PR & News Is this the new norm?

[Richie K]

This bit of news just came across my feed. Here is a link from Road & Track talking about a woman who is in a legal battle with a dealership over their name:
https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a...sess-customers-car-she-takes-dealership-name/

In case the link doesn't work, I will briefly summarize: She bought a car and took it home. Financing fell through, as it sometimes does, and the dealership repossessed the car. She took the rights to a name the dealership was doing business under and sent them a cease & desist. Now they are in a legal battle over the name.

My thoughts:
Sometimes lenders approve deals, then the deal gets held up, or denied in funding and the deal is no good. We send people home in their new car and hope this doesn't happen.
Oftentimes it's as simple as the lender needing more information from the buyer, but other times the worse case scenario happens. I would say this is rare, but I can't speak for other dealerships.
I say that this is not necessarily the dealer's fault, as we are just the middleman between the buyer and lender. Buyers don't know this, and since it's the dealer that repossesses the car, it's the dealer who gets the blame.

The only fix is not to send the customer home until the deal gets funded. Who the heck is going to do that?!

Will we see more of this?

 

[Zack_AF]

Wild story for sure.
I might need to wake up more as I initially thought you were asking if this kind of retaliatory response was going to be the new norm.

 

[Richie K]

Wild story for sure.
I might need to wake up more as I initially thought you were asking if this kind of retaliatory response was going to be the new norm.

That's what I'm asking. If she wins, this could set a new precedence. What irks me is the fact that she appears to be blaming the dealership solely and not even mad at the lender, who made the decision on the funding.

 

[Zack_AF]

That's what I'm asking. If she wins, this could set a new precedence. What irks me is the fact that she appears to be blaming the dealership solely and not even mad at the lender, who made the decision on the funding.

I thought you meant issues with deals falling through after a car has been delivered becoming a norm.

I think this is likely a one-off type of deal. Most people wouldn't even have the knowledge to think like this. Perhaps if it get's enough attention, some bad actors could start going through thousands of dealer's records on the off chance someone didn't renew something to try to target without being a disgruntled customer but that seems like a lot of work for an off chance.

I'd wager people would more likely emulate the guy that ran his car into that Mazda dealership in Utah a few months back.