The Craziest Real Life Car Buying Blunders

Over the many years we have been in business we have seen some huge blunders. Sometimes they are hilarious, sometimes they are just sad. These are a few of the most memorable of these blunders.

1. Do Unto Others

At a high volume new car dealership, we had a very irate and rude customer. Car sales being what they are, the customer was still catered to and a sale was made. Everyone knew the customer was out of line but people will often bite their tongue when money is involved.

After the sale, the customer had to come in to pick up his registration paperwork. He comes flying into the dealership narrowly missing what he thought was a salesman on his phone in a parking spot.

He jumps out of the car and starts screaming at the guy. He was yelling obscenities, cursing and shouting threats of physical retribution for the perceived insult. Little did the customer know, the man on the phone was not a customer of our dealership but of the business next to ours. That business was a large motorcycle dealer. They were having a customer appreciation party and had a large crowd of bikers, this man was one of them. He was dressed in a polo shirt and slacks, easily mistaken for the way our salespeople dressed.

The biker calmly put away his phone and walked up to the man as he was still cursing at him. Our customer continued to yell at the biker assuming that he would take the verbal assault, as the other employees had previously. The very large, very well dressed biker calmly and brutally backhanded our customer. We heard the sharp crack of his hand landing home. We watched him fly a few feet through the air and land on the ground with a large thud. The biker then informed him to be careful whom he was talking to in the future and calmly walked back to the biker party.

The customer, with a bruised ego and cheek, scrambled to get into his car and left in the same insane driving manner he arrived in. He never came back to get his registration paperwork and we always wondered if he ever got his license plates.

2. Too Good to be True?

I was the general manager of a large Hyundai dealership when the new Equus came out. An overpriced, (almost $70,000) luxury Hyundai. It was not that well received by our customers because of the massive price. The vehicle was amazing in every way though, it even had a wine cooler in it. As nice as it was, very few could justify the price point.

We initially got 3 such cars, 2 the cheaper models and one very expensive "Ultimate". We sold the cheaper models and were left with the much more expensive one. In the last week of December, the huge rebates for these cars were going away. Also, the new model year was already out. This left us with a very expensive car that was about to get much less appealing and much more expensive to purchase.

I put a large bonus on the car for all the salespeople and managers to move the car, with no luck. Two days before the end of the year a customer came in actually looking for the Equus. They wanted the less expensive model (most people did) and knew about all the rebates and incentives for the vehicles. After being unsuccessful closing them on this vehicle, I decided to get personally involved.

The customer, knowing our predicament (salesman told them about the disappearing incentives) decided to play hardball and offer an insane price, and they knew it. To give a bit of a back-story to the situation, they had been negotiating with other dealers on the cheaper model (the base Equus was almost $55k and the top of the line was $70k). They had been able to negotiate a price of $52,500 on the base model. They then offered $45,000, a price that I could not have even come close to on the much cheaper model and they knew it. To be clear, this was a $25,000 discount on a car with a $1,500 markup between invoice and MSRP, an insane deal to be sure. Most days, this would have led to a laugh and then being asked to buy somewhere else. Being desperate and not wanting to be saddled with this insanely expensive car for another year I accepted the borderline insulting offer. Then to my shock, they declined, wanting to "think about it". I asked them why, if they were pleased with a price of $52,500 price on a base model why they would have to think about $45,000 on the much more expensive car? I got no good answer. And they ended up leaving.

The salesman on the deal came to me right after his customer left, shocked at the deal I had tried to make. He then begged me to sell the Equus to him at that price. I agreed and he quickly did the paperwork before I changed my mind. The next day, the customers showed up to talk to me. They had thought about it and wanted to offer me $40,000 out the door, a total of almost $40,000 in discounts. I politely declined and told them I had already sold the car. They immediately freaked out, screaming at how I ripped them off by not selling it to them. I informed them that they could have purchased it yesterday and they had declined. They ignored this nugget of wisdom and offered purchase it at my original offer of $45,000 plus taxes, the offer they refused the day before. I restated that the vehicle was already sold. They demanded I take the car back from the people I had sold the car to. I refused.

I then found out that they had called or visited every Hyundai dealer in the area after leaving our dealership the previous day. After sharing the deal they were getting, they were laughed at, thrown out or outright called liars. After that experience and some online research, the gravity of the deal they were getting truly sunk in.

To this day, I have received 1 lawsuit, dozens of negative online reviews, a Better Business Bureau complaint, complaints from Hyundai Motor America, a dozen visits from the customers, and about 10 angry letters from these customers describing how I "ruined their lives".

3. Karma

A saying in the car business that is often repeated is that "no good deed goes unpunished". For whatever reason, the customers that get the best deals are by far the least satisfied.

I had a friend of a friend call me and ask me for a large favor. A friend of his had moved into Las Vegas and had very bad credit. On top of that, they had a destroyed older Jeep with no air conditioning and very high miles. A very bad combination of things to have in the Las Vegas summer. They had tried buying at a few other dealerships and their credit was stopping them from being able to buy anything at all.

They showed up and I showed them a brand new car, they obviously loved it. I then called in a personal favor with the bank to get them approved. After much back and forth, I convinced a friend of mine at the bank to do the loan for them. To be clear, they did NOT deserve to be able to finance a car... period. They had some of the worst credit I had ever seen. The then ecstatic customer left in a brand new vehicle. Because of the low income, not only did I have to get them approved, but I had to get him a very good loan to qualify him with low payments that fit his income level. And to add insult to injury, he had no down payment except his garbage Jeep.

The next day, I got a call from my friend at the bank. The "favor" I had called in backfired. The customer called the bank to tell them that we had ripped them off and that he was filing a lawsuit. Apparently his 200,000 mile, 15 year old, biohazard Jeep was worth thousands more. His 15% interest rate was insane. And he thought we had overcharged him for the vehicle, his friend told him we should have discounted it thousands more than we already had. Needless to say, the bank wanted nothing to do with the customer after this and sent the deal back.

I called the customer to tell him the situation and that he had to return the car. He was insane with anger. Apparently, he still wanted the vehicle at the terms I had given him, even though he had just complained an hour before to the bank. I informed him that the bank did not want the loan after his welcome phone call. He told me to get him approved at another bank. At this point, I was not willing to call in another favor after his poor treatment of us, and no bank in their right mind would give him a loan without that phone call.

That day he comes storming into the dealership blinded by anger. Screaming, shouting and stomping his feet like a petulant child. In his anger, he calls the police, telling them he is getting robbed and that it’s criminal that we are taking away his new car. The police show up very quickly to find out what’s going on.

After explaining the situation himself to the police, they start smirking and chuckling at him during his retelling of the story. At this point, it's obvious to everyone but the customer himself why he is in the situation he is in. This doesn't sit well and he gets even more upset. They inform him he needs to leave our property. They escort him out to our vehicle so that he can transfer his belongings from our car to his old Jeep and leave.

While he is transferring his belongings, the police notice drug paraphernalia in the vehicle. They then search the vehicle and find a bong, pipe, pot and a few other illegal substances. He is screaming that we planted these items and that the cops are in cahoots with us. He then starts threatening the police and states that he will get them all fired. They immediately place him under arrest and take him to jail. Then out of spite, I believe, they call and have his jeep impounded.

Moral of the story, karma might be real....

#comedy #mistakes #funny