Thank you for working with the OP. I didn’t think the Broker was at all involved with this.
Coming back to this:
As @ZZAutoDeals commented, this happened twice on his own lease in the past (assuming that this is the same dealer). I’m glad it is an isolated incident for you, but it looks like the dealership has been doing this quite often.
@ZZAutoDeals
While I do not agree with what you have said, I think we all can appreciate the insight and clarification on some parts of it. It might have been only the finance guy that messed this all up, but the dealership is at fault as they employ him. They owed him a duty to report what was going on, how they would fix it, and what they needed to do. They could have even asked if it was okay to sign his initials. I don’t think OP would have minded if their intention was transparent and they were truly trying to fix a mistake. There are too many other variables at play here that leads to it being a common doing at this dealership to make a extra buck.
Glad to see that the broker is and continues to be clients advocate and provides transparency.
Dealer meanwhile not so much. Good to see broker is severing ties with an unscrupulous dealer and is reviewing internal processes for any required corrective action going forth.
@rockymn sorry you had to endure such an experience. I think you are in good hands and I am certain @Clutch can advocate a solution for you.
@rockymn - I know more than what I should? LOL, seriously? I’m sorry my response was too informative for you. My sincere apologies. Dude, I’m trying to help you out here by explaining that the same thing happened to me with this dealer (yes, it’s the same dealer) and that maybe you should reconsider this wasn’t intentional fraud. What kind of idiot would change the mileage from 12k to 10k on purpose, knowing full well the customer will eventually catch this and ask to fix it? How would that help the dealer or the finance guy personally in any way? They’ve now probably spent more time and money trying to fix this for you than the 1% residual they would have potentially gained towards the overall deal (my guess is, that doesn’t equate to much on an X3). Think about that for a second. Look at the whole picture and stop trying to make it sound bigger than what it is. No one is out to get you. I don’t work for this dealership and I’m not friends with anyone there. I live in CA and they are on the East Coast. Both of the deals I mentioned above in my response to you are documented here on LH well before your thread even existed. As you can see by reading my first Share a Deal post below, I found this dealer through chance at random by emailing dozens of different dealers and eventually finding these guys to land my two 740i deals from them:
I went through the same “forged initials” situation you just went through with both of my deals a few months ago, except the mileage allowance wasn’t changed for me (a difference that has since been corrected for you, in your favor). I’m not biased and I don’t think what the finance guy did was okay at all (I think I’ve made that pretty clear - please check my first response again if you’re not sure). But I’m also not going to crucify the sales guy or the broker that CLEARLY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT HAPPENED and have tried to make it right for you ever since. In my case, the dealer didn’t do anything to make up for forging my initials, so I have even more reason than you to be pissed. But I’m not because these things happen and there is absolutely no harm to you here. I guarantee you if they had insisted instead that you have to re-sign the papers to do it the “right way” and your deal fell apart because of it, you’d be 10x more upset and would still be on here complaining like a 5-year-old.
And now you’ve decided to blast the broker (shame on you for that, seriously), so we know that you’re the problem, not the broker. I worked with @Clutch recently on my M550i deal, and if anyone can handle this situation with grace, it’s them. They’ve now gone through this entire ordeal and don’t have anything to show for it. Meanwhile you have a car (with better terms than you initially signed up for), but they have nothing because they refunded you their broker fee (which I’m assuming you greedily accepted). I’m not sure what more you want out of this whole thing or from the broker, but if you’re not happy with the deal, I’m pretty sure they can look into unwinding this whole thing for you. I know I would if I had a headache customer like you to deal with. Mistakes happen. You’ve made your point. Now learn when to stop and move on. Good luck.
What did the dealer say when you brought this to their attention?
What I’m hearing from you is that this dealer has been repeatedly commiting felonies after having it brought to their attention. They haven’t remedied anything, they’ve been complicit in this occuring over and over.
Frankly, correcting the deal isn’t enough.
We have three separate deals here where they’ve pulled this crap on LH alone. How many other people do you think they’ve done this with? There is nothing going on here that is excusable.
Edit: to be fair, I misread the earlier post. It was stated that he pointed out the error that was corrected, not that he pointed out the forgeries. Its still evidence of them repeating the same crime over and over, but not immediately after being called out for it.
@ZZAutoDeals You’re part of the reason why dealerships get away with fraud like this constantly because people are willing to look the other way for a good deal. I get it as I’m also part of the problem.
Also, you outed @Clutch by revealing two other instances of faking signatures when they mentioned this was the first time it happened.
We reviewed every deal we conducted with the dealership. Comparing the original agreed upon deal to what was the final funded deal. This was the only one where the terms changed, therefore it was isolated.
Are you bonded? Do you operate thru an LLC or LLP? Are you licensed in any states? Is you “liaison fee” Venmo tied to a personal bank account?
I know these questions might seem hostile, but I am genuinely curious if you understand the risks of your venture. If you’re not yes, yes, yes and no, you should reconsider.
From reading through this thread, I think it’s pretty conclusive the finance guy committed fraud to the OP. If this was me, I would probably do the following:
Get broker fee back (which broker was honest enough to do)
If I wanted to keep the car, get the contract fixed to how it was originally (which it seems like it might be slightly better than original terms now).
Then I would just take a deep breath, and spend hour or two clearly documenting in a letter what happened and send those letters to 1) The dealer’s state Office of the Attorney General 2) The state’s Department of Consumer Affairs 3) BMW Financial Services 4)BMW North America.
Then I would post a few reviews on typical websites (Yelp, dealerreview, etc).
At the end of the day, in my opinion at least, the only people that can really do something about this are the state regulatory agencies or BMW Corporate. Go straight to the top and then I guess move on. Easier said than done though, because I’m sure I would be super pissed after having a contract fraudulently altered on me. Please keep us updated.
Next time I go to lease a car, I will happily have the dealer forge my signature on a contract only to catch it and fix it along with an $864 check in the mail.
things happen? why is this post getting these thumbs up? basic ethics seems to be optional if you get a good deal? just because a customer is a dbag doesn’t authorize someone to commit fraud (not necessarily referring to the OP) this is nuts to me, baffling that this is ok. my wife gets mad since i’m so cynical and this thread is the embodiment why i am.
There is absolutely nothing more to it! They didn’t have the color combo I wanted, so I put a deposit on the car and agreed to the terms. They ran my credit that day and again once more on the day of delivery when they explicitly agreed to ran the credit onky once!
