Scumbag sales technique, upping the price after already verbally agreeing it with us! My girlfriend and I drove a couple of hours to view some cars and came to this dealer. My girlfriend liked the car and wanted to buy it, so we attempted to negotiate on price. The first guy we spoke to went away to see if the price offered would be accepted, but in the interim, another sales person told us that there was no room on the price as it was already low enough. Was wishing we didn't have to deal with this guy at this point, who seemed hung over, but fair enough, they don't have to discount the car. Then started 1 and a half hours of complete farce.
My girlfriend said she would pay the full price on credit card if we could drive away today and that was agreed. Since getting back from the test drive, paying by credit card was mentioned three times to this particular sales person and it was agreed that we would pay the asking price. Then, there was apparently a 'mysterious' issue with being able to tax the car via the Internet and it looked like we couldn't have the car on that day after all. Except, there was nothing wrong with the automated phone system and when my girlfriend got the guy to try again, despite the guy not knowing what numbers to enter on the website to register for tax, he eventually managed to get there. At this point, my girlfriend was asked to pay for tax, which she paid for.
My girlfriend was then asked to pay for the vehicle, but as the sales person was setting up the payment on the card reader, he suddenly dropped the bombshell that there was a credit card surcharge which upped the price by hundreds of pounds! So my girlfriend had already paid for the tax and wouldn't be sold the car without paying the surcharge. After realising his mistake of not telling us anything about the surcharge in the preceding hour of misery, the salesman went away and then came back saying that he'd drop the surcharge slightly, but we'd still have to pay most of it if we wanted the car. This is after the price for paying by credit card had already been verbally accepted and road tax already paid for!
I doubt how the garage handled that situation was legal and I'm considering reporting the matter to Trading Standards. Anyone with an ounce of honour would have respected the agreed price.
The result of all this was, despite my girlfriend having just purchased a car which she liked, she felt so miserable having been through an hour and a half sales process which was just horrible and had obstacle after obstacle put in our way of buying the car. I've bought cars before from dealerships and I've always come away happy, feeling like I've got a good deal - not something you'll feel like after buying from these scumbags. read more