DownhillSpec

yeah my dealership (a gm dealership as well) fired a loan officer for pulling a messed up scam... he would run someones credit like 40 or 50 times (everytime you get a credit report your credit score drops a little) so as to lower the customers credit score so he could jack up the interest rate... interest rate goes up so does the loan officers commision... i love what i do... i hate my place of employment.

tC4italy

Nice. I hope remorse is eating them alive.

Kanchi

iTrader: (4)

I hate criminals the problem is that it dosen't just hurt the person(s) they victimized just that once, it is has lasting effects wether on credit like mentioned^ or other things...just makes me sick.

saddlesore

I disagree Tom..
I got a Livestock emasculator..and a new box of the castration bands......

they will still have their winkie...but it wont do them any good!
and every time they see a pretty girl...they will remember what not to do!



just feeling mean & evil tonite
red

Jenna

I wonder if they decided around late July....

nwscionman

There are a lot of us at dealerships across the nation actively working towards changing the perception of the slimy car salesman. I believe the Owner/GM should take full responsibility as this kind of behavior comes from lack of management. Letting the overall culture erode to the point where this many people with flaws in their judgment so significant are able to remain employed baffles me. It is NOT a surprise the owner had an exit strategy… that person likely stopped managing their business some time ago. I feel terrible for this victim and am angry that a handful of selfish thieves could do so well at perpetuating the perception that we at dealerships are nothing but vultures poised for the next feeding.

DownhillSpec

you guys aren't... huh? news to me. j/k steve your the shizzie...

Tomas

You're right, Steve, and things like this hurt not only that dealership, but ALL dealerships.

I'm glad that Scion is at least trying to change the way car deals happen with their corporate rules.

(I made the mistake stopping in to the Toyota side of a local dealer with my mum last year, and I knew we were in trouble as soon as the salesman whipped out his "four-square sheet" when we sat down at his desk. We left over two hours later never having gotten a good, solid price for the Corolla she was looking at, and after innumerable trips of our salesman to 'his manager' to see if an offer was OK. Heck, the "manager" even accosted us in the lot on our way out to see if he could maybe "fix" whatever was wrong.

We passed another dealership on the way home that sold Scions, and I took her in there just to show her the difference. She owned a Scion in less than half an hour.)

Even the good guys at local dealerships will take a hit from the mess at Huling in Seattle. There's just no way out of that. Eventually, you and the other good guys will win back the trust you deserve, but it will not be easy.

Tom

mocascion

What BS!!! My father does contract work over at that dealership and on Jan. 5th they canned most of the employees as the transition to the Gee family...but even the people left there acknowledge that the reason for the sale was impending press/legal issues. It wasn't because after 60 years...they were just tired of doing 'selling cars'.

My dad went in yesterday when I told him about this and he said they were getting nothing but hate mail and complaints...no one even interested in sales...and that the new owners were not even aware of this impending legal issue.

I for one am going to boycott the Huling's and all they own because I'm sure they were a part of this at some level and sold just to cash out before things went public.

"...
Steve Huling is an equal partner in the dealership with his brother, Tom. The two also equally own a Thrifty car rental franchise for most of Western Washington and Western Oregon.
..."

That means...from here on out I'm boycotting Thrifty car rentals too! The Huling's need to do more than just "reimburse the victim the $30,000 he paid for the truck". This guy lost $100K due to their negligence and staff that they hired...it was found that the dealerships finance & notary were even involved in the fraud and false paperwork.

If the Hulings want to retain what was a previously good name, they need to stand up and do what is right to remedy the situation - not sell just to make a quick buck and line their own pockets (boy...seems to be the culture over at Huling).

evette

Wow . . . that is just plain sad. I see things similar to this working at a bank. People will 'befriend' one of our elderly or mentally disabled customers and get them to either give them money, or, worse, add them to their accounts. We try to get a hold of the next of kin to warn them of what's going on, but with all the privacy laws now days, there's not much we can tell them. In any event, it's sad how low people will go in the name of money.

evette

CLAPhoto

Those people won't serve enough time (as they most often never do). That is really messed up.

P-Dids

I had bought a Jeep there in 2001 and they didnt pay off the loan on the car I traded in so i ended up getting nasty letters and phone calls nearly going to collections on a loan for a car I no longer had because they for whatever reason decided not to pay the car off in a timely fashion, then they had the nerve to ask me to pay for the additional money owed on the original loan that they didnt pay off that now had two more monthly payments on it since they drug their feet. I had to get a lawyer to pressure them to take care of things, needless to say I was not a return customer.

emissman

This kind of reminds me of the Bill Heard incident:

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2738687

It made national news and there have been other, similar reports since that one.

Tomas

Sadly, over the years, this sort of behavior (in general - details always differ) has been all too common at some dealerships. It makes it really tough for the honest salesmen and dealerships. We need to, individually and as a group, support and word-of-mouth advertise the good guys.

Tom

Addendum: Back at the end of 1968 I ordered my very first new car, a 1969 Plymouth Barracuda. Before it arrived from the factory, I got orders for Viet Nam.

I still traded in my '66 Volvo and got the Barracuda, figuring my wife would like to have a nice new car while I was gone. I picked it up 06JAN69 and we drove it from Texas to Washington state, where our families were, and I shipped out.

After I'd been in 'Nam for about a month, I got a letter from the dealership demanding that I send them the full amount they had given me in trade because I had not given them my trade-in (we had signed paperwork saying otherwise).

To make a long story short, I turned the whole mess over to the USAF JAG folks in Texas, and they pursued it for me. Turns out the salesman had given the Volvo to his son, and torn up the paperwork that showed I'd traded it to the dealership. Probably figured with my wife out of state and me out of country he had a clear shot.

His son was arrested in the Volvo and prosecuted for possession of a stolen car, and the salesman was prosecuted and jailed, with the USAF as the plaintiff. IIRC he got 18 months...

It may be rare, but sometimes the little guy wins.

T

CelicaGirlGT94

I drive by that dealership almost everyday and Ive wanted to go outside with signs on the corner that slam them. Anyone down to do it with me?

i have flipped em off. Didnt throw it up for them to show though :-)

Jenna

No, it wouldn't be nice to do as they're now under new ownership. The article that I linked had updated it's self and was more clear about how there are new owners who bought the dealership (just after this all went down) and hadn't a clue about this whole issue until recently. They also stated that they've got an entire new staff.

I feel bad for them... such bad press and it will probably cost a pretty penny in advertising the "new ownership, new staff" thing.

Iride_xB04

wow thats messed up, instead of taking him home to get cash... the things people do these days for power and money are crazy

xiwantinx

I've always wanted to be one of the people that could do something and have a mutual understanding with the police and my community that there was no chance in hell of me serving time.

It just seems so comforting...

keenoh

repulsive!!!

hodakaguy

I've met a few honest, nice car salesmen but overall this is the exact image that I have when I walk onto a lot and see a salesman coming twards me. As soon as I step foot on a lot I get pretty defensive. All this does nothing to further my image that I already have.

Hodakaguy