HIGH COUNTRY TOYOTA, Shane Ryan BE CAREFUL DOING BUSINESS WITH THESE PEOPLE, NOT HONORABLE Scottsboro Alabama
I was working on a deal with High Country Toyota. Quite frankly they did offer me the best deal in all of North Alabama, although most of the other dealers would match it I think (one actually did).
We arrived at an agreed upon vehicle, options and price. The representative told me that he would have to do a dealer trade (common practice in the industry) to get that exact vehicle. This required a $500 deposit. I gave him my credit card information for the deposit.
Less than 24 hours later I changed my mind and sent him two email (he had been very responsive until this tiem) telling him that I had changed my mind and to please either not process the deposit or to process a refund if he had processed it already. The NEXT day (after I told him to stop the process) he ran the deposit through.
I sent him another email and explained that I had changed my mind, and had requested that he not process the deposit payment wihtin three days. Below is his reponse.
Contents of email fomr Shan Ryan, High Country Toyota (this is the ENTIRE response) - "There is no buyers remorse law or 3 day cooling off law in Alabama. I explained to you that it was a non refundable deposit. It cost us money to do the dealer trade. You either lose your deposit or purchase the van."
Let's analyze, shall we? No buyer's remorse in Alabama (true for vehicles, not for ALL transactions by the way) He NEVER explained to me that this was a non-refundable deposit - this response full of attitude - is the first time that was mentioned.
Next, during the course of emails, he indicated they could even provide the option of delivering to my residence. Since I live in an unicorporated area, I am only responsible for State and County sales tax. When I mentioned this to Mr. Ryan his email reply was:
"We have to collect 3.1%. That is mandatory for everybody who purchases a car in Scottsboro."
EVERY other dealer I spoke with (Tennessee or Alabama) stated there would be no issue in collecting the correct sales tax. If I had not already decided to not do business with these people, this kind of attitude would have made me think (at least) twice beofre proceeding.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
mikeytheb
MERIDIANVILLE,Alabama,
Resolution
#3Author of original report
Wed, May 07, 2014
I have been in contact with David McDonald of High Country Toyota and we have arrived at a mutual agreement. I appreciate his willingness to resolve our the issue.
High Country Toyota
Scottsboro,Alabama,
April 2014
#3UPDATE Employee
Tue, April 22, 2014
Dear Mike, this is Steve Ayers, Dealer Principal of High Country Toyota. I was very disappointed to learn of your complaint on this website today. We work very hard to be the dealer of choice in our region, and offer very competitive pricing as well as our “Warranty Forever” program as our way of offering the best possible deal we can on each new vehicle we sell. We even offer $200 best price guarantee. Our last communication was sent to you on April 3, 2014 trying to resolve this issue, and we await your phone call back at 256.259.1159.
After hearing a final ok from you accepting our vehicle price offer, we did cash your deposit and paid full price upfront to purchase this vehicle and order its delivery to our store built to your specifications at 10:37am March 18. We do charge 3.1% tax on the vehicles, and it was fully disclosed in your quote, of $31,299 final pricing for a vehicle that was valued at $36,810. Then again on the 19th of March you requested we add mats, keyless entry, remote start and a protection package for the hood, and we placed that add on to your vehicle, paying upfront for these options to our supplier. We were very pleased to have been able to offer all of this, and still save you over $5,000 off the MSRP. This was all completely transparent to you, in writing. Taxes were in our written documentation at $793.50 and we were honored to receive your thank you, understanding you were a completely satisfied customer.
The next day, we received a notice from you March 20 stating you had now changed your mind after we had two days earlier purchased your vehicle, and one day earlier, had additional options put on your vehicle at your request. Disappointed we were unable to satisfy you due to the $793.50 in taxes we had to collect, even though we saved you $5,000+ in overall pricing for this vehicle. Still, we would like to discuss the deposit with you that you have requested be refunded, and work something out to both our satisfaction. I hope you will take us up on this offer. When you call please ask for the Finance Manager.
It is our desire to satisfy all our customers and have future relationships, we hope we can still find a way to do this with you. Thank you for your feedback.
Sincerely,
Steve Ayers, Dealer Principal
High Country Toyota