in the dirt. But now that they own the market, they behave exactly like US car dealers used to in the 1970s and 80s: dirty.