Last year around August, I wanted to trade in my vehicle. I had a Toyota Yaris which was a great car, but the payment was a little too high for me. A friend at work told me she knew this great salesguy who she dealt with for every car in her family and she would introduce me.
She took me up to Wilkes Barre Dodge. I liked Jeep Liberty's at the time so I was looking at mostly just those. I found one I liked and test drove it and got to talking to her friend (the salesman) about it. He told me he could get me into it for $250 for a month which sounded great to me. Keep in mind I was 20 at the time and didn't know much about purchasing cars. I trusted the salesman since my co-worker was much older and had purchased a few cars in her lifetime from this guy.
Anyway, after going up there for about three days talking to him, he had told me that they would be paying off my Toyota and crediting me back about $200 since I owed less than it's worth, that I'd be getting "free tires for life", and my payment would be $250 a month which was about $100 less than I was paying on the Toyota. So I was all for it. He told me the reason why I would be paying $250 was because they were giving me this great deal where they would pay half of my payment for 12 months and I would never have to pay it back in any way, and I would never have to pay more than $250 because they would continue to do so as long as I needed them to. My co-worker assured me that her son did this too & that there was no catch.
I had my dad come up with me the day that I was planning on signing the papers because he has to co-sign with me because I was/am still trying to build up my credit. We must have sat there 4 hours before anyone even showed us any papers.By then we were hot, tired, & hungry and just wanted to get out of there. So my dad had talked to the salesman earlier in the day to get everything straight about the deal, the salesman told him that it was an even trade, that I was getting the $200 back from the car and what my payment would be, so my dad thought it was a good deal too.
They also informed me I couldn't finance through my own bank because I couldn't take part in their great deal unless I went through their bank. I didn't know any better so I went along with it. We finally just got everything settled and got out of there.
A couple of months later I was bored and got out the contract and noticed something that made my eyes pop out of my head. They had charged me $27,000! For a USED 2007 Jeep Liberty! No leather seats, no upgrades of any kind! With 21,000 miles on it! I wanted to cry. So I immediately went to my father and asked him if he knew, and he said no way did they charge you that much. Until I showed him the paperwork. He had no idea either. Basically what it seems to me is they tacked on the price of my Toyota onto the Jeep but made it look like they paid me by crediting me the $200.
So now I'm stuck with a bill for $27,000, with 11% financing which brings it up to about $38,000.. And an 8 year loan, on a vehicle that is worth maybe $15,000 if I was lucky. How does this happen? When I tried to switch the loan to my bank, they told me they couldnt because they can only finance 90% of what the vehicle is worth. So then how does this other bank miraculously finance this vehicle? Do they get a pay cut of some kind?
All I know now is that they want $450 a month from me now and I can't afford it! The only thing I was able to do was cancel some bogus warranty that they charged me $3,000 for. I cancelled that 3 months ago and I'm still waiting for the money back. I can't believe these dealerships can get away with doing this to people..
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