I have a unique situation that I was hoping to get some input on from the community.
On June 13th I pulled the trigger on leasing the new Jeep Grand Cherokee. I reached out to a couple of dealers and after some back and forth came to terms with a dealership not too far from me. In order to get the new car I decided to trade in my leased Mercedes as the dealer offered to match my Carvana offer on the car, knowing that Carvana could not buy the car off of me due to MBFS not letting them. Long story short, we reached a deal and I drove away in my new car.
The issue is that come June 30th (my payment date for the MBFS lease) Mercedes charged me for my lease payment. Naturally, since I did not own the car anymore I reached out to MBFS explaining my situation. They informed me that they did not receive any payoff funds from the dealership which is why I was charged and I should call up the dealership to see what is going on.
Next thing I did was call the salesman that I worked with and turns out he has since been terminated. Next I called up the Finance manager who put the deal together and so far after multiple VMs left I have not heard back (I am hoping this is due to him being out of office for the holiday but I doubt it). Finally I was able to get ahold of a different Finance manager who informed me that she could see my deal in the system and is not sure why the trade-in was not paid off. She copied me on an email to the Accounting department to inquire what happened. This was earlier today however I have not heard back yet.
I am starting to get a little frustrated about this whole situation obviously because of the fact that I am currently on the hook for two payments even though one of the cars is not in my possession as well as due to how slow the dealership is moving to get me an answer.
Before I move any further or contact an attorney I wanted to see if anyone else had a similar situation they encountered before or if anyone who has worked for or with a dealership can give me some insight.
If it helps, I am in Texas. I know state laws differ when it comes to this kind of stuff. Any help will be appreciated.
You did the right thing. Give it another day and if you don’t hear back, call and speak with a Sales Manager. If it’s not sorted by Monday call the GM. Give them a few more days to sort it out before you involve an Attorney.
Thanks for the input. I figured all I could do for now is wait but wanted to use the time to get as some information as I can.
The weird thing is that I did reach out to a Sales manger when I heard my salesman had been terminated but reached the VM there too. So far I have only been able to make contact with the single employee while reaching the voicemails of three others.
Pay MBFS asap for the June 30th payment. You’ll get it back via check after the vehicle is paid off. It’s still your debt until a payoff is received.
Since you mention they are nearby, would perhaps a stop by the dealership be in the cards?
It may be more fruitful then getting bounced around on vm’s for an issue that certainly doesn’t get better w/ time and that no one may be too eager to resolve.
This is all completely normal. These things take time. And, to be brutally honest, if one overlapping car payment is causing financial difficulties, you are in over your head and should have gotten something far less expensive.
I suppose they were going to give you the check after MBFS released the title? Payoffs with dealers can be notoriously slow. Just gotta push them to get the paper moving. They need to sell that car too, so they have an incentive to pay this off & get the title.
It’s barely been three weeks and there were a couple of holidays in there. I wouldn’t hit the panic button yet.
Does the paperwork on your new vehicle show the correct payoff amount for the old one?
If yes, because you’ve made an additional payment, when the payoff arrives and posts to your MB account you’ll have a credit balance. After MB closes out your file they’ll refund any overage.
Often even when this goes more quickly you’ll end up with a small credit balance that you get back later, as interest accrues daily and your payoff statement by necessity assumes a payoff date that isn’t precisely known at the time the document is generated.
So if your payoff statement is as of July 22, for example, and your payoff posts on July 18, you’ll get back four days worth of interest.
IFS took 4 months to close my account out after Vroom sent the payoff and was still trying to charge me. They still owe me 2 credit payments to this day after 2 years. Will never do business personally with Nissan again.
This happens. Just stay on top of it and it will resolve. it could take a few months to get the money back from MB but you’ll get it back. I’d be more concerned that this would cause a cash flow issue if not resolved over a few of months given the types of cars you’re leasing.
Yeah….I even had my local Infiniti dealership try to step in to help me get back my payments and they got the run around. After the first 2 payments I stopped paying on a good faith gesture and they dinged my credit in which I had experian step in to help me correct that situation. It was a complete shit show. Granted Vroom sent the payoff check to one of Infiniti’s addresses not the main payoff but they still cashed it 5 days later posted it to my account but wouldn’t close it……like others said OP stay on top of it. I wouldn’t get any attorney’s involved at this time. GL.
