Well, let me begin by describing my situation and why I ended up at Coggin Honda. I am currently 38 weeks pregnant, and I just went on maternity leave. I have a truck that needs new breaks, new transmission, new suspension, has NO AC, the windshield wipers do not work, and much much more. With a new baby on the way, I knew that I needed to get a new vehicle before my son came because I refuse to put my new born son in a vehicle that can pretty much blow up on me any day now, and, not to menton with 100 degrees here and 100% humidity, having no AC makes it hard even for me to be in the vehicle.
So, on Saturday, August 18th, I went to Coggin Honda on Atlantic, in hopes that I would be able to get a vehicle. With little money to put down, and not the best of credit, I was expecting a no, sorry, no can do answer and attitude from the place, just like everywhere else. But i figured, hey, it doesn't hurt to try.
Before I even made my way to the dealership, I called ahead and spoke to a guy named David Schoen. I let him know my situation, how I don't have the best of a credit score, but I had nothing wrong on my credit, and only $500 to put down. He said that they may be able to work with me, but I would have to come in and sign a credit check release. So I thought great, here goes more points being taken off my credit, but I really need a vehicle, so it's worth a shot. Well, after a few talks, few papers here and there signed, I was shown a few cars that I could get. I completely fell in love with a 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee. They let me test drive it, look over it, all the stuff you should do before buying a veicle. So, we walked back inside, signed a few more papers, they ran my credit card for the down payment, and off to another building I went. They had me wait for a good 20 minutes before I got together with another guy. I believe it was one of the main managers. He called me back to his office, and I signed all those tons of papers you have to sign when buying a vehicle. They gave me a temp tag for it, and a few other sheets and back to the other building they sent me. When I get to the other building my sales guy tells me that since they just got the Jeep in, they still need to do their maintenance on it, so they will put me in a rental car until Monday, when I can come pick up my truck.
This is where everything started to go bad...
I agreed, being that the loaner car would have AC and would be safer for me to drive than my truck. The first mistake they made was, on the loaner sheet that you ave to carry around with you, which makes it legal for you to drive that vehicle, the wrote the name of the car wrong. Me, being exited that I can finally get myself into a good vehicle, didn't notice. Not only did they write the name wrong, that car doesn't even exist! They marked it down as a 2007 Chevy Cavalier, and it was actually a 2007 Chevy Cobalt. Imagine if I wold have been pulled over. A cop would have taken me down to the Sherrif's Office until they could verify that I am legally allowed to drive that loaner car. Thankfully, I did not.
Monday rolls around. I'm sitting at work waiting and waiting for a call about my car. So I starte to call them. I kept telling them, I'm at work, I need to know the status of my vehicle, just in case I needed to request an early leave. After about 6 tries, I finally got my final answer for the day, which was, "Well, it looks like the Jeep is ready, but, we haven't gotten it financed just yet. And since it's after 5pm, and my day off is tomorrow, you're going to have to wait until Wednesday to get your truck." After getting very frustrated, I just thanked the guy for finally letting me know something and waited until Wednesday.
Lets just say Wednesday wasn't any better. At first i called first thing in the morning, and David tells me, oh, i have to wait for my other manager to come in, which isn't until 11am. Then, around 3pm, I got tired of waiting, so I called them. Once again, I get told the same thing about it's not getting approved, just keep the loaner, and don't worry about it, which I did for the reason being that, mistake number two, I originally signed the loaner from August 18th until August 22nd. If I would have gotten stopped by a cop the following day, it could have been seen as a stolen vehicle, since I didn't have the rights on paper to have that loaner past the 22nd.
So the following day, Thursday, I asked my husband to head up to the dealership and see if they could give him an update, so that when i went on my lunch break, I could go up there and finalize everything. Meanwhile, my Human Resources manager came up t me and showed me a sheet that Auto Credit of Florida had faxed to her, asking her to verify my income. She came up to me with concern that the signature on the sheet didn't look like I had actually signed it. And she was right, I didn't. So I made a few copies of the sheet, and went about my regular work. When my husband showed up at the dealership, not only did the Manager act very rude towards him, he was caught in a lie. Mistake number three. They ran my husband's credit, without written permission. When the manager started to raise his voice at my husband, telling him that they gave him the rights to, the manager realized that they didn't have a single paper with his signature, not even on the Jeep. He realized then that they ran his credit without his permission. When I finally got there, the final verdict was that I couldn't get the Jeep (after they let me sign for it) and that he only car they could sell me was a 98 Honda Accord, with 70,000 miles or so on it, with a sun bleached hood, for $10,000. Not to mention, from the moment I walked into that dealership I told all of them up front, I do not want a car. Once I told David, no, no deal what so ever, he started to slam his hand on the hood saying things like "Don't you realize this?! You have bad credit, no money down, this is all you're going to get." I would keep on mentioning it to him that I told him, from day one, that I did not want a car. He started to get really forceful with me, raising his voice, then said, I need the keys to the loaner, I'm done with you. So I gave him hi keys back just like he asked, and there I was, stuck up at the dealership, 9 months pregnant, out in the heat, because my truck was at home, obviously, since I was driving the loaner around. I had to get a co-worker of mine to pick me up from the dealership, and take me home.
As I waited for her to come pick me up, I called Auto Credit of Florida and spoke with Toni, a manager there. I informed her of what one of her workers did, which was take their sheet asking my manager to verify my income, put it on top of a sheet I signed at the dealership, and sent it as one individual fax to my office. Her excuse was, well, we didn't want to share your credit information with your employer, so we covered it with out sheet. I informed her that I understood where she was coming from, but what they did was illegal. She sent the sheet as one individual fax, making it seem like I had signed their sheet. So she told me that they would close my application, and I can take manners into my own hands about that situation.
So not only is Coggin Honda a lying rude dealership, but they work with lenders that FORGE YOUR SIGNATURE. Does anyone have any advice? Is this something that I could take to court, or would be worth taking to court?
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