I bought a car from Drive Time, to be fair I haven't had any signigficant problems with the car but they promise you that if you refer someone that buys a car they will give you $250 for the referral. It has been almost year of going in circles with them and they still have not given me my $250. We received a call today (July 21, 2009, we did the referral in October 2008)that the reason we did not the referral is because we filed a Bankruptcy in May of 2009. Nowhere in our contract does it say that BK would be the reason for the denial but they say it is a policy. One by the way is not written down anywhere. They say we can file a complaint to their bosses but their is nothing that they can do. We should have received the referral fee long before we filed BK so why does it matter now. They will do anything to get out of paying what is due.

TOTAL RIP OFF JOINT..BOUGHT A CAR HAD IT 3 WEEKS..BEEN IN THE SHOP 2.5 WEEKS..MANAGEMENT STINKS..NO COMPASSTION..WHEN I DIDNT MAKE FULL PAYMENT TRYING TO REPO CAR..WAS TOLD ICOULD MAKE PARTIAL PAYMENT..LIARS UNFRIENDLY SOB.. IM GIVING CAR BACK AND THEN GETTING A LAWYER

I'm writing to say that I absolutely cannot understand why Drive Time Company has not been shut down by our federal government for practicing consumer fraud. Every day I've read complaints from hundreds of consumers and yet and still they are permitted to continue their dishonest and unethical business practices.

Why has the FBI not prosecuted them under RICO Law which is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt organizations, especially since they are considered to be guilty of predatory lending.

This just further confirms that companies are allowed to sell lemon cars to the customers and there are no repercusions for this selling practice. I have not been able to find any attorney to handle my case, it seems that they are paying everyone off, including the media.

Of course, all dogs do have their day, it is all just a matter of time before their distasteful and relentless tactics catch up with them!

We came to Florida from Maryland. Had only been here a couple of months. Was worried about being scammed, but felt I was just over reacting due to being from a more rural area. There everybody knowns everybody so if you're not reputable, you don't survive. Drive Time was was recommended by another car dealership. Salesman friendly, won our trust. I explained that we just came off a bankruptcy and didn't want to get in over our heads so we needed a car with a payment under $200. He said "no problem. Anything on the lot under $400." There were a lot of nice cars, but this car was for work purposes for my husband and we wanted an older car with no frills-crank, no cruise, etc. We found one, but the saleman kept wanting us to get a newer, nicer, fully loaded car. I kept saying "we can't afford it. I need something with a payment under $200.00 per month. We found a 2002 hyundai, crank windows, no cruise, etc. I asked why the price was so high, about 12000.00 on a car that nada listed for around $5000-6000, and the salesman said "Oh that's not really what you pay. It will all be explained." ok we said. After all they are the professionals. I don't know everything about eveything. They have to be laws that protect the consumer. Drivetime completed the deal with us in the evening when few people were around and they were about ready to close-8:55pm. They spent about 5 minutes reviewing paperwork and we were out of there. On the way home, something bothered me. While reviewing the paperwork, the man quickly said the payment was $196.38 bi-weekly. There was a lot of paperwork to go through and they were trying to hurry so they could close, so I chalked it up to just a mistake in wording. I thought he just misspoke and what he really meant was monthly. I thought this because of him hurrying through things and also because I am over 50 years old and have bought other cars and have never bought a car where you make a bi-weekly payment. So I knew he misspoke or I missheard. At home I looked at the paperwork more closely. It WAS $196.38 bi-weekly. I flipped, but what could I do. I signed a paper saying I would pay for it and I traded in my van, my only other means of transportation. I felt I was stuck. I tried making the payments. I was late a couple of time and within 1 day of being late I would receive a call threatening repossession. Then after 3 months of buying the car it woudn't start. We went to the dealership. First they said they would replace the battery. Then they said no because maybe we left the lights on and caused the battery to die. If that were the case, the battery could be recharged. Then they said buy a battery and they would pay for it. Then they said no they wouldn't. This battery was totally dead. We had it checked at an autozone where we finally had to go buy a new battery. Next the rear defroster stopped working. Drivetime wouldn't pay for that because the warranty didn't cover replacing windows. Then the car wouldn't take gas right. While pumping, you'd get a few cents of gas in and then the pump would shut off like the car was full. It took forever to fill the gas tank. Each time we went back to Drivetime and got the same response. Oh once again they told us to get the gas problem fixed and they would pay, we said forget it. We didn't have the money and we didn't trust them to pay us back. During this time my husband's hours at work became less and less. Rather than risk missing payments, we decided to just give the car back and call it even. The car was collateral against the loan and since we could no longer afford to make payments on the loan, we wanted to save our credit by giving the collateral back. We took the car back, explained that even though we were quite explicit about what we could afford, less than $200 per month payment, what we ended up with was a car that was costing $400 per month and some months close to $600 per month and how we just couldn't continue to make payments on the car. We also reviewed the number of things wrong with the car and how we had not received any help from Drivetime with those problems. Now after all our efforts to keep our credit under control, we are facing bad credit due to Drivetime having reported us to the credit bureau for non-payment on the loan even though we gave back the car back within 5 months of purchase. I don't understand how they can have their collateral back AND report us for bad credit. Count us in on any legal action against Drivetime. And can anyone tell me how to get this off my credit.

The car salesmen are very friendly, however the warranty is very LIMITED. You have to pay a $40 diagnostic test, for them to tell that item is not covered. I just purchased a vehicle from them in January and had to get an oil change less than a month later. I also need an alignment, and various flushes plus anything else is discovered. Ask plenty of questions and do your research.