Not Sold On His Listening Skills

The first time I bought a brand-new car, I brought my parents with me — mostly because I was hoping I’d potentially be able to walk off the lot with the new one but didn’t think I’d be able to trade in my old one. Plus, I wanted their opinions on a couple of options I was considering. Before we went to the dealership, I called my credit union and went through them for the car loan (because they got me a much better deal than the dealership and so that I’d have a better idea of my budget). I already knew what model I wanted but was mostly waffling on color and some of the extras.

The entire time, I did almost all of the talking, although my dad did add things a couple of times when he was giving opinions on the options. But again, I was doing the talking. This was for my car. For me. Going to my house. Paid for with my money/loan. We got things decided on which car I wanted, and the salesman brought us inside so we could go over the paperwork.

Salesman: *Glancing at my dad* “Okay, we’re going to need her to fill out this paperwork here, and we’ll go talk with our finance guys and see what kind of deal we can work.”

My dad just kind of gave the salesman a look.

Dad: “It’s her car; talk to her.”

Me: “And we don’t need to talk to the finance guy. I’ve already got approval from [Credit Union] for [amount]. You can call them at [number] on this card.” *Puts the information on his desk* “Please don’t run my credit, because I’ve already run it through them and know that I’m approved to get this car. Can we just get the paperwork figured out?”

[Salesman] again glanced at my dad, although to his (minute) credit, he seemed to catch himself and then looked at me.

Salesman: “Okay, so we’ll still need to check with the finance guys on this.”

Me: “Why? I’m already approved for [amount about $3,000 more than the price of the car], so you know that it’s covered. We don’t need to run credit or talk to them, unless you were going to take my old car as a trade?”

[Salesman] did go back and talk to finance. I had to remind him again not to bother checking my credit because I wasn’t financing through them and was already approved. He came back and told me they could do $500 immediately on trade-in and I took it. (That was probably a little less than its value, but I was just happy to get rid of it.)

We finally got the paperwork filled out, and [Salesman] said that he’d take care of the loan side and I would get a notice and be able to pick up the car on Wednesday. (This happened on Sunday.)

Wednesday came around and I hadn’t heard from him, so I called him.

Salesman: “Thank you for calling [Dealership]; this is [Salesman].”

Me: “Hi, [Salesman], this is [My Name]. I came in on Sunday and worked with you about the Crosstrek?”

Salesman: “Hi! How can I help?”

Me: “Well, it’s Wednesday, and I haven’t received anything that said I could come to get my car.”

Salesman: “Oh, yeah, about that. Because you’re not financing through us, you’ll need to send in [specific documents] from your credit union.”

Me: “But you said you were going to reach out to them for that. You have all the information.”

Salesman: “I’m sorry, you’ll need to call them.”

We ended the call. I called my credit union and got all the paperwork sent over to the dealership. It took me about twenty minutes, and half of that was spent on hold just because they were busy. I did finally get my car, and I love it. I probably won’t go back to that dealership any time soon, though.