Had problems with dealership on financing

Question

After my husband passed away and left me swimming in debt, I worked hard for approximately two years to pay off the debt and rebuiltd my score.  I went to a dealership to look at a few cars, the pushy salesman insisted he need my info to prequalify me and I was adamant about him not running my credit a bunch of times because I had worked so hard to go from the low 500's to the mid and high 600's.  He promised me he would only run it once.  He said I was qualified to buy a car for $15,995.00 so I spent hours signing paper work then took my new car home. A week later he calls and said the financing fell through and that I needed to come sign more papers to keep the car.  I'm not a complete idiot, I know that is called the 'Bait and Switch', dealersips are famous for it.  I took the car back and demanded my Xterra back since that was my trade-in and down payment.  After another hour or so of arguing with the manager, mostly because I didn't want them running my credit again, they reduced the price of the car by $3,000.00 and I reluctanly drove off again in the new car.  Two weeks later the same thing, they call, financing fell through AGAIN! I went in and this time I stood my ground and left with my old car even though I sat through almost an hour of them demanding I sign more papers.  They THREATENED me, told me that if I didn't sign for the new financing that my credit would be ruined for the next ten years and there is nobody that would finance me for a car or house again after refusing to stick to this new deal. It's been two weeks since I returned their car and refused to sign anymore papers and because of them there have been approximately 12 hard inquiries to my credit report.  The score I worked so hard to repair is now in the low 400's.  I'm at a complete loss as to my rights and I'm in tears.  I'm in my junior year at Arizona State University and planned on getting my credit as perfect as possible so that I could buy a house when I graduate.

Answer 1

I am very sorry about your experience. It's common for dealerships to roll a car with the assumption a bank will pick up the financing.  I wouldn't necessarily call it a bait and switch.  There's partial blame on both sides for this.  Partial blame because of your poor credit.  And partial blame because if the dealership has an uncertain deal with sub-prime credit, they shouldn't roll the car unless they have an approval in writing.  But technically they're not in the wrong for doing this.  Put it this way, they feel confident enough in the deal to allow you to drive away with the car immediately instead of forcing you to wait a couple weeks.  In a way, they're taking a leap of faith for you and trusting you with a very expensive piece of merchandise.  HOWEVER, know your rights!  They cannot force you to sign a new contract.  You should've been able to "unwind" the deal on your first visit back.  And no threats should have been made, that's very unprofessional. But with that said, something is fishy in your original post, or you just don't really know your credit scores, or you're comparing two different versions of two different bureaus.  I have seen a significant difference in scores when comparing equifax to experian, version 5 to version 8., etc.  It would be IMPOSSIBLE for any one of your scores to drop 200 points due to 12 hard inquiries for the same type of loan in a 3 week time span.  If you have 12 hard inquiries in a 30 day time span, the credit bureaus know you are not buying 12 cars, they know you're "rate shopping".  Those 12 inquiries have only affected your score once.  Check the sixth paragraph of this: http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/creditchecks/inquiries.aspx