They steal money and have no accountability. The following story bothers me not because of the money (it's a trivial amount), but the principal of it is incredibly angering.

Let me start by saying I am as big a BMW fan as you will find. My last three cars were an E46 M3, an E60 M5, and currently an E63 M6 Convertible (the MOST EXPENSIVE cars they sell). I also trade in and out of cars often so I am a dealership's best friend.

My M5 was on a two year lease. With two months left, I decided that I'd get an M6 for my next car so I went to the dealership to make a deal. We agreed on a deal for my new $117,000 MSRP M6 that included terminating my M5 lease two months early. Simple deal, leave the M5, drive off in the M6. All sides were happy.

6 months later I get a call from an unknown number in Atlanta. It's a collections agency that has been given a debt of $255 resulting from the lease disposition of my M5. Obviously there is some mistake but there is no use arguing with a collections agency, you have to just pay the money and then argue with whomever sent the debt to collections in the first place. So I paid the $255 + a $12 service charge immediately and figured Century West would easily refund my money since it obviously arose from their mistake.

Yesterday I go in to talk to them about it and spoke with the manager, I believe his name is Jimmy who rudely tells me, "oh yeah that's from the sales tax on the two remaining payments. we don't pay the sales tax." Instead of just terminating the lease early, they paid the $1500+ payment for two months but not the $127 of sales tax on it. Since the car was no longer registered to my address, I got no notification of any delinquency until it was sent to collections.

Obviously the deal we made did not include me paying $255 of sales tax for two payments I wasn't making. If they had even suggested such a thing when I was about to buy a $117,000 car from them would have made me walk out and leave the dealership.

One would think that at this point Jimmy would simply cut me a check for the nominal amount resulting from their error, retain a valuable client, and call it a day. Instead, he first gives me a line about not having the authority to refund my money because he doesn't know how to account for it. Then he offers to cut me a check for $130 and "split it with me". What? You have the authority to refund $130 of your screw up but not the other $130?? He finally left it at "I'll talk to the owner as soon as he gets off the phone and get authorization." Not surprisingly, 24 hours later I have not received a call back.

I am SHOCKED at how little regard for its customers this dealer has shown. To alienate any customer over a $260 mistake that was clearly the dealership's is simply idiotic, let alone a customer who has on numerous occasions bought the most expensive car on the floor. I really don't care about the $260, but I will certainly let everyone know what kind of business these people are running.

 

i never understood why companies operate like this. I guess they think buying an M3/M5/M6 isn't that valuable.

idiots.

 

Ouch ethics at a low = FTL.

 

Pathetic, i just don't understand companies that do things like this - the value of retaining a customer is so much more important than a small amount of money.

I will be telling my mate who's soon to purchase a 335 not to buy from them - just goes to show the knock on effect, what fools.

 

while the $$$ may not be a big deal, you may want to check your credit report to see if the collection agency is reporting you.

 

Spot on. I don't suppose you're overly concerned with credit on a $220 rating, but still it's a pain in the ass to clear your rating after this shite occurs, and there'll still be an 'asterisk' on your record.

 

I feel like dealerships as a whole loose the customer focus real quick. Whether your buying the most expensive car or not. What happened to customer service. Jeezzz.

 

well that's the reason i paid it immediately when they contacted me. Better to have perfect credit than to be right in this case.

 

Sorry to hear about this bad experience Steve. Doesn't everyone in the auto service/sales industry know what a small world it is and both good and bad show up on forums like this for millions to read? Thanks for sharing this experience and giving us a heads up about this dealership and their poor customer service. Lord knows how much $$ they've made off you over the last few bmw purchases.

 

completely short-sighted...just boggles the mind