jerzeydevil

Well, while I am waiting to break my 8 in and give my impressions of it vs. my IS....just wanted to share my sales experience today....which didn't go too well.

I was all prepared with the PeopleFirst check I have been holding on too for a month and a half now. Initially walked into the dealer, set a price (MSRP)...and too my surprise he had a loan approved for me already? He had on his sheet that I was too put $5k down on the $500 I already put down and that the loan was for $26k @ 6.99% interest. After my puzzled look faded I asked why he took it upon himself to get me this loan approval....supposedly it was based on the 10 minute conversation I had with them back on Jan. 8th to place the order when I stated I planned on putting 5k down on the car (we all know how plans work out).

So anyway, we arranged to pay with the PeopleFirst check instead, but after he presented it to the Finance guy, all of a sudden they didn't accept these loans (which was @ 4.75%). Their reasoning was that they had bad experiences with these loans and it usually took them 2~3 weeks to get their money after jumping through many hoops. They then stated (this is the best part), that they would accept it on a car that was hard to offload, but not deal with the frustration on a car that was easy to sell....am I wrong for thinking that customer service is lacking here iin a serious way. Essentially it was a take it or leave it proposition....the attitude was that MY car that had MY $500 deposit for 7 months was easy to sell to someone else if I insisted on using the PeopleFirst loan check.....

Well, after some back and forth about how their customer service and sales strategy sucked....they negotiated a better deal through their lender...which was much closer to my PeopleFirst rate.

Now I am not sure who is at fault here, PeoplesFirst or my dealer...but after reading some of the more positive experiences some on this forum have had with PeoplesFirst, I would tend to believe it was the latter.

Just thought I'd vent....

8_wannabe

What a story. I just hope you weren't paying interest on the PeopleFirst loan until the check was cashed, else you paid 1.5 months of interest for nothing.

Your dealership clearly took you for a sucker and I'm glad you stood your ground. It's amazing how far down the list "customer service" is in these people's priorities. For the cost of carrying the car a couple weeks (the time it takes the PeopleFirst check to clear, which I doubt really takes that long) your dealer is willing to compromise their goodwill, alienate a customer, and get bad press by word of mouth. What kind of business strategy is that?

So many businesses in every industry act like they're doing you a favor (try airlines and phone companies, for instance) when they should be grateful you are bringing your business to them. They've got the whole "who's helping whom" equation backwards. It'd be nice to say you shoulda walked out, but of course you want your 8 and didn't have many alternatives. Sounds like you made the best of the situation. BTW, I just found out from my dealer I'm getting a $250 rebate cuz I financed through them. Totally outta the blue. I bought on July 17. So, wait a few weeks, see if you get a rebate, then take your PeopleFirst check and pay off the damn Mazda loan and give your business to someone who's glad to have you as a customer.

My particular rant... I can sympathize and have been having a rash of bad customer experiences lately. Sprint was the worst, but that's another story...

Wing

Here's the deal. You read about my troubles in the Canadian forum you'll see why he did this.

Basically the dealer makes a profit on the loans, so it is in HIS interest to give you a loan!

So here in Canada with the Bank of Montreal, on loans over $25k dealers have 4 rates to choose from.

7.65%
7.40%
7.05%
6.79%


Needless to say the dealer first offers 7.65%. I said, ok great, then found out later I could get the 6.79% from a friend.

Well I told them this and at first they said go for it, then they called back and agreed to match it.

So I said great and got ready to pick up my car.

2 hours before pickup they change their minds! They said 6.79% was impossible and was really a variable rate not a fixed.

When I arrived they wouldn't give me the car at 6.79%, I stood my ground and got them to write up my contract at the higher rate with a new clause stating they would lower the rate if such a rate was available.

The next day I PROVED to them they were LIEING to me and they lowered the rate and I resigned the contract. It turns out one of the finance guys was trying to stick me, even the manager was not too happy with this guy as he lied to everyone at the dealership and told them that the lower rate was impossible.

So here's the kicker, the dealer gets a kickback on the loans as follows.

7.65% - 2.7%
7.40% - 2%
7.05% - 1.7%
6.79% - 1%

Since my loan was like $43K the dealer was making approx $700 more dollars on the 7.65% loan than the 6.79% loan!

jerzeydevil

I frigin' hate dealerships......at least I have the car now....we'll see what the coming days bring....I have a feeling I'm not through with them yet.

eccles

This is not the first time we've heard that story here, nor does it surprise me. If PeopleFirst really does treat people first, then it's hardly surprising that they treat dealers with a somewhat lower priority.

I wonder how much interest they reap on all those loans between the time that they start charging you (the delivery date) and the time that they eventually pay up to the dealership some weeks later. I have no doubt that the delay is intentional and is factored into to their equations.

Zoom49

I used Peoples First an it went great. 4.64% rate and dealer said that they could not match it. Dealer policy is to allow draft from any bank 10 days to clear. Peoples First draft cleared in 6 days.
Peoples First is in San Diego with my dealer being in LA. Very happy with my experience, gives you added ammo when dealing with your dealers finance guy. Dont have to use check or incurr
any fees if your dealer can do better.

8_wannabe

I financed through Mazda, with the intent in a month or two I will refi elsewhere. I'll get a better rate elsewhere plus in the meantime I can pay down the balance a bit (I didn't have as much down payment last month as i would have liked.)

I keep getting mixed response from my dealer, but I think I am about to get a $250 "customer loyalty" rebate. I didn't know it when I financed, but you get this when you finance through Mazda. When you refi later, you will still get new car interest rates. On top of the $250 rebate I will also get the College Grad rebate, so I'll pay the $750 towards my loan balance plus whatever I can scrape together elsewhere.

OmegaBob

Jerzey: sorry to hear about the crap you had to go through...some dealers! geez!

btw - I visited my dealer today to order some port options and asked what the current rate from Mazda was. He said for people with excellent credit (like me), it would be under 4% - prob somewhere between 3.5 and 3.9%

Jerzey: was the percentage they quoted you from Mazda or another bank?

jerzeydevil

another bank.....my credit is great, but that is the problem, I have too much of it...so the 4.75% from PeopleFirst was a great thing...I wound up getting a point higher than that from this dealers lender.

the_doug

One site I found before going in to the dealer was http://www.carbuyingtips.com

On their "top 10 dealer scams" (or something like that) they describe something very similiar to your experience. Look at scam #9.

If the final APR you got isn't much different from the one you originally had online, it shouldn't mean too much of a difference, but it's very frustrating and shouldn't be part of the buying process, IMHO.

carnut

Got a PeopleFirst check at 3.99%, and told dealer I would prefer they get the loan commission if they could match the rate, which they did! I was pleased!

OmegaBob

Hey jerzey: I'm still wondering why your dealer wasn't able to go through Mazda for the financing instead of an outside lender?

Just when you think that car dealers are not as bad as you always thought (knew) they were, you hear a story like this.

jerzeydevil

dunno bout the Mazda financing...I did present the option initially (before the trouble began) about them matching my PeopleFirst rate so they could get the commission and interest, but that wound up being a fight as you can tell from the beginning of this thread.

All I can say is, I love my car and these people (Mazda, the dealership, and PeopleFirst) will all have some very serious feedback before this is all said and done.

I forgot the laugher at the end of my story....so when we first went in their we talked about my wife possibly trading her Montero in for a Protege 5 sometime in the near future.....after this all went down the dealer had the nerve to tell me to keep them in mind when I wanted to look at the Protege, and to make sure I filled out the survey when it arrived.....I will be doing at least on of these :D

8_wannabe

Yeah, they're funny that way. They have all kinds of bribes like free gas and oil if I fill out the survey, got a stern lecture several times that perfect 10's is the only "passing" score. You know what: I would forego the bribes and happily give them 10s on the survey if I could just get some quality freakin' service. Like if they say I'm getting a rebate, don't pull some monkey business to cheat me out of it. Or if they say they're gonna return a call, then return the call. That's how you get 10s on the customer survey; no great mystery.

jerzeydevil

Heard back from PeopleFirst...they are definately not to blame in all this....seems they called the dealer and spoke to said finance guy and he claimed he got E-Loan and PeopleFirst confused and never had an issue with PeopleFirst. OBTW, he stated specifically, several times, and I quote "we don't accept PeopleFirst, Capital One, or E-Loan" (I smell somethin' do you?).

Well, the way my story ends is, PeopleFirst will be RE-FINANCING my car at the original quoted rate (before I pay dime one to the other lender) and all that is left from this is a serious headache.

Thanks for all the support...after driving this car for a few days now it was all worth it.

OmegaBob

Well at least it over, right?


btw - I don't think I saw the name of the dealer . I think you should post it as a warning to folks in your area.

jerzeydevil

Good idea....let me discreet about it though....like the pic?

OmegaBob

Hee hee! G1!

TreknMazda

I had a slightly different experience. I had gone through my credit union two months before the car arrived to set up the loan. Got 4.5% with a credit line to $30K. The night I pick up the car the finance guy tries real hard to get me to switch to his deal which is 3.99%. It was through a bank the dealership works with. But I refused, preferring to support my credit union, even if I did pay a little more. I considered it more like doing business with family rather than strangers.

The next day I fax the purchase order to the credit union so they can cut the check (only used 29K of the credit line) to the dealer. On the coversheet I commented how the finance guy tried to get me to switch for a lower interest rate but I remained loyal to the credit union. They call me up and say, "If you get it in writing from the dealer, we will match 3.99%" WOW!

It took two days to drag a letter out of the dealership (finance guy was useless at this point) but the sales manger did it.
Now my deal with the credit union was for 72 months. The dealership was 60 months. (turns out 72 months was over 5%with the dealer's bank) Even though the letter stated 60 months, the credit union honored 3.99% for full 72 months.:D

jonalan

Does PeopleFirst charge a fee for re-financing?

pelucidor

I had excellent service from People's First - 3.64% over 60 months for the full value of the car less my $1k deposit (about $35k financed, payment of $650 per month). My dealership had absolutely no issues with the People's First check and tried to beat their interest rates but couldn't.

One extra benefit of People's First vs Mazda Credit is that I will be putting down a hefty 'late deposit' in a few weeks - about $18k. With People's First they will reamortize the loan at no charge so that my payments are still over 60 months but at about half the monthly payment. But Mazda Credit cannot reamortize at all, so if I payoff $18k next month my 60 month loan becomes a 30 month loan with the same huge monthly payments. Even if Mazda had been a little cheaper than my 3.64% loan I would have gone with People's First just for this feature.

RX8 Seller

Just a note here, there is no loyalty rebate available on the RX8 only the mazda6, and that is even a little bit tricky the way that you have it here. The loyalty on the mazda 6 is $1,000 and $1,250 if you finance through M.A.C. (mazda american credit). As for the $500 college grad rebate, there is not one, it is only available on 2003 models at this time, I have double and triple checked this issue all the way up through our customer service rep. If someone is offering that to you, as I saw one person contracted getting it. I'm guessing that they will either recontract, ask the customer for the 500 or just give them a discount of that amount when they find out they don't get that money back. It's amazing how much some of the dealers out there don't know? It just baffles me, this is our profession we should know the answers for the most part. As for taking a peoples first check, bring em on, we take em here at Jeff Haas without question, and I'll take a hundred more, come buy your car from me :0)

Richard

8_wannabe

I got the $500 college rebate on the 8; the money is in the bank (which I'm using to pay back my Mazda loan which they, in turn, farm out to Chase Auto Finance.) Ain't no one getting it back; they signed a contract to honor the rebate; they honored the contract; and I'm the beneficiary. The dealer told both me and Mazda HQ I would get the $250 loyalty rebate then went back on that deal, but I'm not gonna push it. That was a surprise to me that came up after the purchase. Considering there are only like 3 or 4 current Mazda rebate plans, I agree with RX8 Seller how poorly informed the dealers are. It doesn't seem that hard to figure out if they apply minimal effort.

jerzeydevil

They charge a $45 fee for misc. BS costs.....but it was trivial.

Squidward

If you want a great experience, go with Santa Monica Mazda, ask for Daesuk Sohn..

He was really cool, and the finance manager was very easy to work with.. He found several ways to save me money (he is an old timer). When haggled to death, he'll yield just to get you out of his office

He said I had excellent credit and that he would be able to beat my shopped rate of 4.2% (at Etrade Bank) through Mazda Credit at 3.89%, which was funded through Chase Manhatten (a bank I'm already with who originally gave me 5.44% haha).

Anyway I got a good deal, a great car, and boy it was the easiest car purchase I EVER had.. My car arrived two days after my testdrive. I came in on a Saturday afternoon (around 4:30) and inspected the car and went to do the paper work. I drove the car off the lot at 6pm.... 1.5 Hours total.. Simply incredible!

I got it for $32950 ($150 below MSRP) and a 7yr/100k Ext. StatedCare Warranty for 200 below cost ($2229--was originally quoted 3K!! yikes). Total driveoff was around 38K for a fully loaded MT model (grand touring+ NAV+ 7.75%tax+ lic.fees+ dest.fee)