Misleading sales practices. - CindyM
I went to my local dealership, Whites Energy Motors looking to get more information on a Jeep Compass. We talked to a salesman and took a test drive. We liked the vehicle and decided to go through the negotiation process. We asked about the military discount for USAA members and were told “we can’t stack deals.” They didn’t tell us about any other discounts or deals going on. When we asked about if there were any Jeep incentives they told us about one current offer going on that Jeep was offering; so that was written into the contract. After they gave us their “best the could do for us” speech, we decided to buy the vehicle. We asked if they did financing through our local Credit Union and they said no, we had to be financed through the one they chose for us. After the deal we asked the our Credit Union if we could refinance through them and they asked why we didn’t finance through them in the first place. We stated they told us at the time of the deal that they didn’t use that credit union for deals. So once again they lied about the companies they use to finance.
After hearing from several people and other dealers, I was told I paid WAY too much for the Jeep. I decided to do some research and found the same Jeeps with the same options at a much lower price including on the Jeep website. Later someone in the community was admiring the Jeep and asked what I paid for it and where I bought it, I told them and they proceeded to tell me they had seen the Jeep advertised online at Whites Energy’s Website for 28,200; 4,000 less than what “the best they could do for me was.”
I decided to check it out for myself and was surprised when their website came up with a big advertisement saying they’re “fast, neighborly and HONEST”, it also said in bold, “we’ll match your down payment up to 1,000, no gimmicks through the month of June.” Once again we were told there were no specials beyond the Jeep one and we couldn’t stack deals.
The Jeep listed on their website clearly showed a lot more discounts and all were “stacked,” including the USAA one. And all for 28,254 OAC.
We made an appointment to talk to the sales manager to discuss the details of the purchase. They did agree to give us the USAA discount of 1250. However when asked why we weren’t told of the other specials like the matching down payment up to 1000 we were told “he was regretful he wasn’t there,” and we never received a real answer.
We’re thankful they did honor the military discount but dissatisfied that their negotiation process is deceiving and definitely NOT honest.
On a side note, one of their salesman decided to give out some of the details of my loan and tell lies about what discounts they gave me, all on social media to another person. Unethical and illegal!!
Unfortunately my enthusiasm for buying local has been diminished; this experience has taught me that deceiving people and making a buck is more important than customer satisfaction and loyalty. Hindsight is always 20/20.
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