Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

I personally would feel absolutely no moral obligation to pay the guy. The slim chance he had of getting me to pay voluntarily completely disappeared due to his slow handling of the situation and then his immoral attempts to screw you over by chasing you for too much money. You can't take such a dishonest line and then expect to appeal to my morals.

On the other hand, unless the dealer really was incompetent, I would expect that if they decided to chase it up, you probably are legally responsible for at least some money. It sounds as if they don't intend to chase it up though (which maybe is a sign that they screwed up somewhere, meaning you aren't actually responsible?) so you should be safe and I would not pay anything.

Do you have copies of all of the relevant paperwork? If so, I would check through it to ensure that I was not obligated to pay and then I would explain to the dealer exactly why I wasn't going to pay and what I thought of his line.

If I couldn't find the paperwork or I found it and it was inconclusive or proved that I did owe the money, I still wouldn't pay if I could avoid it but I would be more careful about my wording, as it isn't worth risking having to pay the money just to tell the guy what a douche he has been.

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

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For the record I don't think you should give them a dime because it was there mistake...

But when I mentioned that my buddy should keep the extra grand he was given on accident by a casino cage... the two of us were FLAMED for being unethical priicks.

Funny that people have no problem ripping off car dealerships :-)

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except that this isnt ripping off a car dealership, this is a car dealership ripping you off

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

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I looked up the difference in blue book values for a mazda 6 (i have no idea if that's what he had but it should provide a reference) for 04 and 03 and 30k miles. The difference in price was ~12%

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And I'm sure it'd be even less if you take an '04 in January and compare it to an '04 in July.

Sorry, guy. You lied to me about the drop in value, basically trying to get me to pay the whole thing. You lose.

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

I don't know you so I'll refrain from pointing out how dumb you come off in this one post. Because you might be really smart and I don't want to jump to judgement.

But, tell him to eff off. I don't think you are obligated to pay him anything. If he wants to try to sue you, so be it. But he won't.

If he keeps calling you and making you feel bad/guilty, just tell him, "Yeah, I get it, I'm an [censored]. Sorry about that. I screwed a car dealer out of money. How ironic that is."

Then just ignore him/his calls. I can't stand car dealers. Scum of the Earth.

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

gonores,

Why are you still wasting your time talking to the dealership? Sure you should have returned the calls, but if it was that big a deal the dealer would have acted to get the entire amount back. It sounds like the GM's boss is pissed and the GM is just trying to cover his own sloppiness. I wouldn't waste another minute of my time dealing with this.

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

All,

Yeah, so I spoke with a couple of managers from other car dealerships this morning and they basically share the same sentiment as the board (not that I don't trust you guys, but I wanted some perspective from a sympathetic party). KBB charges $25 for reports on prior dates, but my own memory + Patrick pointing difference in value from 03 to 04 is enough evidence for me. I'm considering the matter closed. Appreciate the help.

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

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gonores,

"Then he says he wants to come to me man to man and ask what I felt my responsibility in this whole mess is."

Well, chief, I was going to offer you something, but since you lied to me about the price drop and tried to f me up the ass here, I feel my responsibility in this whole mess is absolutely zero.

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Good use of the word chief.

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

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for the love of god, dont give this guy a single cent.

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Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

The most important lesson to learn from this is that you probably seem like a real sucker. You need to work on your image so people don't even bother trying to scam you. You're from the Midwest originally, right? The slick BMW salesman probably made a bet with one of his work buddies that he could get you to cut him a check for $1500 by bringing up some notion of "moral responsibility". He's freerolling here. Probably something like 30% of Midwesterners, Southerners, or people from other rural areas would actually give this guy the money. He makes a two minute phone call, and gets ~$500 in +ev. You need to adjust your image so that it's not even worth for him to waste his two minutes making that phone call.

Re: Moral dilemma/car dealership help? (a little long)
 

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. He suggested we would should chop the ~3k hit that BMW is gonna take on this mess

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i would've laughed until he hung up the phone.