Tips on Buying Cars: cancellation of car contract/letter of offer, new car purchase, careful deliberations

Question
Hi Jeremy,
I stay in Edmonton (Canada)and have recently burnt my fingers dealing with a car dealer. I asked them to quote me a new car and they gave me an offer on a form that looked very much like a contract (the back of which says "CONDITIONS OF SALE", so I do not know what is the name of this document). I considered this letter to be an "offer to sale". The first thing they asked me to sign this document and to put a 500 dollar deposit (that I put on my credit card and confirmed with them that this is refundable in case I decided to cancel this offer for any reason. Later on found a quote in fine print saying that " dealer deposits, partial payments and down-payments are non-refundable"). ANyways, I had put a condition on this letter saying that the offer is "subject to final approval of my wife". I got my wife to the dealership, she liked the car and we went back home to make the final decision. On careful deliberations (which took us a couple of days), we decided that it is not financially viable for us to go ahead with the new car purchase and then informed the dealer that we want to get our deposit back because we are not in a position to buy any new car. The salesperson, sales manager and the general manager all surprised us saying that we cannot get it back as they considered the deal to be final because my wife came and saw the car and did not say "NO" at that time. NOTE: We had neither signed any papers nor made any arrangements to make monthly payments. Also, this period coincided with the time when Toyota had a massive recall, so the car just sat in the dealership.  They tried to con me saying taht they had to ship the vehicle following "my order"  and they spent a lot of time to put me through their finance program. I countered them by saying that the vehicle that I was considering was sitting right in their dealership throughout this period and they did not have to pay anything for shipping it to their dealership. Also, they would not learn if I would qualify for their 0% financing program if they would not take the effort to find out my creditworthiness. So they cannot claim that they spent money on me which they now lost because I cancelled the deal. BUt all my arguments have fell on deaf ears and they have refused to entertain any refund request and say that the only way I could use my money is if I bought a car from them. They may consider allowing me to use that money for maintenence of any Toyota that I may buy from a different dealership, but that they will have the final word on that too.

Do you think that I deserve to get my money back on legal grounds and if so how?

Thanks for atleast reading through my letter.

Answer
Prasanna,

Thanks for your question.  This is a tough situation.  On one hand, I understand and see where you are coming from, and deplore any of these kind of tatics that this dealership is using.  On the other hand, some of the responsibility belongs to you as well for not reading the document that you signed in its entirety.  That is just as much your responsibility as it is anybody elses.  However, with all of that being said, you do have a stop gap.  That stop gap is your credit card company.  You need to dispute the charge with your credit card company and explain to them the situation and that you never at ANY point took possession of that vehicle.  Your credit card company will contact the dealership and get their side of the story and then will work to resolve the issue for you.  More than likely you will win with this dispute, because the credit card company works for you not the dealership.  

Secondly, since you have already gone up the chain of command at the dealership all the way to the General Manager, the next step is to file a grievance with Toyota.  Call Toyota directly and complain to them, and they will also work on your behalf to remedy the situation.  

Thirdly, call your local consumer affairs office (in the United States we call it the Better Business Bureau) and file a complaint on the dealership as well.  That should also help you resolve the issue.  

In the end, you should win and get your money back, because also in the end whether you read the document or not, what they are doing is BAD BUSINESS, and you need to take every effort to get the word out.

Hope this helps.

Thanks - JB