BMW of Macon -Dealer switched the papers and forged signature

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Is it a clear forgery or did they do a good job? Just curious

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Clear!! You would not need a hand writing expert.

Did they sign your name or just sign a name?

My name- They tried to do it just like me but I have the worst handwriting in the world and not easy to match :grin:

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This is a very weird situation.

No doubt that if your story is true this is very bad for the dealership.

While it may not have been with bad intentions (ie to screw you over), itā€™s still forgery and fraud.

Personally, I would speak with the broker and dealership with two goals in mind.

  1. to understand what happened and why. (they tell me they screwed up and redid paperwork to get me my car and had no bad intentions and realized their serious mistake and poor judgement and apologized for it
  1. Obviously get the correct deal you had originally signed for. If I were the broker Iā€™d be on the phone with the dealership to get your deal corrected or money refunded. Perhaps I would cut ties with them.

Weā€™ve all made mistakes in our fields that our customers have given us a pass for after we expressed legitimate remorse. I personally wouldnā€™t want to ruin someoneā€™s livelihood because they were overzealous and were trying to do something to help you.

Going the legal route and lawyering up is certainly reasonable- but what do you get out of it besides the satisfaction of punishment for their wrongdoing?

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The thing is, this is different from our normal case of fraud. Forgery is felony in florida punishable by up to five years in jail. The OP doesnā€™t really want to lawyer up, rather you would want to go to the police/DA to report a crime.

This all just makes so little sense. So little money for such a serious crime. That said, my experience with Florida judiciary is that itā€™s a system with the corruption, lack of assets and competency of a Mississippi but operating in the third largest state in the nation. All of which means there is no where I would feel less likely to get prosecuted for a white collar crime.

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I am in FL but this dealer is not in FL.

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Yes a huge mistake and a serious crime to either make a few more bucks or rush a deal through

Still wouldnā€™t want some guy paying a huge fine or doing time for thisā€¦ unless I understand it to be malicious and not an isolated incidence.

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No idea if it was malicious but these types of things tend not to be isolated incidents. They usually reflect a lack of corporate control or poor culture. I would use the threat of criminal prosecution to get this resolved ASAP. Not actually seek said prosecution.

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Iā€™d still give broker first crack at this and I assume they will not be using this store anymore

It puts their entire business and reputation at risk

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What? No no

Youā€™re suggesting a broker knew about this and is OK with it to remain competitive. Iā€™m sorry but I completely disagree with the sentiment expressed here.

Brokers operating on LH are going to put their entire reputation and business on the line to conduct business in such a way? I donā€™t think so.

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This is devolving quicklyā€¦unless folks have new helpful suggestions please slow the roll until @rockymn and the broker have a chance to work it out with the dealer first.

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Careful with that suggestion. Most dealers will instruct employees to stop talking to a customer when the word lawyer is mentioned. If someone threatened me with a lawsuit or criminal prosecution, the conversation ends immediately and all further communications go through our lawyers. As @chrishs2000 said, let the broker work on getting this fixed before going down a path of no return.

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Update - The broker responded right away to my message promised to get it corrected next thing in the morning.
I received a call broker from broker this morning and he told me that the Dealership/GM is very concerned about the this and are trying to hunt the Finance guy who is on vacation.
The dealer agent texted me -
I got informed as you know early this morning about the contract discrepancies and issues related to it.
We are 100% caughte off guard as you were.
Iā€™m going to have the GSM contact you by phone as well.

  • we started the process of correcting the lease miles with Bmw, this will take a week or so to correct and will send you a revised contract eventually.
  • this is very serious for us and we will take corrective measures with our employee regarding this matter
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Ok, Iā€™m glad this seems to be on the right path without getting lawyers involved BUT if even GMs are expressing shockā€¦
I donā€™t get the point of this fraud. This isnā€™t life changing $ to whoever committed it.

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My bet is that the FI manager was trying to hit a backend gross bonus. Decrease the miles and keeping the payment the same increases profit. Probably not a life changing amount of money, but if it was a yearly or quarterly bonus, could be a large chunk of change.

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I absolutely agree let the broker deal with it. Thatā€™s one of the reasons you pay them and it involves no effort on your part. You always want to take the path of lease resistance to get a fair outcome. Also threatening criminal prosecution to effect a civil settlement is illegal. If I was engaging in this sort of negotiations my last pre-laywer step would be saying this ā€œwas just a misunderstanding, letā€™s work it out without needing to get lawyers involvedā€. Absolutely no threatening language involved.

As someone who in a past life worked for a year at a small law firm I could only dream that all our clients were as smart as you - although Iā€™d guess you also donā€™t put yourself in situations where calling legal is going to get you fired. Business folks never want to talk to legal about anything but especially when someone has F***** up and gotten caught. Sometimes they figure they are screwed if I report this up the chain, better off trying to resolve this myself since I got nothing to lose. Other times, they are just dumb and end up making the lawyers job 100* more difficult.

Edit - delayed post due to slow mode.

Iā€™d never but it happened to me when I leased my Alfa. There are a few stores in SoCal that are notorious for doing it.

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For the OP and for others wondering why the ā€œdealerā€ would do this, it is not the dealer. It is one guy - the finance guy. As others have stated. Doing this once results in very little money benefit to the F&I guy but if they do it a lot, it adds up. It can also increase the average gross and net them a bonus or allow them to hit a penetration bonus, either of which could be thousands. These guys would bump their own mother to hit a bonus. He just happened to get caught.

In any case, sounds like everything is going to get straightened out, which is what i would have expected. :+1:

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The old finance guy is on vacation routineā€¦
I guess he hit his bonus and hopped on spirit air for a nice Cancun romp.

To be fair many people do vacation in January, not sure about Floridians so much, and in the Covid era. But that sounds like BS so that you give them some time to remedy the situation.

Regardless theyā€™re caught so you deserve compensation for the inconvenience. That should come from both the broker and dealer. Sure itā€™s not the brokers fault 100% but ultimately he steered you to this unscrupulous dealership.

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