So I have had experience in this but wanted to ask if anyone else had. And it is not necessarily the first day of the month, it is basically backdating over the incentives change date.
Say I agree a deal on the 31st of the month, get all the paperwork in place and dated but don’t sign until the next day when the deals change. If the deals get worse I can use the documents dated the day before. However if the deals get better I can discard the documents and get new ones drawn up.
I was able to do this with one of my leases, although the deal did not get better I still had the option should it have.
I wondered if anyone else had any experience in this?
When i got my Grand Cherokee i signed that i accepted the offer and left a small deposit on 31st, but did not sign full contract till a couple of days later. Salesman said till i signed i could overturn the deal if i wanted but would probably be higher price as they would not so same dealer discount.
This is back dating. Seems you are backtracking. [quote=“Ed_Churchward, post:4, topic:16180, full:true”]
Its not fraud if I sign the deal at 10pm on the last day and they can’t file it with the finance company until the next morning right?
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postdate means you sign on the 31st but they treat it as a next month deal (in practice this might entail either some loss for the dealership or them backing out of the deal if it goes against them, which the forms you sign say they have a right to do), backdate means (at best) you signed on the 31st, but they don’t send it to the finance company till the 1st, as I understand Benedetto that wouldn’t work, tough luck if they forgot to send it in on time, you can’t get those deals anymore.
I’m not back tracking at all. That quote does not have me change any of the dates, the paperwork is just submitted the following morning when finance is open, and it is phrased as a question.
I used to sell cars and we would often do late finance deals when the finance division was closed and we would process them the next morning. Technically the deal had not been done until approved by the finance division. Just look at all the Hellcat deals that kept on getting rejected where we all had the right to hand the car back.
I am not condoning fraud in any way btw. Just did not realise it was fraud, thought it was just being smart.
Backdate means changing the date to a former date. It does not mean submitting the signed paperwork at a later date. They are two very different things.
E.g. Not signing anything until the 1st but they write the 31st on all the paperwork. That is backdating and I totally get how that is illegal and fraudulent.
I dont get it. Salesman simply said until i sign the long lease contract and final paperwork it was never final and i could always back out. Not sure how that is fraud.
I guess in order to benefit from the prior months deals you need to have signed the documents on the 31st. What @conanohasselhof is saying is that if they don’t submit the paperwork and then the next day rip it up because you can now get a better deal, they provide you with new paperwork to sign, that is apparently fraud. I am no lawyer so can’t comment on the reality of this.
A lot of these people don’t get the real world. To make deals you have to do cost benefit analysis. There’s a chance your lease application might get rejected, but if corporate is willing to turn a blind eye and the captive financing company is willing to turn a blind eye to an arbitrary coupon expiration date…then it’s fine.
You’re not defrauding anyone as in a 3rd party. If it’s an actual 3rd party bank (US Bank or bank of america) then there’s an issue. But it’s all in-house. You’re improving sales numbers on a car that’s marked up 50% anyways.
I dont agree that it is fraud. Who loses really? Car gets sold no matter what. I mean it would be fraud if dealer is having fake people sign and then they dont pick up the cars or sign final paperwork just to get the bonus.
“fraud is deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain”
You are deliberately deceiving the manufacturer or finance company to get a better deal. You are picking the better of the two deals when you should not be able to. There is a reason the program for that month is a secret until it goes live.
I’m sure we could start an entire thread with tales of “the dealership told me” lead ins… but for what it’s worth one of the dealerships I worked with in the past had told me signing late on the 31st and waiting to submit till the finance office opened up on the first was relatively commonplace in the past. He stated that GM had gotten wise to that and now the dealerships need to submit paperwork prior to midnight on the 31st to be eligible for manufacturer’s rebates.
Thanks for your Wikipedia there on what fraud is. If i have not signed the full contract and i am clearly told i can back out any time before signing final lease application and such, i guess i can do that. Maybe it is ny state law or it is how dealer operates? Again, it was not deceiving if all of a sudden there is a significant rebate released by manufacturer, i look at it as price adjustment to keep a customer happy. Just as if i bought a $5000 TV and next day price drops, Best Buy would adjust the price for me. Same with the dealer, if he has to make a sale and if that means ripping up the old contract and issuing a new one they would do it. In the end i guarantee you the people that track rebates and such are few and the probability of this actually occuring is minimal. Plus in the all the stories of dealers ripping customers off, this seems like the smallest trick in the book in my opinion. Again, i do not know all operational aspects of a dealer and such so this is only an opinion. It might be wrong but that is how i rationalize it.
