Buying X5 but salesman refuse to take credit card deposit

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by 08WhtX5

Makes no sense not to take your cc for a $500 deposit. Would have cost him $10 bucks in fee's.

That's not the reason he won't take a credit card. The reason is that you can deny/protest the credit card charge when you discover he lied and cannot get the vehicle he promised in the time he promised. With a debit, he has the money. An "old school" trick of shyster car salesmen is to get some money from you so that you must keep talking to them.

I ws looking to order a Ford Focus and was checking around at dealers. Since I already had a couple do a inventory search of the entire U.S., I knew there were no new Focus Station Wagons with leather seats anywhere in the U.S. The Sales guy went away and after five minutes came back and said he had found three at other dealers and could get it.... but first I would have to leave a $1,000 deposit. I asked to see the printout as I said "I was surprised you found one with leather seats." The idiot came back and handed me a page printout showed the vehicle and had, on the bottom, "press F4 to order." Having had worked at Ford in the past, I recognized the printout as a simple screen shot of the car ordering system, and the salesguy had simply created a new card order for the system, and then printed the screen shot out and presented it as an inventory locate.

I told the guy I knew exactly what he did, laughed in his face, shook my head, and left.

Had I given him a deposit, I would have been forced to continue to talk with the guy which, in his mind, meant he still had a chance to "bring me around."

[rayxi]

I wouldn't even bother going back to that dealer. Take a copy of the sales agreement, if you have it, and go to another dealer. It doesn't matter if the dealer wasn't aware of what the sales guy was doing. If the dealer can't keep tabs and controls on their sales staff then you don't want to buy from them.

I used my Visa for the deposit and then charged $20K of the purchase price on delivery, the max allowed by the dealer, so that I could rack up some points. It was the sales rep who suggested it.

[wb488641]

Rayxi,

you wanna rack up some more point award? just paid off my 2008 x5 with your Visa, and you will have more than enough points for a round trip European airfare

[rayxi]

My wife and kids give me more than enough help accumulating points thank you.

[Quicksilver]

That was correct in my case.

Originally Posted by swesson

One other thing i would note (and I think someone may have referred to this earlier)..

The dealer usually doesn't charge your credit card for the deposit. When you buy the car, they will ask you if you want to apply the deposit to the purchase. If you say yes, they charge the card, if you say no, they won't charge the card but will instead have you either apply it to you money down or if you are not financing, will add it back in to the final cost.

[o2happpy]

I just found out that most bmw dealerships only can charge a certain amount on credit cards. Some only give you around $2000 you can charge on your credit card. The dealership I went to dont even let you use a credit card with the purchase, saying that the banks and government dont want you to finance a car through credit because of some reason... I ordered my x5 and will be on it's way here in 3 weeks. Can anyone help with extended warranties and if you bought it from the dealership or a third party company. What sort of warranty should I get?

[Meiac09]

I say new dealer. Mine had no issue using an AmEx for the first 3K. Hell, we've used one entriely on a 3er, too.