This is a long story, but here it goes,
On 3/29/09 my wife and I decided to visit the Saturn of Temecula dealership to look for a possible newer vehicle. Both my wife and I have challeged credit and didn't think anything would happen for us.
After spending 8 hours on the lot that day, my wife and I were able to take home a used 2003 Saturn Vue. We currently had a open auto loan we wanted to trade in, but were completely upside down. Our salesman suggested that we let them repo the car and go with this new loan for a shorter term and we would re-establish our credit. My wife and I sold cars years ago and never did we suggest that someone let a vehicle get reposessed. We understood our choice and we were ready to deal with it. We agreed to give the dealership a $300 check that night and then a $700 check was to be held for 30 days after that.
After about one week had passed we hadn't heard from the dealership and figured our loan was approved and had a window decal for my wifes business put on the back window of the SUV. Then the problems began. My wife checked her bank account to balance her books and relized she had two NSF fees on her account. Which continued to add more After reviewing the account we noticed that not only did they cash the $300 check they also deposited the $700 check that same day, a month early. This is when the financial issues began. All of the payments my wife made came back with NSF fees. We called the dealership the next day and was told by our salesman that my wife would receive a check for her NSF fees they had caused. We also asked them for a letter in hopes the bank would be kind enough to remove the other charges on the account. One of their finance Managers named Jimmy said to my wife when we asked for the letter " Why, you don't want them to think you write bad checks?" The Nerve of this guy. We then found out they were not going to give her a check for her NSF fees, but we had to re-write a new check less the NSF for $640. Lied to again!
So they were supposed to have the letter faxed to my wife no later than 5 P.M. That day, guesss what? No fax received. Our salesman said the office lady was probably to busy. So the next day I called and spoke to our salesman and told him that the letter needs to be sent asap. He said he would take care of it. The letter we received looked like it was written by a 5th grader. No were on the letter was a name of a contact or telephone number and the letter was two lines long and summed up and said that Carriage Motors caused the NSF on her account for depositing the $700 check to early. This lettter as you can guest wasn't accepted by the bank. The next day I received a call from a customer service rep that said we needed to come down and sign modified paperwork on the loan??? He claimed he didn't know what it was about. Again I called the salesman and he told me that the bank didn't want to finance the vehicle, it had to many miles, But he had another Saturn Vue that was better for us. So after work my wife called me and told me her showed her this 2005 Saturn Vue that was dirty. I get to the dealership and this car is disgusting, coffee stains, milk stains, pet stains and trash all over the place, cracked hoses under the hood. I was floored he even showed this to us. I told him either he makes this deal work or he will unwind this deal. He said he would get back to us. We are going on 3 weeks into this and on Saturday 4/18/09 we hadn't heard anything from them since 4/14/09, my wife calls and they tell her they are going to unwind the deal. I arrive at the dealership and of course my wife is upset. She was attached to this car and we had it for almost 3 weeks. We signed the paperwork and left the dealership and was promised that we would receive our $300 back plus a couple of NSF fees.
Today is 4/20/09 and my wife was told her check would be ready by 4:30 pm. My wife called me at 4:45 pm and told me that the salesman called her and told her that the check would be ready by 4/21/09 after 12 pm. We already returned the car to them. They knew this deal was going to unwind because the paperwork we signed was dated 4/17/09 and we returned the vehicle to them 4/18/09. Doesn't make any sense. Today the Finance manager Jimmy claimed he had no idea about the check issue, but he was the one that had my wife sign the paperwork to unwind the deal and we asked him about the refund. He knew about it. Had my wife not called them on Saturday would we still have the SUV? We should have held on to the vehicle until our check was ready. So this issue is still not resloved.
I will never buy another vehicle from anyone affiliated with Carriage Motors. The business practices are unbelievable and they have very decitful practices. I am continuing my campaign to the BBB and DMV. I do not anyone to have to go through what my wife and I did for 3 weeks.
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