Very unpleasant experience. A salesman greeted us and we told him who we came to see. My family and I were left to stand in the cold by this fellow, and were told our salesman "would be right there." Several minutes long minutes went by-Turns out that fellow was busy so we ended up with the first salesman. We were again left to stand in the cold while we waited for the keys. At this point the salesman had yet to address me-only my male spouse, and completely ignored my eight-year-old son. Salesman finally returned with the keys-had me give him my license and left us outside to wait again. At least this time we were in the truck, but the salesman had taken the keys so we felt odd shutting the doors because of the alarm. Besides, the abrupt attitude of the salesman and total lack of customer service already had us feeling like we were burdening this gentleman. We had driven to Shelton from Kent to purchase this truck, and while we had other options in mind, this was the one we wanted to drive home with.
The salesman returned with the paperwork and I signed everything. He then walked away. WITH THE KEYS STILL IN HIS HAND. I hollered "hey, you forgot to give me the keys" and he kept walking. My husband had to get out of the car and run to catch up to grab the keys from him.
Test drive went well-we liked the truck and were ready to go despite the poor service. We were realistic with what we had with our older Chevrolet Silverado and were pre-approved through a credit union we were long established with so it should have been a quicker experience; I also work for a CU and am familiar with how all these things work with dealers. Keep this in mind for later.
We entered into the parking lot and stood again-then decided to walk inside. He met us partway and I told him I was interested-because this truck is for ME and not my spouse- and wanted to chat. At this point, no numbers, financing, what we had for trade in, nothing had been discussed.
We sat down and the salesman immediately began talking about financing. We were preapproved through our CU-and while we did seem to be missing the used car interest rate on the forms, we had dealt with this CU for every vehicle purchase that we have made in the past eight years and am not only confident in them, but in the rates they offer and we KNOW how they operate. And I digress-I work at a CU and also because of that am familiar with how these things work. Simple phone call-problem solved.
The salesman told us we didn't come in with a check, or a letter, and were only saying we were approved. Began to talk to us about how he could get us a better rate at Our Credit Union (reviews here, which I found, while he was trying to talk me into financing through them https://www.depositaccounts.com/banks/our-community-cu.html https://www.yelp.com/biz/our-community-credit-union-shelton) which I declined. I told him we had a preapproval in an email-my husband did too. He continued talking. This whole time he is addressing my husband. For personal reasons, we were opting to get the vehicle financed in my spouse's name only, but I would be driving the vehicle and driving the negotiations or so I had hoped. The salesman then proceeded to talk over me every time I disagreed with him. In front of my child-which was mortifying-salesman even raised his voice when I wouldn't stop talking. He then would turn after talking over me, to my husband and try and talk to him. The difference? My husband was allowed to finish speaking. This whole-time salesman has STILL not even acknowledged that we had a child with us-totally ignoring him.
He then began talking about how we needed a backup contract because we didn't have proof that we were approved. My husband stated again we had an email-then he gave us his email address finally and email was forwarded. He then continues to talk to us about financing-at this point we have no idea if they will come down off the sticker price or what they would give us for the truck. I said let's chat-he wanted to sell a loan.
I then asked for a back up contract from BECU and he didn't seem keen on this and continued to promote Our Community Credit Union. I also misheard him when he said the name and had to ask him twice-he was very rude about answering and was not on board with me asking on BECU. I work at BECU. I trust them. I am also a First Tech and BECU member. I know they will have my back and am not interested in spreading my business to a new CU, particularly one in bed with such shady back up contract practices.
But wait, it gets better.
Next he prints it out, begins arguing about interest rates, and at this point my spouse and I are planning a strategic escape. This is weird-we have financing, we said multiple times we didn't want to use their preferred CU (give good kickbacks, do they?). First Tech left out the portion about used car loan rates for our loan-we did this quickly and these things happen. We could also have read it more read more