An Eventful Day

I had to visit SFU yesterday at 9:20PM to meet up with a friend. I had finally found a new owner for my Wacom computer drawing tablet. The problem was, I got off work at 4:30PM and there was about four and a half hours to kill, so I stayed at work with a few others.

She talked about the car deal that's been bothering her at the time. As I learned more about the situation, I grew angry towards this particular salesperson. I was upset to a point I offered to give this person a call right away. That's how everything started. I was in for a ride.

We started out with a lease deal of $588/month for 48 months + 600 freight charge. I didn't know anything about cars, but I read about negotiation skills on the Internet in 1998. I thought it was a simple matter of not being able to find the color they had originally chosen and the dealership wanted to charge them extra to get this vehicle. Our focus was on getting rid of that $600 charge since it was their fault not being able to locate the color before the time of signing.

My other friend disagreed. He believed that we should break the contract and walk away from the bad deal. I didn't know what he meant by a bad deal. After several conversations with the salesperson, I realized that she had already put down $1,000 as deposit and that black and silver were both mentioned in the contract not as a backup, but as one of the two options. If the contract was binding, one of the few things could've happened in my mind. One was to walk away from the deal and give up the deposit. The other was to get rid of that $600 dollars that had been bothering her.

The rabbit hole went deeper than I thought. While I waited in SFU, I began to formulate every possible scenarios that I might encounter today. I worked out a few proposals and backup plans that I could use as my leverage to counter him. In good faith, I didn't want to be excessive in bargaining. What I fool I was trying to be fair and considerate of the salesperson.

Today morning the negotiation began. The sales tried to pitch me the 50/50 deal where we pay for 300 of the transport and they cover the other half. I didn't budge. Little did he know, I had already gotten a quote from another dealership on the top of line Altima 3.5 SE. The dealership offered me the quote over the phone within 5 minutes and that price was actually better than what this sales had given us. The sales had to go back to his manager.

During lunch time, he called me again, acting all excited that he had convinced the management to give him this deal because he had worked so hard for them, and on the promise that he'll make money out of the next deal. Oh he also begged for referrals because he's giving us a cut. He pitched me this: They will pay 300 dollars and we will pay 300 dollars, but they will return 1000 dollars in total at the time of the car pick-up. In my books I took it as a 588/month - 700 discount. I congratulated him on working this out and I told him I would call him back. I went back to her and she asked me if they mean it's 1000 deposit that they're giving us back.

I paused and grew red. I called the sales again and ask him why he was offering this run-around deal that I had refused already. To put it bluntly, it was the same crap, different shape. I told him, "That's not good enough for me. Go back to your manager and you work it out. Once you've decided to absorb that $600 dollars, call me back."

While I was taking lunch, a coworker came to switchboard to give us the heads-up on an incoming upset member. My trainee was on duty so I let her handle it, but she was getting hammered big time by this crazy lady. I asked her to transfer the call to me, even though I was trying to each my lunch while going back and forth with the car sales. I guess I was in the I-am-the-man mood, so I took everything upon myself.

The lady was extremely upset, and she went through a severe mood swing. She began by complaining about everything about our company then she started to ask for the CEO. I quietly asked her what she was calling about and guided her out of the circulating anger. In the end, she apologized and thanked me for listening patiently to her venting. I promised to get an answer for her and have a team leader or a supervisor to call her back. I assured her that the CEO won't be too much of a help in this case. I was on a call center representative mission once again for the second time in my clerical career.

I tried to look up her plan information, but somehow my roaming profile was damaged and I was locked out of all my computers. I had to go to the reception to use my coworker's computer to pull her ID information. Then I went to the contact person within the department since she is a legit CSR, unlike I am. She researched the plan coverage for me with the assistance of an Individual Plan representative. I got the answer I needed and all I needed again is find someone of a higher rank to call her back. There was only one team leader available at the time and she happened to be the team leader of the CSR that gave us the heads up. She bravely took the task and called the lady back within 30 minutes.

Back to my negotiation with this dealership. The sales came back to me as if he was in tears, crying to me with a smile on his face that he had finally done the impossible. He had convinced the manager to let him sell the car without any freight charge, just the $588/month lease price. I was content and hoped that I didn't have to go any further. She gave the okay to have them order the black car from another province.

I was enjoying the triumph of justice and another good deed done. I dropped by receptionist, whom was also my trainee. She was in a collection agency for a good while to know all there is about negotiation. She reminded me to get everything in writing. It was a good idea. This idea blown the rabbit hole wide-open and I sank right to the bottom of this ugly business.

Two years ago, I purchased my car from the same dealership with a different salesperson. It was a pre-negotiated cash deal through a friend. I went to another dealer to test drive the car and had all questions answered. It took us 5 minutes to finish the signing. The sales was very helpful. It was a transaction I still feel good about till this day.

At 1PM I had the fax in my hands. It was not a copy of the contract. The first page was a cover page with my name scribbled in ugly hand-writing. The 2nd pace was an inventory web page print out. It had nothing to do with us, it showed who the vehicle belonged to and no signature. It was a stupid printout!! What I saw next sent me into the hell you'd see in the painting "SCREAM"

On the side of the contract, it says "ALTIMA 2.5 S" I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. 2.5S is the lowest model you can get for Altima whereas 3.5SE is a V6 model with almost 100 more horsepower! I didn't want to believe that fact that this guy is scamming us in broad daylight. I called the other dealership and found the guy I spoke to this morning. I gave him the specs I wanted and he started crunching numbers for me. He quoted me a price after all possible tax and it was $562. Between $588 and $562 over a 48 months lease term, that's about $1200 dollars we're out. Common sense would tell you that a quote over the phone is the worst deal you can possibly get on a car. Apparently this was not the case for us.

Did I mention my friend is a 3rd time returning customer? This is going to be the 3rd time she'll be leasing from this dealership. How in the world did this sales dare to rip off a customer as naive and as loyal as she is. I sat down in my chair at the switchboard and told my trainee, "If I become visibly upset, don't worry about it. It's not about you. I'm just dealing with a scammer."

I called the sales once again. I confronted him with the quote of $562. He was speechless. He was so frightened and asked for a moment while he spoke to his manager because apparently this was the manager's fault. During my afternoon break he called me back. Turned out that his $588 was a "typo" on the contract and they're willing to make it right and offer us $565/month with no transport fee.

A while ago he was just crying to me that he's made an extreme compromise with the management to get me this deal. How fast did the wind turn on his sail. I was growing impatient with him and I spoke very slowly. "Perhaps it's time that I speak to this manager of yours so I can find out why he's trying to rip off a loyal customer." The picture I saw in my head was, a sales saw 2 vulnerable women in the dealership and thought they can pull a quick on on them. He tossed them all these hidden charges and got them all confused. Before they knew it, they've already committed a deposit and an incredibly absurd lease price.

The sales showed signs of fear. He said that he could no longer make any decisions at this point and I'd have to speak to the manager. I gladly took his advise and I will be speaking to and possibly meeting with the manager tomorrow morning. The name of the manager seemed somewhat familiar. It might've been a manager I was in contact with 2 years ago. More so, it might've been a friend of our common friend. It'd be interesting to see how he will respond to me tomorrow. Now it's not about the transport fee, and not about whether we get the color we want or not. It's about retaining a whole network of clients and saving their reputation.

I believed everything happened for a reason. All we have to do is to find God's will in every pleasant and unpleasant encounters. If I had not made the arrangement to drop off the tablet to my friend, I wouldn't have to stayed 4 hours not knowing what to do. If I hadn't stayed, I wouldn't have heard about my friend's worries. I am involved because I prayed that I would serve justice. This is what I asked for. May justice prevail!

Today has gotta be the most distracted day of my employment at PBC. I was dashing back and forth without any concrete idea of what I was doing next, but I know, this must be done to protect my dear friends and for the sake of justice.

I walked home from the Skytrain station at 630PM. I saw a police cruiser in the area but didn't think much of it. Until my mom told me that our tenant's house was broken into earlier today. They left their windows open and possibly a homeless person went in from the window and took their laptop (without battery or AC adapter) and $300 dollars in cash. The burglar left in a hurry. I was shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened to us in the past because this is a heavily patrolled neighborhood. We know each other and we watch out for each other. My father was able to produce a description of the homeless person he saw this morning, but it probably won't do too much good.