Bad experience at Feld Toyota in St. Louis

Put $1,000 deposit in March on Prius after being told that it was refundable, then ran into financial troubles and wanted to cancel the order this weekend. No dice. They refuse to refund my money, I signed a contract, etc. I explained that my salesman had told me it was refundable, but too bad. And I stupidly did not get it in writing. Live and learn.

 

If I cannot get someone to take my place in line, I will buy and immediately sell the Prius, so it really will not cost me anything.

 

My thoughts exactly. I told them if they would not refund my money and forced me to purchase, that I would never do business there again. I have used this place for years as my Toyota repair place of choice, spent thousands in repairs through the years, but they don't care. When I said I would never buy again from them, the manager said "Now why would you say that ?". They do not care. Don't do business with Feld Toyota is all I can say.

 

Update on the refused deposit.
After Toyota Customer Care talked with them, they agreed to refund my $1,000, and I now have my refund. During this episode I contacted the Missouri Attorney General Consumer Fraud Devision, The Missouri Department of Revenue Dealer Investigation Devision, the BBB, and a local TV station.
Since I have my deposit back, this is the contents of the letter I will Send to the owner of Feld Toyotanames and numbers of ex-employees and other non-employees of Feld are "Xed" out)

Mr. Wiese,
I am writing this letter to you in the hope that you will correct a
serious problem I have had at Feld Toyota. Although this letter might
seem a little long winded, I need to give you all of the details as I
know them, so that you can see for yourself what problems currently
exist at your dealership. A copy of this letter will also go to all
those involved at your dealership, along with a copy to Toyota Customer
Care.

On 03-31-04 I went to Feld Toyota to order a Toyota Prius. There was a
waiting list to get a Prius with about a 6 month waiting period, so I
asked the salesman, xxxxx, how I could get on the list and what
was required. He told me that the wait would be about 6 months or so,
and a deposit of $1,000 was required to hold my spot. I then asked if
the deposit was refundable, and he said it was, that Feld couldn't hold
my deposit if I wanted out, and besides, they didn’t want to lose me as a
customer by forcing me to purchase a car I didn't want.
When he brought out the order form, it was called a "Retail Buyers
Order" and I noticed on the front it said, "THIS PURCHASE ORDER
IS THE FINAL CONTRACT FOR SALE OF THE AFORESAID VEHICLE.†I again
asked him about being able to refund my deposit, even though this form
seemed to be saying it was a final contract. He said that this was
simply a form to get me on the list to purchase a Prius, to not worry
about it, that it was just like a preferences sheet, telling Feld what
options I wanted. All I was doing was getting on a list of
people that wanted a Prius, and my deposit was simply to make sure I was
serious.

While I had been looking at the Prius, I also was debating buying
another Toyota, either a Corolla, a Camry or a Scion Xb, so I asked if I
changed my mind and wanted instead to purchase one of those other cars,
could the deposit be put towards them instead. He said yes, and added a
small note saying " Can use $1000 deposit for other Toyota purchase @
Feld Toyota". I then signed the order sheet, paid my deposit and left.

Fast forward to the end of August. I called Feld and asked to talk to
xxxxx about the status of my car. The receptionist said he no
longer worked there, that he had decided to start his own business
, so she transferred me to xxxxxxx, a
different salesman. Over the next few weeks I called a few times to see
where my place was in line, just to keep abreast of things. On Friday
9-24-04, I decided I did not want to purchase the car for personal reasons.
I went down to Feld and told xxxxxx that I needed to cancel my order
and wanted my deposit back. He said he had to ask Dale Wilke (the business manager), so he left
for a minute to talk to Mr. Wilke . He came back and said that Mr. Wilke
told him "no" and there was nothing he could do about it. I asked
to speak to Mr. Wilke, who came over and told me that I had signed
a contract, it was not refundable, and there was nothing more to be
said. I told him that my salesman, xxxxxxx, had told me on three
separate occasions that it was refundable, so why was he saying
otherwise? He said that my conversations with xxxxx were hearsay, I
signed a contract, I should follow through with it, so what was the big
deal. I said that if a salesman says something, as an agent of Feld,
that was as good as the manager saying it, and any attempt to do other
than what we had discussed was fraud. Mr. Wilke told me that none of that was
true, that xxxx no longer worked there, so I could not use my
conversations with him for anything. I told him that this was silly,
that I was not forcing them to keep anything they could not easily sell,
that a long list of people were behind me waiting, and any one of them
would buy what I could not. I said that if I was forced to purchase this
car, that I would never do business with them again, that I had spent
thousands of dollars over the years with them, and that insisting that I
remain a customer was short sighted and senseless.
He then said to me "Now why would you say that?" I said that since I
obviously could not trust them, since whatever a salesman said may or
may not be truthful, how could he expect me to business with them again?
He then threw up his hands, said "I'm done," and walked away. The
conversation ended and I left.

I called my salesman, xxxxxx, at home (xxx-xxx-xxxx) and asked
him if he would verify to John Auen (the manager) at Feld our
discussions about deposit refunds, and he said, "yes, no problem.â€
I contacted the manager John Auen, on 9-25-04, explained my situation,
went through the same argument with him, told him xxxxx would
verify our conversations, and again asked for my deposit. He told me
that I signed a contract, what use was a contract if people could just
walk away, etc. I said I was not trying to hurt them in
any way, and they could sell the Prius to any number of people behind me
on the waiting list, no car had actually been ordered at Feld,
Feld would not be out any money, so surely I should be able to get my
refund back as a gesture on the part of Feld to keep an existing
customer happy. Mr. Auen said he would talk to Mr. Wilke and I should call
him in an hour. After an hour, I called back and Mr. Auen said that Mr.
Wilke said no, and that was the end of it as far as he was concerned.

On 9-27-04, I called Toyota Customer Care and talked to a man named
Victor. I explained my predicament at Feld, he expressed astonishment,
apologized, and asked how he could help. He told me he was very familiar
with Mr. Wilke, and Toyota had a Customer Relations liaison at Feld
named Judy Carson, and he would contact her for me. He explained that
this process might take a few days, but Judy would call me back as soon
as she could to talk to me. I thanked him and hung up.

Since I was going to be waiting for a few days and had no assurance
that my $1,000 would be refunded, I called the Better Business Bureau,
the Missouri Attorney General (Jay Nixon), the Missouri Department of
Revenue and KTVI Channel 2 consumer complaint department
([email protected]). The BBB took my complaint over the phone and told
me Feld had 13 previous complaints over the past 36 months The BBB said
this process could take 30 days or so, but it would be looked into. The
Missouri Attorney General's office forwarded me to the Consumer Fraud
Division, listened to my complaint, agreed Feld was acting fraudulently,
sent me a form to fill out and mail back, along with copies of my
dealings with Feld, and told to wait about 30 days for a response. They
then gave me the phone number of the Dealer Investigation Unit at the
Department of Revenue, and told me to call them, since investigating
fraud by car dealers was what they did. The DOR Dealer Investigation
Unit took my story over the phone, agreed that Feld was probably
fraudulently holding my deposit, faxed me a form, and asked me to fill
it out and mail it back. This process also would take about 30 days to
complete. Margie Ellisor from KTVI Channel 2 called me and asked me to keep
her informed if Feld refused to refund my deposit in a timely manner.

On 10-04-04 I received a call from Judy Carson who assured me that my
deposit was going to be refunded, and the check would arrive on
10-08-04.

On 10-08-04 the deposit refund check arrived.

I have not dropped my complaints to the Missouri Attorney General's
office, the Dealer Investigation Unit at the Department of Revenue, or
the BBB, and do not intend to until they investigate this matter to
determine whether fraud was committed, but I will say this; never in my
life have I been treated so poorly buy a business, and I will never
again have anything to do with Feld. Maybe you do not care, I don't
know. If you go to the service department and look up my records, you
will find that I have spent thousands of dollars at your facility over
the years. That spending will stop. I have purchased a small fortune in
parts at your parts department. That will stop. I am 42 years old and
buy a car about every three to five years, all of them Toyota. Never
again will I consider purchasing from Feld. This whole episode was
stupid, and has cost you my business along with everyone in my family. I
hope it was worth it.


To those of you who will feel compelled to comment about my signing a contract then trying to get out of it, since it had no final purchase price and was simply presented as an order form, not a purchase contract, it was not a valid contract, so says my lawyer, along with the Better Business Bureau, the Missouri Attorney General (Jay Nixon), and the Missouri Department of Revenue . I am not posting this so I can read endless "I would have done this" or "why did or didn't you" comments. I am simply warning other shoppers of Feld Toyota that Feld does not run an honorable dealership.

 

Update:
After Feld refunded my deposit, and after I sent my letters out, I got a call from Toyota Corporate. They apologized and asked what I wanted Feld to do to make everything better. I said that I thought an apology was in order, and that was all I really wanted, just the manager at Feld to call me and admit they were wrong. They Toyota guy said he would see what he could do. About 3 days later I got a call from John Auen , the manager. He said he was sorry about my treatment, that he had listened to the wrong people instead of listening to me, and wanted to let me know that this would never happen again. I asked him why he chose to call me when he did. Was it because of the letters I had written or the call from Toyota? He said that it was not, that he had just been thinking about the whole situation, and realized I had been mis-treated, and wanted to make it right. I thanked him for his apology and hung up. I do not believe that he just happened to call me a few days after the Toyota Corporate call, but whatever the case, he did apologize. It does not change my mind about dealing with them, but at least they admitted to me that I had been wronged. That was all I asked for.
And so, children, they lived happily ever after.
The end.

 

Thank you onerpm.