This thread is one wild ride.
28 Likes
So you donât think that the finance guy is intentionally committing fraud, yet he increased his gross substantially by
- Reducing the mileage (original contract had 12,000âŚhow did it get to the 10,000 that he crossed out and then changed?!)
- Inputting an incentive that OP didnât qualify for (again, wtf? Weâve all heard of dealers pushing through rebates to get deals done, but not after a contract has been signed)
- Increasing the selling price (as you mentioned, to make the payment match - but that resulted in a higher gross)
1/3, of theseâŚhuman error, no big deal. But 3/3? Thatâs really sketchy IMO.
12 Likes
About as Clutch as Carmelo Anthony in the first round of the playoffs, amirite?
13 Likes
We connected this deal. The OP reached out to us at 1:30am EST on 1/18 - yesterday
We are sorry and feel terrible about it. We are the OPâs advocate and will strive relentlessly to be. The deal is un-winded and will be fixed with an additional $25/month lower than original deal before meeting with GM tomorrow am.
This could have happened to anyone with any relationship, but what matters is how you respond to it. We have taken several actions to address the situation summarized below:
Containment:
- We have verified this is an isolated incident and reviewed our previous deals
Corrective actions:
- Refunded broker fee
- Modify our process effective immediately to ensure such incidents do not occur going forward with any of our dealers in our network
- We will no longer use this particular dealer as part of our network
We want to give a big thank you to the community for all the input and suggestions provided and listed above. This is something that caught us by surprise just as much as OP. Its easy to forget that were a community built on trust and ultimately we are all working towards the same goal as a team. This is what LH was built for.
68 Likes
Thank you for working with the OP. I didnât 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). Iâm 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 donât 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.
UPDATE FROM @Clutch
to address your point this is what we did:
By verifying it was isolated we checked original deal vs funded deal and the terms and payment matched.
Excellent Broker response. Well played and quickly.
Iâll be calling you if you deal with RR in NY over this corrective action.
8 Likes
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.
10 Likes
Why are we not leaving 100s of 1 star review on their page ?
Doxxing engaged. The best way to hit a con artist is in the review section. I support this since we now have all the facts.
@rockymn - I know more than what I should? LOL, seriously? Iâm sorry my response was too informative for you. My sincere apologies. Dude, Iâm trying to help you out here by explaining that the same thing happened to me with this dealer (yes, itâs the same dealer) and that maybe you should reconsider this wasnât 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? Theyâve 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 doesnât 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 donât work for this dealership and Iâm 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 âforged initialsâ situation you just went through with both of my deals a few months ago, except the mileage allowance wasnât changed for me (a difference that has since been corrected for you, in your favor). Iâm not biased and I donât think what the finance guy did was okay at all (I think Iâve made that pretty clear - please check my first response again if youâre not sure). But Iâm 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 didnât do anything to make up for forging my initials, so I have even more reason than you to be pissed. But Iâm 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 âright wayâ and your deal fell apart because of it, youâd be 10x more upset and would still be on here complaining like a 5-year-old.
And now youâve decided to blast the broker (shame on you for that, seriously), so we know that youâre the problem, not the broker. I worked with @Clutch recently on my M550i deal, and if anyone can handle this situation with grace, itâs them. Theyâve now gone through this entire ordeal and donât 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 Iâm assuming you greedily accepted). Iâm not sure what more you want out of this whole thing or from the broker, but if youâre not happy with the deal, Iâm 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. Youâve made your point. Now learn when to stop and move on. Good luck.
8 Likes
What did the dealer say when you brought this to their attention?
What Iâm hearing from you is that this dealer has been repeatedly commiting felonies after having it brought to their attention. They havenât remedied anything, theyâve been complicit in this occuring over and over.
Frankly, correcting the deal isnât enough.
We have three separate deals here where theyâve pulled this crap on LH alone. How many other people do you think theyâve 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.
8 Likes
@ZZAutoDeals Youâre 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 Iâm 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. 
11 Likes
He didnât lease his 2 cars from Clutch, so how would they know?
11 Likes
That is an accurate statement.
@ZZAutoDeals acquired his vehicles independently with no broker involved.
5 Likes
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.
7 Likes
Are you bonded? Do you operate thru an LLC or LLP? Are you licensed in any states? Is you âliaison feeâ 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 youâre not yes, yes, yes and no, you should reconsider.
From reading through this thread, I think itâs 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 dealerâs state Office of the Attorney General 2) The stateâs 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 Iâm sure I would be super pissed after having a contract fraudulently altered on me. Please keep us updated.
2 Likes
19 Likes
1 Like