You Co-Sign Like A Girl

It is approximately 15 years ago and I am in the market for a new car. I have decided on an SUV from a now defunct manufacturer. They made awesome cars and this would be my second car from them. Mind you, I’m a woman in my 30s at this point and a legal secretary at a law office plus run my own side business. I have good credit and make more than enough money to afford this car.

I pick out and actually order the SUV I want, because I want a specific color with a few extra options such as a 6 CD changer and moon roof. I’m using the same salesman that sold me my original car from this dealership. He’s great – answers my questions without acting like I’m an idiot. We get the paperwork ready and hand it over to his financial team, at which point I am told it can take up a bit to process the paperwork as there are a lot of people there buying cars. My salesman needs to speak to his manager, so I start to walk over to get a drink of water when I hear my name being called – it hasn’t even been 5 minutes. I say “over here” and the man simply turns to me and doesn’t move towards me. So I wave at him and start to walk towards him when he proceeds to tell me very loudly from 10 feet away that I will need a co-signer. I immediately know he hasn’t looked past “female” on my paperwork nor done a credit check because I haven’t needed a co-signer since I bought my first car at 16.

So I stop walking towards him and from 10 feet away I very loudly reply “Please go back to your office and get me a list of the banks you called that say I needed a co-signer and I’ll go back to my office and subpoena their records because I guarantee you that they have sold this very car to a man who makes less money and hasn’t worked as long as I have, and without a co-signer.” It is at this point I see the guy who was helping me purchase my car with a big grin on his face and what I assume was his manager next to him scowling. I did not see that man again but I had the paperwork and a date my car would be delivered not 10 minutes after he disappeared.

I was and still am a huge fan of this particular car manufacturer. I went back to them for all of my oil changes, etc. And I never once saw that financial guy again. My salesman did however tell me that he thought it was awesome how I didn’t even miss a beat telling that guy off and loved that I did it in front of everyone. Apparently they had been having problems with him and losing sales over his sexism since he was hired and my response brought it to attention of a lot of higher ups that this kind of behavior was an open door to a lawsuit.