We bought a car from this dealership 2 yrs ago. At the time we were first time buyers with less than perfect credit. They worked a deal for us with 1500 down and no trade in. After paying faithfully on this car for over 2 yrs my husband and I decided to trade up.
We decided that since we were established customers at Bill Heard that is where we should go. After driving over an hour from Merritt Island Fl we finally reached the dealership.
We approched the salesman and told him we were returning customers and would like to trade our car for a newer one. He was not very interested in the fact that we were established customers but tried to help us, so we started the long process of all the paperwork.
My husband and I explained that we had the car to trade in but only 1500 to put down, he told us "no problem that is more than enough, I am sure we can help you" since that is what we were told when we got our first car from them, we believed him... Boy were we blind!
We were shown a 2007 pt cruiser... With 40,000 miles on it. My husband asks "how can a car that is only a year old get that many miles on it?" We were told that is was one of the loaner cars and was in good shape. Since our other car was starting to have problems and they were offering the bumper to bumper extended warrenty we decided to do the deal.
After 4 hours of waiting, having our credit run, standing our ground on the monthly payments we signed the paperwork with Jack the finance manager and drove our new car home.
Three days later on Thursday morning we received a call from Don Kellum sales manager telling us that the bank wanted more money down and that if we could not do that or if we did not have a cosigner we would have to return the car. I was livid! How can you let someone take a car, sign all of the paperwork and cash the check and then ask for the car back?
My sister in law offered to cosign, we called Don and told him that we had a cosigner but that she lived out of state. He stated "oh that is not a problem, we have an 800 number for our out of state cosigners, we do it all the time".
My sister in law has immaculate credit and for her to offer to cosign was huge for us. So she called Don and gave him all of her information. They even called and verified it with her, verified her job, verified her car loan... Everything.
After waiting 24 hours and many calls later we were told that none of the banks would finance an out of state cosigner. Wouldn't they have known this before getting all of her info?
I pulled up my credit report, there were no inquiries from any banks on it. The only inquiry was Bill Heard Chevrolet, how can that be if they actually contacted banks, it would show.
Lesson learned.
We will be returning the car on Monday August 11 and will never set foot into another Bill Heard dealership.
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