4 years ago
I am a professional consumer advocate. On August ...
I am a professional consumer advocate. On August 17, 2020 I was at Friendship Hyundai in Bristol assisting a client who needed to address some issues with deceptive and unethical business practices. I observed that the client was deceptively coerced into a $12900 car purchase that resulted in a loan that would cost her well over $25k. This was all documented in the paperwork we reviewed. The dealer made several hard credit inquiries, filled out information for the credit report incorrectly resulting in an astronomical interest rate, attempted to extort more money by stuffing the deal with unneeded warranties, gap insurance and document fees for botched paperwork totaling more than $7500 above the price of the car. They also paid well below wholesale for the trade in and refused to provide any explanation of this.
The sales manager attempted to claim that one of the warranties was actually built into the price of the car until it was pointed out that this was a separate contract and was separately listed on the purchase documents. He literally wrote an IOU scribbled in sharpie on a piece of paper saying he would refund it off the price and tossed it at us.
The dealership withheld the 2nd key to the vehicle and attempted to make the buyer also purchase an additional key. They then produced it after the fact claiming it was then a courtesy key. It was old, dirty and had been used. It was clearly the key they had withheld during the original sale, not a new one. There was no access given to the vehicle for programming the fob that would have been required had it been a brand new courtesy key. (upward of $400 if you buy one of these)
I would not recommend this dealership based on the deceptive and unethical business practices I observed while present there. Furthermore, I have reason to believe due to specific remarks made during the visit, this dealer engaged in sexist practices toward women and preys on those who may be younger in age or viewed as inexperienced in the world of car purchasing.
The buyer made the mistake of disclosing the magic number--where she wanted her monthly payment to be. The salesperson and finance department stuffed the deal and spread out the length of the loan so that her monthly payment was still the same but she just paid it longer. The interest rates were excessive. That's how you take a $12900 car and it ends up costing more than $25k
The dealership is currently refusing to deal with the buyer after their deceptive scheme was uncovered and they were given the opportunity to make it right. They have also refused to reimburse $700 worth of document and processing fees charged to the buyer when they did not provide adequate document and processing--these documents contained a plethora of incorrect information resulting in the buyer's interest rate. I am including a photo of the IOU that was mentioned for reference.