ATTENTION READER: This is only a portion of my experience with this company. I am summarizing the most important details below and will be posting an actual website showing:
Digitized documents of the sale and financing arrangements
Recorded calls between myself and Atlanta Car Best reps, with date stamps
If you don't have time to read this entire post, then follow this advice: STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY.
Please stay tuned for the URL I will be posting soon. Now here's the story:
I recently was looking for a clean BMW 740i with a Sport Package. Very rare and hard to find. I finally found one and it was at ATLANTA CAR BEST, located in Roswell, GA. I purchased the car and the dealer offered to offer partial financing without the time-expense of going to a bank. I only needed 6 months of financing and was putting 50% down, so even if I had a high interest rate, I would only be paying $500 for interest charges. I was talked into it, so we moved forward with the purchase.
Here's where the madness started...
I put $6000 down (yes, 60 $100 bills) and my paperwork reflected only $5000 down. They said they will credit it later because they were required to give me a 12 month warrantee, bumber-to-bumper, as a financing requirement. Ok. Fair enough. The total purchase after tax, tag, title and dealer fees and all was a little over $15,000.
I made my payments of $1,500 per month ahead of schedule... Way ahead of schedule for 3 months. I then met with them over 1 week prior to the next due date to arrange either a refinance with my bank or early payoff - as I was being offered what I paid for the vehicle from prospective buyers. They told me the payoff at the time was $5,250. They also agreed to defer one payment until the 6th of the following month. This was approximately a 30 day deferral to decide what I wanted to do with the car, as my equity was high.
Within 2 weeks, I contacted a buyer of the vehicle and we were prepared to move forward. I tried to get the payoff from the company and nobody would call me back. Then, I finally talked to Max (the alleged owner) and he told me the payoff was $5,800, I owed them over $3,000 and the car is scheduled for reposession! As I calmed Max down and tried to make some sense of this, he then told me he was upset because a prospective buyer of mine refused to buy one of his cars because mine was a better deal. I told him I was not a competitor and I am exercising my contractual option of pre-paying my balance by selling the vehicle. Besides, the guy that came to his lot was not a serious buyer anyway.
I then received calls from a repo agency our of Marietta, GA, saying my car is up for repo! I called Atlanta Car Best immediately, because this was absurd, and had only the intent to wire or deliver to them the FULL PAYOFF with no intention of ever dealing with an independent lot again! They refused! They said payoff is not an option.
Since then, I've made numerous attempts to pay off this vehicle and in the process, I have had to chase away well qualified, serious buyers (a cashiers' check of $12,500 is pretty "qualified" in my book). I have ordered them to not only prepare a NOTARIZED statement of payoff (because they will lie otherwise, just to get the car back on thier lot), and specific instructions to get the balance paid in full. Thier plan, according to what their strong-accented "finance manager" told me during our last discussion, is to retrieve the car and pocket the equity I've put into it. She said they are "allowed" to do it.
I am hoping for a court appearance before the judge so i can present the compelling evidence i have against them. I will not surrender this car until the judge requires me to do so.
As a security, ALL my communications with this dealer and repo agent were recorded. I will be setting up a website where these recordings will be downloadable, for (1) those who questiod the validity of the claims I'm making in this post, or (2) an employee of Atlanta Car Best posts a bogus rebuttal, or (3, and most likely), an employee close friend of Max posts a comment posing as a satisfied customer.
Also, in addition to the financing nightmare, here are some other issues you can expect when dealing with Atlanta Car Best:
1. They will not live up to IOU's. Broken things they never fix. (there were 94 default codes in the transmission)
2. They will not communicate with the tax collector's office in a timely manner. This means when your temp tag expires, you will be driving illegally.
3. They will lie about interest charges. I was told they will do it for 12%, but it turned out to be 28%.
4. They will sell you a base warrantee and charge you for a full warrantee. I disputed this and they changed it, but they still tried to get away with it!
5. They will not willingly let you pay off your vehicle.
THE OBVIOUS EXPLANATION: Max's sales are slow, so they are making extra money on reselling reposessions. They deferred a payment off the books so they can place the account in default status. This gives them contractual permission to repossess the collateral. What they don't realize is that I recorded all the conversations I have had with them and I have documented everything. I am a responsible business man who has no intention of default. I can't wait till this one goes to court!
MORAL TO THE STORY: Buyer Beware!!!
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