Oh, what a feeling? What feeling?
We bought a Toyota RAV-4 earlier this year. A few weeks later, the dealership sent us a $20 rebate check. “Thanks,” I probably thought. We cashed it.
This past Tuesday, out of the proverbial blue, the dealer called. “The rebate was a mistake.” “Please don’t cash it.” “You already did?” “OK, you must send us a check for $20.”
When my wife balked at mailing them the anti-rebate, the business manager threatened to call our financing company and say our loan is in default. I don’t even know what that means. But I do feel threatened.
Toyota is a $175 billion corporation. The $20 won’t be missed. But that’s not the point. We’ve already bought two in our mid-to-late twenties. Treat us well, and we’ll probably buy thirteen more. I’m shocked at their short-sighted antics — they’ve now called twice and won’t back down.
Look, I know Toyota isn’t a luxury car. But this was the second-largest purchase we’ve ever made. I want to feel proud of that transaction. What a great missed opportunity for the dealer to reach out, acknowledge there was a mistake, and tell me not to worry about it. That’s relationship marketing. Don’t treat me like I swiped a $20 out of the register.
Noah Brier Said,
September 6, 2006 @ 8:36 am
That’s completely absurd.
Aaron Said,
September 21, 2006 @ 10:56 am
Sounds like it is time to escalate the issue out of principal. Contact Toyota directly for starters informing them the behavior of the dealership in question. I’m willing to bet Toyota will certainly be surprised.
Be sure to ask on what rights or grounds can a dealership attempt to default a loan for a purchased vehicle. Is the vehicle financed through the dealership or through Toyota? I would probably contact the loan provider and also discuss this with them. I think they would be quite surprised to hear a dealership is threatening to “default” you on a loan they (the dealership) don’t have direct control of.
Dealerships are usually not the finance companies and therefore I assume no legal ground to take such an action with you. The very worst I think the dealership should be able to do is try to bill you for 20 dollars and send it to a collection agency.
Then contact the lead manager at the dealership to discuss the matter. Gauge their response and see if the person is someone willing to be reasonable.
All in all, this isn’t something you should lay down and take without fighting. It is the dealer’s fault they sent you money in the first place and therefore at no point can you be held in fault of anything.
Worse comes to worse, contact a lawyer. The big reason for that would be to protect your interests. I know you are thinking “Over 20 bucks??” Well, if the dealership pushes hard enough and this goes to a collection agency, then your credit will get impacted. If that happens, it usually has more far reaching impact beyond the small value of 20 dollars.
Good luck! I’d like to hear how this all turns out!
jasonenglish1 Said,
September 21, 2006 @ 12:14 pm
Thanks for getting me all fired up, Aaron! I’ve had the Toyota HQ ‘Contact Us’ page bookmarked for a few weeks. I’ll try to give them a call today or tomorrow.
Aaron Said,
September 22, 2006 @ 12:57 pm
Hey Jason, have some follow-up thoughts for you.
Had an interesting discussion with a co-worker yesterday about this issue and he painted a couple other counter-points to my previous suggestions:
A. If he and I went to McDonald’s and he paid with his Debt Card and I gave him 20 dollars instead of 2 dollars and I didn’t mean to give him that much, would it be fair of him to simply keep the money even though it was my error? That did make me think a bit more about where the Dealership might be coming from.
B. Let’s say the Dealership did make an honest mistake but it wasn’t just you that received a rebate check. Let’s say they actually sent out 500 of these by accident. That would amount to 10,000 dollars. A much bigger problem for them and makes me realize that perhaps they are trying to correct the mistake on their part.
Maybe it even cost somebody their job, something I hadn’t considered yesterday in my first write up. Purely speculation but an interesting point to consider.
During our discussion, we both also agreed that this probably isn’t Toyota’s fault. I got the impression from your blog entry that the rebate was directly issued by the dealership on behalf of Toyota or was it possibly a promotion by the dealership? Which a more accurate case here?
So all in all, it made me re-think this a bit more and though it isn’t your fault they sent you the money, perhaps they are dealing with a bigger problem than we could see on the surface and they didn’t have the intention of slighting you personally, just trying to recover a business loss.
The question was asked during our discussion that if it happened to us, would we send the money back? After thinking about it last night, I have to admit that looking back, I would send them the money or perhaps even deliver it by hand and see what type of response I got.
Yesterday, I felt it was something worth fighting. Today, I feel like it might not be fair of me or even worth fighting but rather simply returning the money they didn’t mean to send out. An embarrassing mistake by the dealership to be sure but perhaps the right thing to do is give the money back.
Your thoughts?
In closing, I do think that Toyota as a company is probably not at fault here which was the core of your blog post. In reality, I think Toyota is probably very much still a good company with their customer’s best interests in mind. Now the dealership on the other hand…well maybe you’ll buy your next Toyota somewhere else
jasonenglish1 Said,
September 22, 2006 @ 4:12 pm
Your contributions are thought-provoking and much appreciated, Aaron. How\’d you stumble across my site?
You\’re on to something. Toyota the corporation isn\’t the evil party here, or even aware.
What I was reacting to was the Toyota dealership — and probably just one lady at the Toyota dealership — being so shockingly rude and confrontational after her own mistake.
Imagine someone calling tonight and yelling at you for something that happened in May. It was disorienting in a \”did that really just happen?\” way.
This was such a missed opportunity. I believe marketing shouldn\’t live within the marketing department. Had I been the manager of that dealership, I\’d have called personally. If they desperately needed the money back, I would have explained the situation and asked politely. Then offered a free oil change, or a coupon towards tires. Anything but threats. There\’s 5 Toyota dealers within 25 miles of this one. You\’ve gotta build the relationship.
Reminds me of the scene in Glengarry Glen Ross, where the old school salesmen are bitching about the greedy new breed, who\’s taken the relationship out of sales. That might be more than one scene. Maybe the whole movie.
We actually did send the money back. I\’m not proud of it, but I do have excellent credit.
jasonenglish1 Said,
September 22, 2006 @ 4:16 pm
I don’t know what’s going on with the random slashes. Apologies.
Aaron Said,
September 22, 2006 @ 5:41 pm
I agree completely. The Dealership clearly didn’t handle things in the best way. Even a slightly different tact on their part would have changed the outcome from the get go and yes, offering even a little bit of free business to you would have worked wonders at establishing and maintaining loyal customers. Always surprising to see how many businesses stumble on such simple ideas.
Glad to hear that it’s at least behind you now
As far as how I found the site, an associate I work with forwarded it to me. He picked up on the post from another site.