Complaint Review: Rick Case Acura

I leased a new 2015 RDX from Rick Case in December of 2013. They gave me a great sales pitch about how it was a better car for my current lifestyle. To a point they were right, so we negotiated a deal I could live with. The deal included paying off my existing 2013 ILX (great little car) lease and stating any negative mileage would be rolled into the new lease payment.

I had the RDX for about 2 months when Acura Financial started calling me about the payments on the ILX. Turns out Rick Case did not send the payoff to the lease until March 2015 (three months after we leased the RDX). When the payoff issue was straightened out, I received a bill for 1245.00 for mile overages and early lease buy-out fees. When I called Acura Financial to discuss, they stated the dealership would need to send the paperwork. So, I called Rick Case and spoke with my sales person (Karl), who forwarded me to the Business Manager (Mike). Mike said he would call me back the next day with a status of my issue. I can to call him back after not hearing anything for nearly 2 weeks.

He stated he hadn’t gotten to it yet, but would follow-up that day. I received an email later that day stating there was nothing he could do about the mileage because the contract paperwork didn't include that in the deal. On my own part, 'yes' I missed that when signing, but know I asked several times at signing about the mileage and was repeatedly assured it would be 'handled.' Mike's email went on to state that he worked hard with Acura Financial to get them to cut the 1245 in half, but he couldn’t do anything further. Not what I wanted to hear, but I acknowledge my own mistake in not reading the contract regarding the mileage, but it was at least something.

Following the email I called Acura Financial to confirm the adjusted amount and make payment arrangements on the new balance, only to have the customer service representative tell me she didn’t know what I was talking about. The balance was still $1245, and there were no record of ever having talked to the dealership about reducing the balance in half. In short, the dealership point blank lied to me about it to get me to go away.

The next step was calling Acura Client relations (corporate office). I spoke with Everett. He said he would directly engage with Rick Case's General Manager (Benny) on my behalf, but also stated that the Acura Corporation is 'not liable for the business practices of their private dealerships.' What does that mean? Sounded like it's okay for the dealerships to lie and cheat their way through a sale as long as they close the deal.

In any case, Everett was successful in getting Benny to call me directly about the situation. Benny walked me through my file and said there was nothing in the file about covering mileage. However, he went on to say that while he CONFIRMED with Karl (Sales) that the mileage may have been part of the negotiated deal, it wasn't in writing and therefore he wasn't obligated to honor the original agreement or assist in any other way regarding the 1245.00 with Acura Financial. We were prepared to have an Acura in our driveway for life. We love the product and almost leased a second one a couple of months ago until this latest conversation with Benny from Rick Case.

Benny, Mike, and Karl are personally responsible for losing a lifelong Acura customer. As a result of their poor customer service and negligence (not cost) we ended up leasing a Nissan Altima… Every bit as nice as the ILX I was interested in at Pohanka Acura. So let’s put this in financial perspective for any Acura Dealers or monitors that read these complaints. We are on our third (and last) Acura in under ten years’ time and were planning to have two Acuras in our driveway for life starting this year. We retire in about 30 years. So that’s 2 vehicles at 3 years use each for a 30-year period. With an average cost of $30000-40000/vehicle, that equates to about $750,000 in lost future sales they personally lost for Acura. That’s a huge financial loss over a $1245 amount that the dealership acknowledged was part of the original negotiated agreement.

This has been going on for a year, and I'm now in collections for a debt I should not have incurred that is further impacting my ability to get home financing. I would love some advice/assistance for suing Rick Case for Defamation of Character (collections account), pain suffering through undue stress, and potential credit fraud (shouldn’t have been a credit item on my report). Is this something for small claims court or possibly a bigger picture in the eyes of Rick Case customers?

 Steve Kinsey