I kept holding back this review, in the hopes that Freedom Ford might show some degree of humility following their treatment of my wife and myself over the past two and a half months. Unfortunately, they have instead turned their latest of insulting and condescending employees on us, continuing to make us feel guilty for their need to fix mistakes of their own doing as well as the myriad of insults and threats that occurred by a result of leasing our new vehicle from them. While they are obviously not yet done with us, I can wait no longer. I have no reason to believe that anyone, after the sales department level, gives a damn about customers after they have signed the paperwork. I have never, in my 40 years of purchasing or leasing vehicles, had a dealer come back once, let alone 4 or 5 times, to make me feel guilty that they had made one mistake after another, then threatening me to fix it, before realizing that it was their mistake in the first place.
This is definitely the first negative review I have made of a company in the past 3 years and it disheartens me to do so. First of all let me say that the salesman, "Jay" that we dealt with at Freedom Ford was Fabulous. He assured us that he would be able to get us a monthly payment that was at least $40.00 less than what we were offered at Ford in Whitecourt Alberta, who told us that we would not get a better deal, going to Edmonton. In fact, when the final numbers came in some $55.00 less, we decided to lease a car worth $2,000.00 more, being $44,500.00 for a Ford Escape Titanium; but then we were handed over to the Business department, beginning a two and one half month (so far) experience of abuse and intolerance at the hands of various Freedom Ford Employees.
After three hours in the business office, we were on our way. We had turned in our leased Ford Edge as we had requested and we signed a lease for our new Escape for a price that was $12.00 less than what we had expected.
Within Days, we were contacted by Arlene Bouza in the business office to inform us that we now owed another $922.00 as they had not used the correct amount in calculating the guaranteed purchase price of the lease return. The price in our documentation was $18,440.00, but they wanted $19,362.00.
We argued back and forth over the next week with Arlene, who started making angered phone calls telling us that we had better deal with this soon or they would need to take back their car. We pointed out that this amount was exactly 5% of the lease return price. But Arlene Bouza, soon followed by one of her managers, Rumeet, told us that we were using the wrong number and that the $19,362.00 was the amount that Freedom Ford paid for the vehicle in purchasing it from Ford Credit. I pointing out to Rumeet that this was GST and that Freedom Ford, as a business would surely get this back when they sold the car, but he insisted that they would not, as the additional amount was not expressed as GST when they bought it from Ford. I also tried the logic that a deal had been signed and if the situation was reversed, there was no way in hell that we could approach Freedom Ford saying that we had made a mistake and we wanted another $922.00. But he insisted that this amount was still owed.
After one week of this, while we continued to research and make our argument, we were contacted by Rumeet asking where the registration documents were. While we were told by Arlene at Freedom Ford that we had 14 days to provide them, he informed us that this was not the way that Freedom Ford does it, and if we did not have the registration document to him within two days, they would need to take back the car.
A couple of days later we were able to meet with our insurance agent to finalize the paperwork (It is important to note what happened here, as this comes up again later). We noticed that the paperwork from Freedom Ford instructed us to register the car in their name and not in Ford Credit Canada's name as was the case in previous leases. My wife contact Freedom Ford to question this. She was told by Arlene and Rumeet in very clear terms, that if that is what the paperwork from Freedom Ford said, then that is what it should be.
Finally, 3 and a half weeks after arguing with Arlene, Rumeet and now the head of finance, Debra Rogers, over the GST that they paid for purchasing the car, Freedom Ford's Manager, "Ben Shek" called and apologized emphatically for this error, saying that he was sorry that he had not been brought in on it earlier and that we did not owe this money. He also informed me that Rumeet was no longer with the company, a fact that was later referred to as quitting.
At this point, we decided to let all of this go and simply get on with enjoying our new vehicle . . . but Freedom Ford was not done with us.
One month after our purchase, we were contacted by Kristen. She had tried me on my cel phone, which was not notifying me that I had messages, rather than calling my wife's number which was co read more
