The investigation begins with an anecdote about a man who received disability payments from the Social Security Administration; he received a loan for a Jaguar with an astonishing annual percentage rate of 75 percent.
Fucking WHAT?! It should be so illegal to try to take advantage of someone who doesn’t understand finances. I get that you really should understand the basics of finances and interest before you spend that kind of money. But also cars are such a necessity here that not everyone who buys one is going to be well-educated, speak good English, fully literate, or without a learning disability.
Before anyone tries to pull the “it’s the buyer’s fault” line before on me before reading the article, here’s some great excerpts showing how scummy these lenders are:
… men recently released from prison who found that their credit histories prevented them from getting reasonable loans at affordable interest rates…“A lot of people we were interviewing were driving pretty fancy cars. We were stroking our chins, going: ‘How did you afford that?’ It turned out that some of them were walking into dealerships and being told they couldn’t get financing for the Hondas they wanted, but could for a top-of-the-line Mercedes”… “Why would a lender and dealer do that? Because they know they’re going to be able to repossess the car quickly.”
Look, I am in sales. I know exactly how people can run you around in circles bullshitting you into closing before you realize how bad of a deal you’re getting. It’s what I look out for when interviewing, because I’ll walk if that’s the culture your product or company has around it.
Love this comment because you actually read the article, unlike some other commenters…
My jaw dropped when I got to that part too! That’s a 4x value payment on a 5/yr loan! Beyond disgusting tactics needed to get someone to in go for that. It’s absolutely predatory.
Aaand it’s gone. The whole comment. It’s gone.
He quoted the part of the article that stated a customer unknowingly purchased a Jaguar with 75% APR.
I’ll line up with everyone else who wants to tar and feather most car salesmen as scam artists, but surely there should have been red flags
Are they just talking about the predatory “buy here, pay here”-type used-car dealers that have been around for a while, or are new-car dealers getting into the scam now, too?
The whole article was just anecdotes and heresay, so who knows. I know there is a ton of predatory b/s involved with buying cars but these examples seem like outliers. I think the Tik Tok lady was lying about her car payment(s) though just to go viral and it totally worked.
I recommend that anyone buying a car that they’ll have to finance bring in a laptop with an amortization schedule up and ready to go to the dealership. Dealers don’t want to talk about the total cost of the car. They only want to talk in monthly payments. They’ll sometimes offer cashback in order to get you to agree to a higher interest rate. If you don’t have an amortization schedule handy, you’re not going to be able to do that math and figure out if you’re getting a good deal or getting scammed.
If you don’t know what an amortization schedule is, then Google it and play around with one before you go in to buy a car. You only need to plug in a few variables - purchase price, number of months for the loan, and interest rate. That will allow you to see your monthly payment and what you’re paying in interest.
If you can’t do that simple thing, then don’t finance a car.
you don’t even need a laptop for that nowadays; you can pull up such a thing directly on your phone.
In response to an article about how poor people are trapped by loans… you recommend that? Really?
This article pisses me off. Back in late 2020 I went to a dealership to buy a new car, very high credit score, 1/3 cash down, and qualified for a 0% interest deal that was going on at the time.
The dealership came at me with the most bullshit offers, tried to get me to take dealership financing at 4%, then 3.5, then 3% at a longer loan duration and acted like they were doing me a favor the whole time. Finance guy was being such a dickhead about it even the sales guy started getting pissed at him.
Took nearly 6 freaking hours to close the deal. Finally got my 0% offer and expected financing/cost because it was 20 minutes to closing time and I was like “fuck it, I’ll go check out your competitors tomorrow,” keys in hand, walking out the door. Sales guy literally chased after me and stopped me at the car to say the finance dude finally caved.
Fucking scumbag stuff. Dealership changed their name a year later and I don’t wonder why.
No fan of Musk, but this kind of shit and other scams are driving me towards companies like Tesla that are using a direct sale model.
Subaru dealers lied to me about the engine I was getting, said the head gasket issue was fixed. Turns out it was fixed, just not for the model of engine that was in the specific car they were selling me.
Then a different dealer did the head gasket job, thousands of dollars, and now they’re telling me it needs to be done again four years later for another 5k.
A local Chevy dealer was screwing over their employees with wage theft by agreeing to give raises and then quietly taking them away later.
Fuck them all to hell, small business my ass. If you have to spend millions lobbying your state government to make direct sales illegal, I’m going to do everything I can to avoid giving you my money.
And then you kept walking because fuck those guys?
Nah, I bought it because there wasn’t going to be a better deal, I did my research for weeks and months prior and that 0% popped up in the middle of reviewing options.
I think they tried the push because it was the last day I could get it before the deal expired. The zero % financing was via the manufacturer, not dealership.
And they make less money on that than the dealer financing options. No surprise they were being pushy about it.
I mean, I was already preapproved for a 2.5% loan and qualified for the 0% offer, made that clear. I was very up front there would be no dealer loan.
I made it dirt easy, like “I’m qualified for this zero interest deal, I’m willing to pay up to $10k in cash up front. Make it happen for $300 a month or less with those terms and you have a sale.”
They still fucked around so hard. I really was ready to walk out empty handed, they made the deal literally with me unlocking my old car to leave.
0% interest rate is usually given in lieu of a cash back offer. So, you could get like $2500 cash back and a 4% interest rate or a 0% interest rate with no cash back.
My strategy would be to take the cash back, take the dealer loan to reduce friction, and then refinance immediately when you get home at a lower rate.
How do you refinance? I was always curious about that. I’ve checked banks and my credit union but they always came in significantly higher than dealer loans, even if I chose the cash back
Preapprove loan in the range you want from your bank.
Agree in writing on car price.
Get loan from bank.
Pay for car
Pay back bank.Edit: to be clear, when i say Bank I only mean Credit Union.
Additionally, if you can get your down payment/trade-in to get your car off the lot with equity then you’ll get a lower interest rate. When my ex and I bought her new car a few years ago we incidentally did that (total value between the down payment and trade in was something like 10k on a 23k purchase) and we were pleasantly surprised to see a full percentage point lower on the loan.
I’m looking to buy a new car, went to the bank for a loan, they said they’d only do a car loan if I bought a car that was less than 3 years old. Are you kidding me? My current car is from 2004, I’m hoping for an ~$8k 2012 or something…
My last car purchase I was thinking similarly, I ended up with a '14 with 80000km on it. Bank said “we can’t give you a loan for that, but we can up your line of credit and you can use that” …
Yeah, good credit history is vital here, but in a similar case, my credit union wouldn’t write a car loan, but approved a “signature loan” for similar interest rate
Given the anecdotes in the article, I have credit cards with lower interest rates, so that would be tempting. I mean, I’d never do that since it’s a stupid idea but it would be better
I automatically think less of anyone who doesn’t buy Toyota at this point. Used or new, no other maker comes close to the value. I don’t even like their cars but I’d never claim that my personal flavor is better than Toyota’s offerings outside of my own niche interests (and I’ve still got a Corolla I drive most days in the summer). $1,400 a month for a fucking Tahoe is ridiculous and I have a hard time having any sympathy for someone stupid enough to make that their “dream car” or worth taking out a $84,000 loan for.
I did the math for the interest rate since they didn’t bother to in the article. The article says she had paid $1400/mo for 3 years and had only paid 10,000 toward principal. Assuming that’s 36 months of payments, the interest rate would be around 15.5%. The payment term would have been 10 years and total payments would end up being $168k.
Predatory lenders and financial illiteracy; a perfect match made in hell.
While whoever did that to her really ought to be in jail, she does need to take some responsibility
- most people dont need such a big vehicle - clearly it will be expensive
- most people shouldn’t get the top end trim of whatever vehicle
Unless she willingly went into this because she used to have higher income, I do t see how she could claim complete ignorance
That kind of interest rate indicates she was a bad credit risk, either because she made the same mistake before, or she couldn’t afford it. If she’d already made the same mistake, will she ever learn? If she just plain couldn’t afford it, yeah, a lot of that is on the scummy salesman
It’s the big 4 Japanese brands for me: Toyota, Honda, Mazda, and Subaru.
Mazda’s been on a roll recently, I’ll admit, but Subaru has had issues forever and Honda cars are overvalued to hell.
I agree. Nissan was the solid #2 Japanese company until getting in bed with Renault.
I’ll defend the KA24 as being equal to or better than the 22R every day of the week, but that’s a good Nissan motor; the hardbodies never came close to the overall construction quality of Toyota P’ups
You mean Toyota, the same company that has spent years lobbying against emissions standards in Australia and dragging their feet on EVs?
I don’t see why it’s a big deal that they’re dragging their feet on EVs in classic Toyota style. This is what they do and why they’re so reliable. Other companies jump headfirst into projects often with disastrous results.
Not to mention Toyota was first with the hybrid and hybridizing a good chunk of their fleet so its not as if they’re selling a bunch of gas guzzlers like Dodge/Chrysler.
I don’t agree with the other guy that people are stupid for buying any other brand, but Toyota is consistently the best bang for your buck in most categories.
If you’re a financially strapped consumer looking for a car, you’ll find no better deal than one of Toyota’s models, excepting some special scenarios. Their slow progress towards EV adoption doesn’t negate that.
Toyota has raised their prices inline with inflation since 2021 (~24%). Nissan and Suburu have been under inflation in that period (~20%). Stellantis (Dodge etc.) have raised their prices ~50% in that period and Kia/Hyundai have gone up ~40%. People should look at which companies have been price gouging and avoid them.
Sticker price is only one part of the equation. Toyota cars are more reliable (read: consumer friendly) than any of their competion and have been for several decades now. If you want to save 4%, go for the car that’s almost garaunteed to blow a head gasket within its first 120k.
I’ve been very happy with Mazda over the years. I had intended to get a Toyota at one point, but the local dealership by me was scummy and kept trying to force me into buying specific models I wasn’t interested in which pissed me off. I went to the nearby Mazda dealership as my second choice and I’ve never regretted that decision.
