I contacted Ehrlich Toyota in Greeley, Colorado to purchase a minivan for my family. Having purchased many vehicles in my life, I told two of their salespeople I would negotiate only on a price that included everything other than tax: “cash plus tax, and out the door”. They agreed.

After investing lots of my time, they jacked the price up by $400 for a “documentation fee”. They also tried to jack up the fee by $250 for floor mats, which he said didn’t come with the car. This seemed dishonest, as I had warned about doing exactly that at the outset of the negotiations, to which their salesperson had responded “I’d never do that”. When I pointed out the violation of our agreement, the salesman gave what I thought was a rather pitiful response because it seems he believes it. “I told you I’d sell you the car for that price, but not the doc fee”.

Knowing full well that they were later going to switch the price on me, they ran a credit report under false premises. All hard credit reports lower your credit score. When I called to ask them the courtesy of rescinding the report, the finance manager was downright rude and falsely claimed that it could not be done with the credit bureau. I will give them credit for loyalty though. They apparently stand squarely behind their poor business practices and rude people, as management only heaped more insults and criticism at me when I complained.

I purchased the same vehicle at my price without phony fees from another dealer in another city. No hassles, honest and very polite.