Dealers Get Ripped Off By Customers

I'll bet you never gave a moment of thought to dealers getting taken by customers. They do. Not only do ordinary folks see fit to lie and cheat in an attempt to get a better deal, but criminals often target dealerships as well.

A few years ago a young man came in to look at our 98 Tahoe. The Tahoe was a hot vehicle then, especially this one with its 20" chrome wheels. He wanted to trade his 02 Cadillac Seville, which he just purchased only a couple weeks ago from our rivals down the road. That is an incredibly bad idea, and he was losing like 3 grand, but people do stupid things, and it's hardly our place to be financial counselors for people that just want to buy stuff from us.

I forget the exact numbers, but let's say the Caddy was worth $15,000, and the total of the Tahoe came to $11,000. So we owed him 4 grand. Now if someone gave us a check for more than we needed, we wouldn't give them a check back for the difference until it cleared. But in this case, even though it seemed suspicious, he had a free and clear title with no lien. So we gave him his check, and off he goes.

Two days later, we get a call from our competitor down the street. His check he wrote to them for the Cadillac bounced. Apparently, they were stupid enough to run the title and give it to him without waiting to see if the check cleared. We would have waited, they didn't, and now WE have a stolen car in our posession because of it.

Well long story short, after working with the detectives, eventually we got the Tahoe back. He spent the 4 grand on a stereo for it (that we took out and gave away, so the truck wouldn't get broken into so his buddies could steal it). The Caddy went back to the other dealer. But what of the 4 grand check? It was spent, no getting it back. So we split the loss with the other dealer.

Stuff like that happens all the time.