First timer car financing, did I get scammed?

Submitted by jerry_farmer t3_11do50b in personalfinance

Hi everyone, I purchased a car and financed it at the dealership. One month later I receive a mail from bank with loan details. The principal balance is higher than the total price of the car, is that something normal or did they scam us?

(I’m new in USA so maybe there is something I don’t know…)

Car price: 42.000 Fees + Tax around 7000 Total price car + fees + tax: 49.000 Down payment 8000

Principal balance of loan I just received: 50.700 !!

Please let me know from your experience and what should I do about that? Thank you

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np20412 t1_ja9scmn wrote

What does your bill of sale/sales contract list?

Sounds like you paid for a bunch of add ons unknowingly. Whether or not that's on you or if the dealer was shady is tbd

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UsidoreTheLightBlue t1_ja9uywn wrote

I had a dealer try to pull this on me at one point. They were sitting on a last model year car. They listed it for $8k off, so it was $29k.

I went in and drove it. They started trying to convince me to take a bath on my trade. They wanted me to eat $3k.

So they bring me the paperwork to show me the total cost of the car. They wanted me to pay $42k.

Now $29+3 is $32. Tax is around $1800, so even rounding up it should have been $34k.

I asked to see the contract and didn’t make it past the second line before I saw they were tacking on shit.

I started arguing with them about it pointing out shit they were trying to force me to buy and the sales manager ripped the contract out of my hands and went “well it sounds like we’re too far apart on this.”

Haven’t patronized that dealership since.

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themagicalpanda t1_ja9tbnp wrote

look at your contract that you signed. all of this should be in your contract. if its in there and you signed it, then you're out of luck.

if it's not, then yeah you've got a problem.

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nkyguy1988 t1_ja9trvu wrote

Are you sure that's the principal amount and not a total cost of financing? Those would be different things.

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UsidoreTheLightBlue t1_ja9tr8h wrote

There has to be more to it than that.

You should have received a bunch of paperwork with the car. One of the items is a large sheet, normally physically larger than the rest with a full breakdown of all pricing.

It will show the car cost, Any add ons, taxes, and down payment as well as amount financed.

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Scr0bD0b t1_ja9u8cg wrote

Beyond other comments, are you sure the $51K is not the value of principal + estimated interest over the life of the loan? Is the $51K actually, only the principal?

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greyAbbot t1_ja9uu12 wrote

Was the itemized list of costs from your actual sales contract that you signed, or was that from something unofficial that they gave you as part of the buying process? Because they can only hold you to what you signed, so hopefully you have the original sales contract. If your itemized numbers are correct, your remaining balance should be 41k, not 51k! That's a huge discrepancy. It's definitely not normal, and there aren't a lot of add-ons that could cause that, so if they're trying to tell you that's the bill, they either didn't give you the price they said they would, or they've sold you a more luxury model of the same car (or at least charged you for that).

By the way, since you're new to the USA, it's worth knowing that here we use commas (,) to separate thousands, and dots (.) to separate decimal values or cents. So your price would hopefully be 49,000 :).

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Evaderfield24 t1_jaan0y4 wrote

You didn't get scammed, you just didn't read before you signed. Welcome to the US!

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john727704 t1_jaaoq3y wrote

You got played with warranties, but chances are you can cancel them

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ahj3939 t1_ja9voch wrote

It's normal.

Standard deal will look something like $42,000 + $750 dealer fee + 7% sales tax + $750 tag/registration fee = 46,492.50

It would be even higher if they added on any sort of service plan or extended warranty.

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greyAbbot t1_jaaej7q wrote

Except the question was why the bill was for 10k more than your math would suggest. A warranty is a definite possibility.

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ahj3939 t1_jaaeq8o wrote

We have no idea what they are looking at.

It could be a truth in lending disclosure that includes your down payment, price of the car, and total interest assuming that you only pay the monthly minimum.

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jerry_farmer OP t1_ja9x7jm wrote

We discovered the scam in the order buyer (that they gave us on USB and not paper to be sure we don’t read it immediately) they have charged a bunch of fees and total price came up to 58k$

Just crazy they added this while financing it because seller never told is about that and announced a total of 49k$

I just don’t know what to do now

For information it’s ARRIGO Jeep / Dodge of Palm Beach, never go there!!

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np20412 t1_ja9ybyi wrote

Did you not read everything you signed before you signed it? I guarantee you had to sign the bill of sale before the purchase was completed. That document would have outlined all costs.

If nothing else you learned a lesson that you cannot EVER sign anything before you've read everything you are agreeing to.

If it's tied up in "accessories" like paint protection and anti-theft, rust-proofing, etc. then you aren't going to get anything back from the dealer on those.

If they've tacked on warranties (anything listed as warranty or service contract, wheel & tire, extended warranty, etc.), those are cancellable usually for a refund. The refund won't be processed back to you directly but it will be tacked on as a one-time payment to the end of the loan thereby reducing the total amount you will pay. Your monthly payment won't change but you will pay the loan off faster as a result of the lower total finance amount.

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jerry_farmer OP t1_ja9yojj wrote

Yes on a tablet where the dealer just show you the case where to sign, seller told us the amount of 49k$ for me it was ok so we signed. I come from a country where there are no scam like that from a dealership otherwise it would be in jail since long time, so I trusted them…

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UsidoreTheLightBlue t1_jaa50x0 wrote

If you really feel like you were scammed and it went down like you said I’d attempt to argue with the dealership to get these things removed.

Odds are they won’t, but you can try.

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