I know it's long, but please read on. There were so many things that went wrong.
My husband is in the military and we’ve been looking to replace our PT Cruiser for a while. So we’ve been looking at several different cars and several different dealers and found that a Hyundai Elantra was a good choice. We saw they had one in Las Vegas. So we decided to take the six hour drive and drive all the way to Vegas from Goodyear, Arizona to go get this vehicle. Of course we took the whole family, my husband, myself, 7 year old child and our 5 month old child. We all drove down there since it would be a joint loan and joint title.
Sep 5 2009
We went to Chapman Las Vegas Dodge Chrysler Jeep (1.888.207.1749) to get a car (a Hyundai Elantra 2005). We also wanted to trade-in our vehicle a Chrysler PT Cruiser 2004. We spoke with Mike Sorrels for sales and Isaac Adler was the finance person who did the sales and trade-in for the vehicles.
So we did the credit reports and gave them all the information that they wanted for the paperwork. Two contacts from each of us were given, our phone numbers and driver’s license.
While waiting for the credit reports and appraisal of our trade-in, there were some employees of that dealership who did not have customers, so they had sat in a lounge corner of the room. They were too relaxed and were speaking with each other and said a few curse words around my family with children, which was inappropriate.
As we were doing the paperwork, it was understood that we were using USAA and said they were familiar with USAA. We had an approval letter of our loan (from USAA). We printed a USAA E-check for the dealership so that USAA will be our lien holder for the Hyundai. The instructions for the E-Check is on the e-check itself. Isaac told us to wait for a green paper in the mail and that is what we need to register our vehicle in Arizona.
Sep 16 (11 days later)
We called our bank USAA and asked them how come our loan for the Hyundai is still pending and that the trade-in vehicle is still in our account. USAA informed us that there has been no action yet for the pending loan which meant the dealer did not use USAA for our loan. We asked USAA if the dealer contacted them about this because we didn’t get any info from the dealer that there had been problems with the loan. USAA then said that they don’t have on record that the dealer spoke with USAA.
So then we called Chapman Dealership to see what happened and why was USAA nor I contacted regarding the loan. We talked with Isaac about the trade-in payoff because we weren’t seeing it in our USAA account that it’s been paid off yet. So he then said that the payoff check for the trade-in is on its way. We asked why is it that we are finding about this now and I or our Bank USAA was contacted. He said he did speak with USAA.
Then we called USAA again, they had said that there was no communication from the other side (dealer or bank) about the loan for the Hyundai, otherwise USAA would have a record of them speaking before this date (Sep 16). USAA told us that it seemed like the dealership ignored the loan from USAA and used another credit company; which was odd because we did print out the E-Check from USAA for the dealer to get their money (yet we are still waiting for the payoff on the trade-in.
We called Chapman Dealership back an hour later. So the Dealer contacted USAA, AFTER we had called the dealership the first time about what is going on, and the dealer told us that USAA would not do the loan. So what they did was just go with another bank called Mountain America Credit Union. So the dealer did go with another bank without us knowing. We were not informed (until we took it upon ourselves to call to find out what is going on) that our original agreement to use USAA as our lien holder for the Hyundai got voided without us knowing and used another bank that we’ve never heard of.
If there was a problem with the loan, why was USAA or I not contacted? We called ourselves. Why are we the ones trying to resolve the situation and not the dealer contacting us for important information? We should have gotten a call, we only found out because we decided to call, no one took the initiative to call us, which isn’t right.
We called Isaac again about the green paper that he said we need to wait for because that is what we need to register our vehicle in Arizona. For the first few times I’ve called, there was no answer, I left about 3 messages and we hadn’t had a call back. When I called back again, Isaac had finally answered and told us that the green paper for registering our vehicle is on its way, along with the check for the payoff.
We had decided to just go with the Mountain America and refinance with USAA at a later time. We would have had no problem going with that bank, it’s just nobody thought to give us a call about it.
Sep 28 (12 more days later)
It’s been a few days since we’ve heard anything, no one had called us. So again I took it upon myself to call Chapman Dealership back. I tried to speak with Mike but said that he no longer works there and should speak with Rob Marshal. No one calls us if there is any information or if anything has changed. If my husband can’t be reached at work (which is only supposed to be used for emergencies) and know that I don’t work, then that should indicate that someone is home to receive the info. I’ve called Isaac from finance numerous times and does not call back even after leaving several messages on the machine.
Well, I spoke with Rob Marshall and was wondering about the green slip that we’re supposed to receive so we can register our car. Rob said that he was looking at it and was going to send it out right away as we need that green paper. Isaac told us Sep 16 that it was on its way, along with the check for the payoff on our trade-in vehicle.
Sep 29
I called again and left a message for Rob. We are still not seeing the Trade-in pay off in our USAA account. I got a hold of Rob and told us to talk to Isaac.
I called Chapman Dealer again around 1020am, Isaac had left a message so I called back to ask about the green paper for registration in Arizona and the payoff for our trade in.
I have to wait for tomorrow because Isaac is off, so… waiting…
Well my husband decided to get a hold of the General Manager Don Hamrick. We spoke with him and told him everything that has happened. He said he was disappointed in the way things went and as the conversation went on with a few more calls, he said he was going to get that green paper handled and the check for the trade in handled.
We called Don back and he said that the check was mailed to a different Bank. He then sent the check overnight to our bank USAA.
I believe Don had called someone from the title company for our green paper. There was a woman who had called us regarding the green paper that we were told by Isaac that we would receive in the mail. We found out that the green paper is the title for the car, which we did not know. We were just told to wait for it because that is what we need to register our car. She told us that she had tried to call, but couldn’t get a hold of us. We asked what number they had and they had my Husband’s work address and that’s all they had in their system. We then explained to her that we gave all our contact numbers to Mike & Isaac when we were there at the dealership.
They had his work number but we also gave the dealership our home number (why wouldn’t the home number be given?) and cell phone number. We also explained to them the work number is for emergencies only and my husband works on the flight line and works on the jets, so he’s unlikely able to get to the phone. So the best number to reach was the home & cell phone. We also told them (dealership) that he won’t be at work for a week so again the home number will be best to contact us. So she explained that the title is actually mailed to our closest DMV. So she is also sending the title overnight to the DMV.
Sep 30
So today we looked at our USAA account and found that our Cruiser has finally been paid. The DMV called us to tell us that they have the title and the car is ready to register. Now, we find out that I can’t register the car and my husband has to because I am not on the title. This is now another problem because at the beginning it was understood that everything is joint, so that I will be able to do things on my own just in case my husband has to TDY (temporary duty assignment) or be deployed.
I then called Mountain ACU (America Credit Union), because I wanted to log in online, but then to find out I can’t talk to anyone about the loan because, what a surprise, I am not on the loan either.
Oct 1
We decided to call Don the General Manager back and inform him of this new situation with the title and loan not being joint, when we told them at the beginning everything will be joint. Loan has to be joint for the same reason the title was supposed to be joint.
Don told us that there is no paperwork or a credit report indicating that it was joint. We then informed him that yes I did do a credit report.
I then went online to our bank USAA and looked at my account because my husband and I both have Credit Monitoring through USAA. Not surprised, my account said that my credit has been pulled twice; once from Chapman Vegas and a second from Mountain ACU. Why would my credit be pulled from the dealer and the bank and I am not on the title or the loan? I was supposed to be on the title and the loan.
We left a message for Don to call back, but has not returned our call.
Oct 2
