Is Your Car Dealer Rooking You Even More Than You Thought?

Car salesman have a richly earned reputation as scumbags, especially used car salesmen. Heck, used car salesmen being little more than weasels in cheap suits is practically an American icon. We even have movies like “The Goods” and “Used Cars” celebrating what douchebags these guys are.

But that kind of becomes less funny once you discover they’re using the same financial scams that wrecked the economy…and so far, they’re politically immune.

The report on common scams and fraudulent behavior comes courtesy of The Center for Public Integrity, and it’s an important one anybody shopping for a vehicle should read.

To give you an idea of how bad it is, one salesman in the article relates that his boss told him that “if you can’t f*** your family you have no business working here.” Remember those subprime home loans that destroyed the economy? They do the same thing with car loans. That low, low financing rate? The salesman jacked it up a few percentage points and uses it as a kickback. There’s literally an account of one of these guys ripping off a little old lady on her trade-in and overcharging her for a car by $5000.

Finally, an important lesson: if you sign a contract for a car, drive it off the lot, and then get a call that your financing fell through, treat it like a scam, because it probably is one. Return the car, get your trade-in, and get out. Turns out, not being able to trust a car dealer isn’t so funny, after all.