On December 12, 2008 my wife and I visited, Doral Pontiac-Buick- GMC in Miami for we were considering trading our ’05 Nissan Pathfinder in for a newer car.
The dealer agreed, after our credit application was approved by the Federal Credit Union, so they told us, to take our Nissan Pathfinder as a trade in for a ’07 Chevy Tahoe given we put at least $3, 500 down payment, amount to which we agreed.
The Finance Director, proceed to have us sign finance and purchase agreement documents, among others. He informed us of the amount to be financed, rate, montly installments, the pay off amount for the trade in vehicle an so forth. He asked us to provide W-2 forms for both of us, as well as pay stubs and other documents of this sort which we provided the following business day. After we were done he gave us copies of all signed documents, or so we thought, and we drove off in the Chevy Thoe.
After 3 or 4 days, the finance director called us to informed us the Credit Union had approved a lower finance rate to the originally given us (from 9.5 to 7.75%) so we signed a second set of documents to reflect the new terms, document that the dealer back dated to Dec. 12. Toward the end of December, Carmax contacted my wife asking for payment to what she responded we were no longer in possession of the car and that Doral Pontiac Buick was now responsible. Rihgt away my wife contacted the finance director to find out what was going on. He said not to worry, he would call Carmax and take care of it.
On January 21st, 2009, 40 days after we had purchased the car, the finance director called us again asking that we return the car to the dealer inmediatelly since the Credit Union had not approved our credit application. That same day my wife and I returned the Chevy Tahoe to the dealer. The finance director gave us back the keys to the Nissan Pathfinder which they still had in the lot and when we asked for our down payment back, a check for $ 330 was given to us with a letter describing the following expenses: 1. $49.95 /day x 40 days, 2. Detail required upon return of the vehicle back to dealership, 3. Cost of reconditioning trade, all this adding to $ 3170, amount deducted from our down payment .

After almost $ 500 in lawyer's fees and 2 legal attempts to contact the General Manager at Doral Buick- Pontiac, he finally answered on June 23rd . Upon our lawyer’s request, he e-mail to her documents signed back on Dec. 12th . Two of these documents were a Spot Delivery Agreement and an Arbitration Agreement which we did not have copies of and had no knowledge of having signed or at least were not pointed out or explained to us at signing.
At this point, our lawyer expressed her inability to continue to legally assist us since the Arbitration Agreement states that any legal dispute should be resolved through an arbitration process and not in a court of law.
Because of the dealer’s failure to pay Carmax for the trade in vehicle, my wife’s credit has been ruined . Their negligence in dealing and fulfilling the financial agreement has cost us over $ 3500.00. of our hard saved money.
As consumers we are frustrated and disappointed and feel that we have been deceived, mislead and taken advantage of by a dealership that neglected to fulfill its part of the bargain. We feel even worst to realize that our rights as consumers have been stripped away by a document the dealership claims we signed but they never made us aware of .

What a frustrating situation!! and to try to solve it will take at least some $ 1, 000 in arbitration fees and other expenses.

What to do ????