Complaint Review: Toyota of Tampa Bay - Tampa Florida

Toyota of Tampa Bay Cheats Customers Every Step of the Way

By Wen Li, 10/05/2014   

If you are interested in a class action suit against this dealer, please let me know.

Summary Comments:

At Toyota of Tampa Bay, rip-off is a team work of daily routine. Their tricks include bait and switch, manipulating the loan process, cooking up numbers and hiding overcharges in your monthly payment to avoid detection.

The following was based on our personal experience in late Sepetember, 2014 at Toyota of Tampa Bay at 1101 East Fletcher Avenue, Tampa, Florida 33612

Rip-off Trick #1:  Bait. Lure customers in with a promised price they don’t mean to deliver.

In our case, they had agreed to $18.5K out the door for a 2015 Toyota Corolla LE. Once we were in their building, they asked for $19.5K! Isn’t that ridiculous?!!!

Rip-off Trick #2: Switch. When pressed for $18.5K out the door they had promised, their sales manager Matt back tracked, saying that price was for another Corolla with fewer options, not the same car we had a test drive of. Isn’t that absurd?!!!

Rip-off Trick #3:  Manipulate the loan process to fat their checkbook

They show you the loan provider offering the highest interest rate while concealing other much lower ones. And then they promise to cut the rate in half in return for us to accept a higher sales price and a larger down payment. In the end, you never get the promised low interest, but still get stuck with a higher sales price and larger down payment, and even worse, you are still hit with some other rip-off scheme of their choice.

In our case, their General Sales Manager Farouk Hosein showed us 10% interest rate from one loan provider without informing us of other lower ones around 5%.

That was how we were cheated into accepting the sale price of $19.5K, which was $1000 more than $18.5K we had mutually agreed earlier. Even worse, once you agreed to the increased price, they manipulated the numbers in such a way that our actual interest skyrocketed to almost 15% without your knowledge!!!

Rip-off Trick #4: Hide overcharges in monthly payment to avoid customer detection

In our case, although the contract still shows 4.9% interest rate as promised, the actual monthly payment figure reveals a hidden rip-off: we are charged an interest rate as high as almost 15%, which is well hidden in 60 monthly payments!

With $3.5K downpayment, our monthly payment based on 4.9% should be no more than $304. However, Farouk colluded with the dealer’s finance manager Scott and inflated the monthly payment to $328, , i.e $24 extra per month for 60 months equal $1440. They know the cheated extra payment, once spread over 60 months, does not appear as significant; and most customers don’t even bother to check the numbers. Even if they do, it is no easy task to see through their tricks.

 In other words, Toyota of Tampa Bay tried to rip you off $1000 from beginning and another $1440 in the end. The $1000 meant to buy better interest rate to save money actually cost us another $1440 rip-off!!!

The total $2440 rip-off translates into a whopping 15% overcharge on top of the original agreed upon price of $18.5K!!! You as a customer are cheated from the beginning to the end!!!

When they were caught red handed the next day, I took the rip off issue to their Sales Director Nick and asked to cancel the transaction because of their dishonesty and defraud. The director, instead of offering an apology, tried to protect his culprits and came up with an obsurd excuse: “It’s a confusion… Cars cannot be returned.” They were so thick faced that they did not even feel embarrassed. Let alone offer an apology.

I hope my piece can help prevent potential auto shoppers from becoming another victim to Toyota of Tampa Bay, a rip-off specialist.

If you have questions or comments or are interested in a class suit, please let me know.