Our story starts in Oct of 2025. We selected a nice van, and we were pleased with it, although the…read moreprice seemed really high. The sales manager wouldn't let us see their documents because "their computers are down", but we left with a thumb drive of what we'd "agreed to". When we got home and plugged it in, we saw mark ups and aftermarket items we NEVER would have agreed to, resulting in the van being 13K over book for a 2025. Anyway, the van was so upside down that no bank would touch it, even with our paid off trade.
So, 2 months later, the sales manager called and offered to renogotiate. We let them know that their contined credit pulls had dropped our credit scores roughly 100 points, and that health issues had cut our income roughly 4K a month, so now we ourselves were unlikely to approved regardless of any adjusted price on the vehicle. Regardless they wouldn't release my trade and demanded that they be allowed to try. They offered to adjust the purchase price and remove some of the fraudulent add ons. So, we took time off work, met again in their office, unfroze our credit reports, were placed on speaker phone, and heard our approval. Regardless, we told them explicity that they were strictly forbidden to continue bank shopping after we left. We left assured we'd get our welcome letter in a few days and that our first payment would now be revised to another 45 days later.
Another 2 months passed with no deal, no payment letter, and no confidence that this was even our car. We were honestly afraid to take it out of town lest it be taken back and leave us stranded, since we hadn't paid a dime for it. Since no one can live with that level of uncertainty for long, we put in an offer in on a used Odyssey at less than half the cost with a delearship 2 blocks from our home. We told them our story, they pulled our credit, assured us that they saw no evidence of a another deal, and counseled us what to say to get our trade back (worth about 8K). We eventually were able to get through to Selma (they had started to dodge our calls, but we got through on a borrowed phone). We said exactly what we'd been counseled to request our trade back, which, of course, without a deal, they were legally obligated to still have available. They responded that we had a deal with the bank if I remembered, and that "maybe they were backed up by the holidays" and that my van had been sold at auction. I told them they had 24 hours to produce documents, as they were WAY outside the 10 days they were legally required to close. No response, so, 24 hours later, we went forward with the Odyssey, took cash out of savings for the down, and signed. We figured we'd get the cash value of our trade in a few days. Yeah...that didn't happen.
5 days later on Jan 26, we got 2 welcome texts. One for each van. Ally bank had accepted the loan, which was NOT the bank we talked with in Dec. I immediately let Ally bank know that the Selma had been expressly forbidden to continue to attempt financing, and asked how they had been able finance such an expensive vehicle with our reduced income and impacted credit score. Here with are in mid-March, and they finally responded. Their fraud investigator let us know that rather than letting them know that our income had reduced, Selma finance inflated one of our incomes from 6K to 26K A MONTH to get the DTI to cover it.
That brings us to our 1 star ratinr - we now have had a new car for free for 5 months - why are we complaining? Well, we're insuring 2 nearly identical 7 passenger vehicles for one thing. Also because Ally waa given our original documents in Oct and paid Selma the inflated price. Weirdly, though, since my complaint was on day 1, they list my pay off as 0.00, but I have gotten credit dings for 30 days, and soon to be 60 days late. I can'tpay anything because even they don'tknow what we owe, but, yet, we're late. We tried sending 5 dollars a month (the biggest number the website will allow) but that isn't showing anywhere.
We gave Selma of Toyota EVERY opportunity to give me back my 2012 Sienna - we loved her and she still ran like a champ. We just wanted the newer safety features. I guess a free 2025 is a decent consolation prize.
TL/DR: Finance guys are shady and fraudulent. I hope this finally costs Junior his job.
