My wife and I bought a Honda Civic LX (Silver Color) from O'Hare Honda on July 22. The finance officer there named Milan Nikolic processed our auto finance application. When we sat in his office, he explicitly told us that since we had a short credit history, the Bank would require we buy additional insurances including life and disability. Since this was our first time to buy a new car and apply for auto finance, we did not raise any doubt about this and agreed to buy the insurance. We thought we would not obtain the auto finance if we refused to buy the insurance.
When he gave us the form, we saw three items under the Title "Insurance Companies", including: Credit Life $466.03, Credit Disability $521.18 and WD $1595.00. Though the last item looked strange to us, we did not raise any doubt because we thought it was part of the insurance package Nikolic mentioned.
On August 12, my wife and I decided that the interest rate was too high and we were going to pay off the debt as soon as possible. To do this, we thought it would be advisable for us to cancel the insurances. So I immediately called Nikolic and left a message on his voicemail. I also sent him an email about this and copied it on the car sales rep on the same day. No response either to my email or call.
On August 14, my wife called the Bank, which provided us the auto finance, and asked about prepayment and "required insurances". The bank told her that there were no such things like required insurances by the bank. The rep even suggested to my wife that car dealerships often do this to seduce customers to buy insurances they do not need.
My wife and I felt shocked to learn this. On August 15, I again sent Nikolic an email and my wife left several messages on his voicemail and to the front desk. Only after all these troubles, he called back and told us we could cancel the insurances.
When I went to his office on August 15 evening, to my great surprise, he denied that he had ever told us that the insurances were required. He was even arrogant and probably thought that we did not have enough intellectual capability of understanding his plain English. Both my wife and I, misheard what he told us?! If he had not told us the insurances were required, how come we could voluntarily ask for such ridiculous insurances especially given that we already had full-coverage car insurance and that my company offered me very good life and disability insurances?!
Even to our greater surprise, only at this point of time, I came to know that the $1,595 item under "Insurance" was an extended guarantee on the car. He tried to persuade me to keep this one. It was then that I came to know that I had paid for a 7-year extended guarantee! He just intentionally packaged this item with other two insurance items without explicitly mentioning it to me before we signed all the papers.
He alleged that he had cancelled all the three insurances and told me that the cancellation took effect right next day. But ridiculously enough, I was told that O'Hare Honda processes the refund requests only by month end and it would take additional more than 4 weeks after that for me to receive the refund. This was absolutely unprofessional and unethical from a business perspective. It was no difference from taking others money away and reaping the interests while letting the customer bear the loss.
It has been a frustrating experience trying to get the money back. A person named Jeff, who claimed himself a manager in charge, even walked away when I was still talking to him about this problem. You can imagine how rude they would be once you have finished the deal and the money has exchanged hands! Then I talked to their sales general manager named Scott Nicoll, who guaranteed he would answer calls (their people never return your calls AFTER the closing of a deal) and the refund would be processed within a week. But in fact when my wife called after one week, nothing happened. After another week, still nothing happened and my wife was so frustrated that she called him a liar. He yelled at my wife on the phone and my wife was in tears out of despair and fright. Thats their way of dealing with customers!
It is now September 30 and we still have not received the refund for the life and disability insurances (they refunded the 7-year guarantee after countless calls and frustrations). Their excuse was that the insurance company has not received our information so they couldnt cancel the insurances. But my wife called the insurance company on Sep 21 and was told that they had already had our information for a while and the refund was the dealerships responsibility.
This was my first experience of buying a new car and it ended up like this. Does that accurately reflect the values and essences of a free market economy in America?!
Fight Fraud
Prospect Heights, Illinois
U.S.A.
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