From my experience as an attorney who on a few occasions tried to get the police involved in cases where customers had ripped off businesses with false paperwork, the response was almost always that this was a civil, not criminal matter, and they refused to take any action.
I believe the fake signatures would be enough to move it to a criminal matter, no?
Like Jim said, lot of white collar crime goes unpunished. So Iâm not surprised if law refuses to get involved and pushes it to a civil matter and then it just goes away cuz most people donât have the time or money to fight these things.
The more I read about this the more I am convinced this is normal business practice for this dealer and the promises provided by the GM and GSM is just part of their game to make the customer feel like they are taking action.
Iâd like to know the dealer so I can steer clear
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In the end the dealer made it right. OP has to decide how much time and effort going further in this endeavor is worth. What else can OP expect to gain by investing a lot more time and energy into this?
Would also love to hear from OP about this.
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They might have been looking for specific features, colors, etc. Regardless, they used a broker to get the deal and thought it was the best to go with that. I donât think it matters why they chose this car.
From what it looks like, itâs just their word on making it right. It hasnât been corrected yet and the GM was just made aware of it this morning.
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Just tell us the broker/dealer already so we can put this thread to rest
Hope youâre enjoying your new X3 
Do you have a service like Legalshield? They will help you without spending thousands on attorney fees
As usual, this thread has devolved into people who have staked Position A disagreeing with (talking over) people who have staked Position B, and vice versa.
IDK when the last time an original comment was last posted in this thread. The thread needs to be slowed down to slow down the repeating of the same points over and over
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Just walk away. This situation continually gets worse and I donât see this dealer stepping up. Have the dealer pay for shipping back and move on. Losing your time sucks, but this dealer will waste more of it.
To prevent fraud. Plain and simple. I have had multiple people come into the dealer to commit identity theft. They know every detail about their victim and have fake IDs/paperwork too. Now imagine how much easier and more frequent this would be if someone overseas can just sit on their couch and steal identities and cars all day. It also prevents individuals from forging their family members or friends signatures on paperwork. It is a lot easier to get grandma to cosign if she does not know.
It also does nothing to help âhooptie yokelâ dealers. Dealers that whore out cars can Fedex the paperwork and have it signed with a notary for a fee. This is common practice for any out of state deal for every deal I have worked at and across the industry.
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This thread is quite interesting and to me it feels fraud happens more often than you think at dealerships, maybe not as devious as this one but I would say most would not catch it.
I had an experience at a dealership where I asked for buy rate and the sales person said the finance guy quoted at buy rate so I agreed to the numbers given. I went into the finance room and the finance guy would not show me any of the numbers but kept insisting everything was as agreed upon. As he was clicking through the sheet I noticed the MF rate was higher than the buy rate and I called him out. He then went out of his way to go out of the office and print out a piece of paper with my deal with the buy rate on it to prove that it was indeed the buy rate. However⌠when I received all the documents it was not the buy rate when I did the back-end calculations. I eventually brought this up to the sales manager and he corrected it after a few back and forth comments of âYou agreed to this price etcâŚâ
So as crazy as this fraud from OP is, I think it probably happens more often than not and the end-consumer as long as payment doesnât change, never really notices it.
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As @mllcb42 would sayâŚ
This is why you need to calculate the deal on your own and ask for the output.
You shouldnt have to ask for buy rate in that situation.
You should calculate the deal the way you want and then have a dealer agree and honor those numbers.
Once agreed to, they can change the recipe for how they got there (higher MF and lower sale price or vise versa) if they want.
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Exact same thing happened 5o me dec 2019 on New 2020 Lexus. I hated to walk away, after they ran my credit twiceâŚbut I walked away because it was plain deception in open! I did what I felt was correct and I looked backâŚweek later went to NC and got the exact same SUV for $70 /month less. Very pleased with the decision of walking awayâŚ
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Iâm sure there is more to the story, but a second pull is common, and doesnât negatively impact your credit (see the credit thread where itâs discussed in detail).
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The dealership can shotgun credit to secure the financing. For leasing they can shotgun up to 3
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Iâve read the original post and all the comments in between. I think I figured out exactly what happened here and itâs not anyoneâs fault but the finance guyâs. The reason I know this is because I recognize the finance guyâs initials on the paperwork OP posted. He did the same thing on two of my recent deals with the same dealership, and I have my contracts to prove it. The problem is, the system at this dealership that generates lease agreements, for whatever reason, inputs the YEARLY mileage allowance in the field that is supposed to contain the TOTAL mileage allowance throughout the lease term. I caught this mistake when I was signing both of my lease papers in September and October last year. When I pointed it out to the finance guy, he said to just cross out the number and put in the correct number, and initial it. This is what I did. But when I got back a copy of my lease agreement, I noticed the first page of the lease agreement had been re-printed and the finance guy had initialed it and âforgedâ my initials next to it. My guess is, the reason he did this is to avoid BMW FS from bouncing it back. There is probably a proper way to cross off errors and initial it on their paperwork, I probably did it the âwrongâ way, and this finance guy is likely familiar with the correct protocol and tried to follow it. I had no issues with this. But, I think I may have been the first one to catch this mistake because he seemed surprised by it when I told him about it. Obviously, heâs been lazy and hasnât looked into fixing this issue internally ever since. So, my guess is, heâs been âforgingâ initials on lease agreements printed this way ever since to correct the total mileage allowance to the right number. In OPâs case, things went south because when he did this, he probably didnât realize the mileage allowance was raised from 10k to 12k, so he defaulted to 10k and put down 30k by hand, initialed it, and put in OPâs initials next to it too. Ultimately I donât think heâs trying to commit fraud or do anything devious. Heâs probably just trying to prevent the deal from falling apart and not getting funded by BMW FS (especially if this was all done on Jan. 4th, the last day of the December program - if they tried to get the papers re-signed, the deal would have fallen apart because it wouldnât be done by the 4th). Seems like OPâs deal did get funded though, even in light of all this, so the financeâs guyâs good intentions (albeit horribly executed) were actually not entirely in vain.
The rest of OPâs complaints are just colorable facts that make this entire situation sound way worse than what it is. While the car OP was working on was âswitched,â it seems like OP ultimately agreed to the car he was signing for and got upgraded wheels to go with it. As for the gas, I also had both of my cars shipped (to CA) from this dealer and they both had empty tanks of gas. This is very common and I donât think they were trying to be cheap about it. Itâs a legitimate safety concern and donât think itâs a big deal. As for the paperwork, I also had to follow up multiple times with the dealer to ask for copies of my paperwork, etc. Also not a big deal in my view because they ultimately sent it to me promptly when I asked for it.
There is also a simple explanation for the rest of the numbers being off on the final lease agreement. Obviously the RV was different because the mileage allowance was bumped down to 10k, but what the computer does is it works backwards from the payment and cash due from the customer to try to make the numbers align. In this case, they honored DOWN TO THE PENNY the monthly payment and the DAS OP agreed to. But because the RV changed when the mileage allowance changed, this threw the rest of the numbers off. Again, my guess is the finance guy tried to fix this by moving numbers around and adding misc. rebates the dealer has to make the numbers align and work. OP ended up paying exactly what he agreed to and the payment is exactly what he was told. The recipe to get there was just manipulated, which again is very common.
Is the dealer as a whole in the wrong here? No. Is the sales guy in the wrong here? No. Is the broker in the wrong here? Absolutely not. Is the finance guy in the wrong here? Yes, because the paperwork ultimately is his responsibility and he dropped the ball on it. Multiple times. I know who this finance guy is and I will personally follow up with the dealer to confirm if heâs really being let go or not. Knowing this dealership and its management, Iâd say that if they told OP he is going to be disciplined or let go, then he probably will be. But at the end of the day, I think OP has been more than made whole for his inconveniences. Iâm pretty sure the broker and the dealer management have gotten the worst of it and it seems like they have tried to make things right for OP. Not sure what more can be done here. Mistakes happen, but whatâs important is how itâs dealt with. So far, I think itâs been handled properly and the core mistake in this whole situation (i.e., the finance guy) will hopefully be dealt with accordingly.
Enjoy the car OP and try to chalk this up into an experience you can learn from. Stay positive and please reconsider blasting the dealer or the broker as I donât think they meant to do anything wrong here. I donât think this one deal should justify tarnishing their good names on this forum.
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Something I havenât seen mentioned in this thread. If the dealer isnât handling this in an appropriate manner and giving it the serious attention it demands I suggest reaching out directly to BMW. I believe this kind of thing will not sit pretty with them, send an email straight to the CEO if you need: Bernhard.Kuhnt@bmwna.com
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Corporate seldom cares what their dealers are doing. The franchise agreements afford dealers a lot of latitude.
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@ZZAutoDeals
You clearly work for or are friends with someone at the dealership. You are so biased here and seems to know more then what you should. You are trying to prove somehow that I am in the wrong here by bringing up the gas piece again. BIASED.
- They forged my signature. NO FUCKING EXCUSE. Not just the initials
- They lied to me that GM is informed. Coverup story to save their co-worker
- They tried their best for me to not get the actual paper that was submitted
- They claimed extra $750 rebate
- GM did not even know about my situation until I told him about it
The person who said the employee will be disciplined does not have any authority. He did not even send anything in writing on how he will solve the situation. He was covering up. I am guessing this person is your friend.
How the heck do you know that? I do not have anything in writing here.
@ZZAutoDeals - I will ignore all of your comments going further as you are associated with this dealership and would do or say anything to save their image.
@Clutch is my broker. He can shed light on things now.
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I think you are missing the crux of the argument here. Intentions do not matter, actions do. It doesnât matter if the finance guy was rushed at the end of the month, it is his duty to provide CORRECT paperwork to BMWFS. If it is not done in a legally correct way (i.e. signature forgery) regardless of his possible rationale or intentions, then there are consequences. Since he is acting on behalf of the dealership, the dealership is responsible for his actions and should also face consequences. If I were @rockymn, I would have the dealer refund all payments and have them come collect their vehicle at their own cost. Call the police and an attorney because this is cut and dry fraud, and let them deal with it. Itâs a base X3 that you could get from anywhere else in the country, so why deal with these clowns?
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