First off anyone who is thinking of purchasing a vehicle from these people double check all paperwork and have an attorney on retainer, or go to another car lot.
I took my sister in law to Portland area to find a car for her to buy. She has good credit so I did not forsee any problems. We stopped at Gladstone Suzuki and dealt with them. There was the usual waiting games and what not. We had to leave to take care of some business and they were taking to long so we left telling them we would come back. We came back a couple of hours later and they started trying to play the credit not good enough game. We finally got the deal that my sister in law could work with with me as a cosigner.
We went back a couple of days later to drop her trade in off and at that time I asked about getting out of my vehicle and into a newer better vehicle. This didn't take to long suprisingly enough. I told them the payoff amount for my trade vehicle and gave them the info and pictures of my boat which I was willing to trade in to offset the payoff amount. We left with the deal done fairly quikly comparativley.
A few days later I dropped my boat off to them and that is when some of the problems started. I finally left having upheld my end of the contract. A few days later I called them to see who had picked up my financing and that was the start of all the problems. I was told to talk to Doug the Manager. He got on the phone and started telling me that I lied to him and he wanted another 1500 cash down or his vehicle back because the buyer he had for the boat decided not to buy it. I told him I would call him back. My wife and I checked with our bank and saw that the first check had cleared towards the down payment. We decided to give the vehicle back and wait for awhile then go to another car lot. I called back and spoke to Doug again. He started going off on me calling me names and cussing at me. I told him we were going to give the vehicle back and would be there in a few hours and we would take our old vehicle and boat back along with a check for the down payment that cleared. He pretty much ignored me and told me to get his flipin truck back to him. My wife discovered that he did not aknowledge the fact that they needed to return our money so she called to talk to him. He started yelling at her and swearing and calling her and me names. She basically told him that all this did not matter as we were bringing the truck back and that we wanted our money back as well. He ignored her and refused to aknowledge that we had even given them a check which cleared. He finally hung up on my wife after she kept bringing up the check which cleared and wanting our money back.
Needless to say this upset me as he had never met my wife and no one talks to her like that. I had reviewed the contract and discovered that my boat was not mentioned at all on the contract. I had also never signed a power of attorney for anything but the title stuff for the two vehicles. I had not even given them the title for my boat as I was still waiting on getting it from the State of Oregon. I started recording all phone calls to this dealership at this point. The first thing I did was I called my bank and put a stop payment on 3 post dated checks I had written towards the down payment. Then I called him back and we got into a pretty good verbal arguement. Finally he called me a liar and said something about the law. I forced him to listen to me and let him know that under the law what was in the contract is what mattered. They wrote it I didn't. I told him that the deal with my boat didn't matter as the contract shows that all trade value was given to my trade vehicle. No boat or other trade was mentioned in any paperwork. I finally ended the call shortly after letting him know that I had already consulted an attorney on this matter.
Doug called back later and said to keep the truck he would take the so called loss. I thought that was the end of it.
3 weeks later my trade vehicle just got paid off as my wife called them and got after them. They were claiming there was a difference owed of around 300 bucks. They then called my sister in law and told us we had to come back to the lot as they forgot to have us fill out a paper. We went there and it was actually a whole new contract with higher payments and a higher interest rate. I must say right before we went to the car lot we stopped at the finance company to see if we could sign the paper there and I saw on the computer that the loan was approved under the old contract. At the car lot my sister in law was basically told that if she did not sign the new contract then we had to leave the car there. We ended up signing although neither of us were very happy. The sales manager Steve is who we dealt with on that one.
The next day I contacted an attorney and set up an appointment to see him.in the meantime a couple of the post dated checks tried to go through and I discovered that the car lot waited almost 3 1/2 weeks to pay my trade off causing more interest to accrue. This is the overage they were trying to collect from me. Right before I saw my attorney I got into more or less a day long fight on the phone with Steve over the payoff amount and 2 of the post dated checks that came back stopped payment. These calls were also recorded and Steve used abusive language, threats and monetary threats dealing with repo and keeping both vehicles and boat and putting bad marks on our credit. I told him that I was going to pay those checks but I had a problem with the payoff.
I consulted with my attorney a couple of days later and he actually laughed when I explained all that had happened including the recent phone calls with Steve dealing with the stop payment on the post dated checks. My attorney (I hired him) loved the fact that I had recorded all these phone calls from the dealership. He also could not believe that this dealership was doing these actions. I was still a little upset over the last phone calls and I asked him about the boat. I told him that not only did they not have squat on the boat (and he looked at the contract which was missing the arbitration agreement I signed and again no mention of any boat) but they had upset me to the point of wanting retrabution. He told me to go ahead and get the boat back by using the paperwork that the state of oregon had just sent to me.
My attorney faxed and mailed a nasty letter to this car lot, I went and removed my boat from their property letting the sales people know what was going on, and then I paid 2 of the post dated checks. I did not pay the final check until they contacted me almost a month later (as the attorney's letter told them they should contact me to agree to the terms) and I only paid half of the payoff amount. I thought that this was more then fair on my part.
I must also say that Doug called my wife about a week and a half after we paid them off screaming theft of the boat and he supposedly had us on camera stealing this boat. My wife told him that not only did I contact the sales people I gave them a photo copy of the letter from the state of oregon. She also let him know that she was not there when I removed the boat. This kind of shut him up and he asked who I had given this paper to and my wife told him that I handed it to one of the salesmen per our attorney.
2 months later and I haven't heard anything else from them however I still have my attorney just in case.
Also remember I tried to streamline this to the high points and the facts so quite a lot has been breezed through or passed over for the purposes of this report.
This car lot is probably the absolute worst one I have ever been to and I have been to to many to count. All I can say is do business with this car lot at your own risk and/or have an attorney on retainer.
T
P, Oregon
U.S.A.
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