I apologize in advance for the length of this complaint but my story is a long one and has to be told in its entirety...
Bob Watson advertised a "Slasher Sale" in the paper, saying that cars would be slashed in price to as low as $10! So at 6:30 in the morning, a group of four of us went to the dealership to try to find me, a second year college student, a car that I could use to travel to and from school and work.
After standing in the rain for almost two hours, a sales member came to get me and my family from outside, saying that she was going to get me financed. I was a little curious to see how a 19 year old with little credit history was going to get financed, but we would see.
They practically shoved a 2005 Chevy Trailblazer in my face and told me I could have the car with a cosigner with no money down if I would agree to payments of $350 a month for 66 months. I figured that wasn't all too bad and it really was a nice car, so I signed the papers and drove off the lot.
A week later, I had to return to the dealership to sign new papers... Seems the bank changed its terms which brought my monthly payment up to $466. A much higher stretch, might I add, but I figured I'd have money saved up and I'd be able to afford it. I drove off the lot once again, thinking everything was done.
3 weeks later, I get a call from the police, saying my car is stolen and that I need to bring it back! The dealership claims they tried to get in touch with me; neither my cosigner nor I got a single phone call from them. I called the dealership and the guy I spoke with, Graham, said that someone had messed up my paperwork and I had to sign new papers. Mind you, I was 80 miles away in Dekalb when this happened.
That same day I brought the car back.By the time they were done calculating I was going to end up paying almost double the sale price of the car! And as if that weren't enough, Tammy from Finance decides she wants to act all big and bad in front of her manager and attempted to yell at me for not responding to the calls I never received. I quickly pointed out that it wasn't my fault their sales people are irresponsible and asked why my insurance company (located in the same building) could get in touch with me but they could not seeing as I had given both companies the same contact information.
I ended up leaving my car there for the night waiting for financing to process for a third time. Halfway through the next day, I hadn't heard anything from them, and by now I was more than fed up with them, so I called to tell them to just keep the darn thing. When I called, Graham told me that I hadn't been financed anyway, signalling that he'd known this for a while and just hadn't called. I asked him why he hadn't told me this before... He said he was "busy". If he had the time to see the decision he had an extra 3 minutes to give me a call and tell me the decision and save me the time and heartache (which further convinced me that a lot of people weren't doing their job and tried to turn it on me to save their asses).
I'm a 19 year old who was just trying to purchase her first car so that she could be independent, and yet this is the terror I have to go through. Please, please, do yourself, your family, and your friends a favor. Don't go to this dealership, don't do business with them. They are the embodiment of the car dealership from hell. It's not worth the heartache.
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