Here's the short version: my roommate very kindly offered to go with me one weekend to look for a car. Having either purchased or helped purchase eight cars to date, she felt pretty comfortable on a car lot. Her experience balanced my lack thereof.
I decided to go to Keyes Toyota in Van Nuys based on a TV ad they were running and, as a result of the ad, a telephone conversation with their used car manager in which I was very frank about my dismal credit rating: no down payment, no co-signer, a $350 monthly payment ability and only my nearly inoperable Ford Explorer as a trade-in. He told me to come on downhe'd be able to help me.
After several hours of being there, being pushed from one department to another, the humiliating experience of filling out an application for a new car at the insistence of a sales person when I knew I was going to be turned down, filling out another application in the used car area (only to be told again the I didn't qualify), and told that they just didn't think they could get it to work without a co-signer, we decided to leave. My roommate suggested that we go and check out the Jeep Dealership since she had a current loan with them at 1.9% financing.
As we thanked the sales manager for his time, he suggested to my roommate that she might qualify as a co-signer. Hindsight is always 20/20, I know, but I'll say it anywaylooking back it's so clear how they manipulated the situation, making it almost impossible for my roommate to decline.
My roommate stated quite clearly that she did not need another car and did not want to be the primary on a loan. They assured us that she would only be the co-signer and that after I made six months of payments and established a good payment history with them then we would be able to remove her as the co-signer and I could bring the car in and trade up for the car I wanted. I had stated many times during the hours we were there that I had no down payment, needed to keep my payments to $350 a month and would use my Ford as a trade in. Also that I needed the payments to be on a schedule after the 15th of each month to coincide with my employment pay cycle. We were told all of this was fineno problemand that my first payment wouldn't even be due until about 55 days after the purchase.
We were eventually shown into the office of the loan processor. As he pulled out paper after paper, he kept indicating that my roommate should sign on the top line and/or where it read primary and that I was to sign below her name and/or where it read co-signer. Each time we signed a document, both I and my roommate independently voiced our confusion at signing in such manner. We kept reminding him that I was the primary and she was the co-signer. That she did not want to be the primary. His response was that it was just an internal thing, that when the information was sent out (I assumed to the lenders) that I would be on the contract as the primary. After approximately 8 hours of searching for a car, the rollercoaster ride of applying and being denied and reapplying and being denied for a purchase, we were exhausted and took his word for it.
It wasn't until the next day when I was reviewing all the information that I discovered the loan processor had not put down due dates for payments on the 15th of each month, but rather the 11th of each monthfour days before I received my paycheck. There was no way I was ever going to be able to make payments on timeI'd always be late. Looking further I saw that the first payment was due approximately 35 days after the contract, not the 55 days as originally promised.
I made several attempts to speak to the loan officer that day but no one could help me. I left messages and continued calling but to no avail. Little did I know that this was only the beginning.
Last month my roommate applied to buy a condo. During the normal credit check she was informed by the loan officer that her credit report indicated she was the primary on not one, but two car loans. When my roommate called to discuss this with Keyes she was told that she was put on as the primary because I would not have qualified for the loan.
She was livid. She told them she had agreed to be the co-signer, not the primaryin fact, she had emphatically stated that she would not be the primaryand they had fraudulently represented one thing and done another. She wanted her name removed, immediately, as the primary. The representative said they could not do that without rewriting the contract and that they would be in touch with her. Suddenly a six month commitment with her in a co-signing position turned into a 5 year (or it may be 6!) year commitment with her as the primary. That was the last we heard from Keyes. They will not return our calls nor have they contacted us by mail.
There is no question that they deliberately deceived and misled us. Where's the logic?:
My roommate already has a car loan on a jeepwhy would she want to buy another car?
And no way would she enter a contract with a 14.9% finance charge when she was currently paying a 1.9% finance charge on her Jeep!
If she were going to buy a car, she certainly wouldn't need a co-signer. Her credit is good enough to qualify to buy a condo it's good enough to buy a car. And besides, she's bought over the years, on her own with no co-signer, several cars, and is in fact the co-signer on her sister's car, and
She's a smart girlif she needed a co-signer she sure as heck wouldn't use me, and
Why would a dealership use me to guarantee a car loan when my credit is so bad that I can't get a loan even with a co-signer?
And last, but not least, currently Keyes has put her as the primary but used my credit to establish the interest rate. So instead of a 1.9% rate she's locked into a 14.9% rate!
This whole experience has been a nightmare. My roommate is currently talking to her attorney to formulate a strategy to hold Keyes Toyota accountable for their fraudulent practices.
What they have done is wrong, morally and ethically. My roommate and I have agreed to do what we can to make sure the fraudulent practices of Keyes Toyota in Van Nuys are common knowledge and that innocent buyers are warned.
K.
Los Angeles, California
U.S.A.
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