Not sure on that's being illegal, if I bring a check for the sticker price of the car and they refuse to sell it to me then yes, here's your Federal lawsuit (in my case age discrimination), let's play.
If I have negotiated to something other than sticker price, that changes the story. In theory a FM could give a certain price as a function of doing a loan with a dealer lender, and if they didn't go with that lender then the price doesn't necessarily have to be held. I am not a lawyer but I doubt anyone would take that case, this is just a business transaction that didn't work out.
FWIW I would ALWAYS let the dealer pull credit with how the FICO algorithms work, I've seen even 2% loans be beaten before back when that was the going rate from CUs so I'm not surprised... doesn't have to be captive, captive lender is generally new cars / manufacturer as I understand it, but there's a dealer financing arm of a bunch of financial institutions and I know that is a competitive space and the FM has lots of leeway in who gets the loan on the lender side.
I'm assuming this was Chase Auto which is differerent than Chase Bank, I don't know the exact name for them unlike Wells Fargo Dealer Services which is strictly dealer lender... my guess is they will show up as a slightly different name on the paperwork and also on the tradeline on the credit report. Either way, congrats on the better rate!
@Loquat wrote:
@roughdraff wrote:They can refuse to sell to anyone but only within legal constraints. If they refuse to sell a vehicle thats available for sale to a consumer and /or a financial institution because it solely is in the interest of the dealership, That my friend is Unfair Business Practices, that is illegal Mr. former finance manager.
@roughdraff You can disagree with it as much as you like but it doesn't make it wrong or illegal. Dealerships can and will employ such practices anytime it benefits them. Our dealership was selectively audited by the attorney general a few times in my 10+ years there and while there may have been a hand slap for one thing or another, this certainly wasn't a reason...and there have been folks such as yourself who have tried to make this very argument and found it to be nothing more than a waste of their time. In the very last sentence of your post you drove home my point "...That my friend is Unfair Business Practices..." with a focus on "unfair". It may be "Unfair" but it isn't "illegal".
Like I mentioned before, you can show your distaste for how they go about business by spending your dollars elsewhere but that's the only option you have in this scenario. As long as a dealership doesn't violate any discrimination laws they can go about business in this situation, any way they choose.
And then those same dealerships wonder why people have such a low opinion of car dealerships. I think you just demonstrated really well why we don't trust them. But by now I know how to deal with it. Our last two purchases were smoking deals. It required a 200 mile plus trip to another dealer for one, but I got what I wanted nevertheless. Funny how the local dealer called me afterward and said we would have matched the price. Really? I told you what I wanted at what price and you told me that is impossible on a new vehicle/model. Guess I found the impossible, lol.
I'll always let a dealer run my credit. I have BofA Preferred Rewards and can always get a rate discount that's usually better than anything outside of captive. Because most dealers will concede more if you finance through them, regardless of what they are peddling I will negotiate a lower price and extras by financing through them, then immediately refi. Worked for me even before I had Preferred Rewards.
