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.
