Escape From the Box
New technology and old tactics have made buying a car a death march of deception. Jase Patrick, who spent 15 years in the business, reveals the dealer secrets.
“This is the ideal customer,” Jase said. “This is what they train for.”
BY DAVID DAYEN JULY 8, 2024
Mario Flores was told he couldn’t look at the documents until he signed them.
The saleslady at CardinaleWay Mazda in Corona, California, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles, was rushing Mario, a 20-year-old first-time car buyer, through a new loan agreement, asking him to make electronic signatures on a small tablet. When asked if Mario could see the physical agreement and all its terms, the saleslady insisted that the signature must be added in order to move forward. Anyway, she assured, it was a better deal than what he initially signed; the term was dropping from 84 to 75 months, and the interest rate from 13.77 percent to 10.99 percent.
But the printout she was showing Mario wasn’t the loan document, and it didn’t reveal other information in the contract, which he would be bound by upon signature. As Mario and his family were hustled through another screen, the man sitting next to them, an understated guy in his mid-thirties with a close-cropped beard, grew more vocal.
https://prospect.org/power/2024-07-08-car-dealership-fee-financing-scams/
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