Bill Pierre Ford Liars, Deceptive, Fradulent, Incompetent, Uncaring! Seattle, Washington

1. Bill Pierre and I signed a contract, where I agreed to payments of $405 a month @ 15.75% interest with $600 down over 72 months on a 2010 Focus SE.
2.  I had a trade in, 2010 Ford Mustang Base coupe.
3.  I had a prior BK before buying the Mustang, so the BK is therefore totally irrelevant.
4. The lenders that Bill Pierre Ford, deceptive Ford dealers, Seattle, did not want to finance the Focus simply because the value of the Focus in relation to the loan amount was not sufficient according to their criteria.
   4a. Bill Pierre Ford then attempted to change the contract terms against my will. They now demanded $3,000 down at a higher interest rate at their "Money Mart."
   4b. The finance manager there was the worst customer service representative I have ever encountered, and it is my mission in life to tell everyone all about it.
5. Bill Pierre Ford, like Sound Ford, made me bring the Focus back and sign a contract rescission against my will.
6. This is called Promissory Estoppal: I relied on their promise to sell me the car when I signed the contract.  I could have sued to enforce, but I concluded the Ford dealer really did not want to sell the Focus that badly, and I had already wasted enough time being embarrassed in their showroom.
7. The $6,000 in incentives and rebates would have completely washed out the negative equity on the Mustang, for a straight-across trade with no loss to either the dealership or to myself.
8.  The dealership lied. 
9.  The dealership could not hold up their end of the contract.
10.  I ended up filing BK again so that I could give the Mustang back to Ford without calling it a repossession. I had nothing to lose but a car I no longer wanted and an expensive car payment.
11. Two months later I bought a good running car for $1,500 and it is still running 15 months later just perfectly.
12. My trust of car dealers is seriously compromised and forever marred because of how Ford Dealers treat the customer.
13.  I have absolutely no motivation whatsoever to lie or conceal any facts, only to reveal what actually happened as a warning to potential buyers.

No emotions, strictly the facts as they occurred.  I don't care what anybody has to say about it, it won't change the facts.  End of story.

http://www.atg.wa.gov/page.aspx?id=25026

So, the question is, was it more than four business days before they unwound the deal?  If so, go talk to an attorney and cash in your lottery ticket before it expires.

In MY case, I ended up getting the car for free, and they paid attorney's fees.  They (NOT Bill Pierre Ford) called me 3 WEEKS later, telling me to bring the car back.  I said no, and gave them the RCW to look up.  You would have thought that they wouldn't screw with someone who knew their rights, but they did. 

Long story short, they repossessed the car, I drove to the dealership everyday until the car vanished, I reported the car stolen, since according to the rule you'll read about at that link they were stuck with the deal they made me, and about 4 months later I get a very angry call from the dealership.  Seems the poor b**tard who bought the car after me got arrested for car theft.  After a nice sit-down with my attorney, who explained that they could be on the hook for 200K to me, plus whatever the poor b**tard who got arrested would sue them for, plus a felony car theft charge against the GM for authorizing the wrongful repossession, they caved quickly and settled to make it go away. 

 But, here's the advice you should have gotten from every other reply to the post.

DON'T just read, DO!!!!!!!

It's one thing to know your rights before you buy, or even to have your rights explained to you months later.  BUT, if you don't EXERCISE those rights, then you will remain exactly where you are now.

If the link is missing, google atg wa gov bushing scams.  It SHOULD be the first link that comes up.

Oh yes.  My OTHER question.  If you had repeatedly told them you wanted a Focus, not a Mustang, and they wouldn't sell you a Focus, why the hell did you stay there?

It is clear to me now that Bill Pierre Ford is in cahoots with certain individuals to downplay my ripoff report, since the modus operandi of a lawyer regarding a "hostile witness" is to destroy credibility, when in fact it is the credibility of Bill Pierre Ford in Seattle, Washington, that is the issue.  Look how quickly he came to their defense!  It is really sad that dealers have to go to such lengths to resist their customers and defend their position, when I made it patently clear that Ford dealers should not be doing business if Bill Pierre makes an agreement to sell a car, and then reneges. That is why I feel I was ripped off by Bill Pierre Ford in Seattle, Washington, a Ford dealer.

Imagine the trouble that people go through to get between a once loyal Ford customer and his desire to drive a Ford Focus, the 2011 or 2012 SE or SES.

I have spotted a straw man fallacy and a red herring right off the bat.  The attempt is to draw fire away from the dealership and onto me, the complaintant.  

Either sell the car, or do not sell the car, but do not sell me a car and make me bring it back because the finance department does not know what it is doing.  Ford dealers, Seattle, Washington.

I cannot bring myself to condemn any of the respondents to this complaint because I do not know them.  I do not know why they feel compelled to attack my testimony, unless they have something to gain.  It really doesn't matter to me.  I believe in and respect the right to Free Speech.

One thing is for sure: I own my own car now, and don't have to worry about putting myself in the position of being denied in the waiting room of a Ford dealer.  Once I read that 90% of all applicants are denied for a car loan anyway, I didn't feel so bad.

Another thing that is clear: I bet that Bill Pierre Ford in Seattle, WA, and all Ford dealers in the United States, will definitely ensure that financing is locked in before sending the customer home with a conditional sale before they see any more complaints like mine.

Clearly, preferential treatment is given to people with a credit score of 700 and above and with a lot of money to put down. I discovered if you don't have it, the Ford dealers would rather not even talk to you. It's more work for them, more paperwork, and more waiting for me, the customer at a Ford dealer in Seattle, Washington.

Thank you for all the responses, I value your feedback, whether critical or positive.

"  Keep those rebuttals coming, it only makes my account more prevalent in the search engines. "

   I suppose it would be safe to say that you know as much about search engines as you do about how Fair Isaac compiles scores.   Sheesh!

   BTW, all these additional replies only show what complete tool you are.  While I began sympathizing with you on the spot delivery, the attempt to lay all of your financial troubles at this dealer's doorstep is ludicrous.   While you may think that any exposure is good exposure, anyone who reads this whole report will dismiss you as an irresponsible whiner.   Congratulations.

How much "press" this report gets doesn't matter any to me. I've no real horse in this race. I already stated I felt the dealer did do things to you that at the very least were aggravating and at worst, damaging to some extent. If this report stays atop Google for the next century, I'd say they asked for it, and to not let anyone else drive a car home they aren't willing to self finance at original agreed to terms if necessary.

I part ways with you about the bankruptcy being their fault. That already is too over the top and wasn't part of your original report.

As for what's anyone else's business or not, this is a public forum and merely posting a report invites responses of all kinds. The reasons you needed, let alone wanted, out of the older car come into play, as well as other factors involved in the bankruptcy you're pinning, at least to some extent, on the business.

It appears as though the lawyers are coming out of the woodwork on this one.  Good.  Keep those rebuttals coming, it only makes my account more prevalent in the search engines. You can say whatever you want about me, holes in my story, whatever.  All the details about my account are irrelevant because the point is that Bill Pierre Ford lied.  The lied about selling me the car they put in writing about.  They were not able to honor their agreement after I agreed to buy the Focus.  Everthing else about my financial situation is therefore moot.

There were other reasons for my wanting to get out of the Mustang, although I do not owe anyone an explanation, I will say that the Mustang is inclined to lead a driver to aggressive driving and it burns too much fuel.  I also did not agree to $4.25 a gallon gas, and when gas crossed the $4.00-a-gallon mark back when, that's when I decided to trade into a Focus.

And my other point is that dealers cannot be trusted when they renege on done deals that were sealed with a handshake and a signature (three signatures, actually).  That's just not a good way to do business, whatever your business is.  So say what you will, it does not change the fact that this dealership changed their mind after making a deal.  Even the response by Mr. Botton is a form letter, and I saw copies of it on other websites, since I am not the only disgruntled customer that Bill Pierre Ford has left in its wake.  I am only one of many.

First of all the "You must be an employee" is SOP when a poster does not like what is said and they have nothing to add to their report.  So let me put your mind at ease, I am not now or have ever been an employee of this or any dealership.

If you had actually read my entire reply the first time you would realize that I explained exactly what they did to you "Spot delivery" and that some less than honest dealers try this to get you to keep the car.  As I said it was good that you did not fall for this the first time turning the car back to them.  But you never really explained how you ended up there 4 months later letting them do the exact same thing.  There is a saying "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me".

As for the Credit Reports based on what you wrote you have financial issues, if you don't then I apologize.  But a 688 FICO is a fair score so that indicates you have at least some minor credit issues, then people do not normally go to a car 1/2 the value just because they want to.  There generally has to be another financially motivated reason. 

People DO NOT declare bankruptcy just because of a Credit Score.  They declare Bankruptcy because they have financial issues.  If you are not in financial "bad shape" then keeping your 2010 Mustang should not be a problem right?  After all the worst that would happen if you could not get out of the Mustang is to keep making the payments as agreed.  That is if you are being 100% honest and the ONLY reason you wanted to get a cheaper was was as a birthday present to yourself.

I did not post this to be mean or rude, but I bet there is more than a little truth in what I am saying about your ability to afford the Mustang and the real reason you wanted the Focus.  Sometimes you have to take a serious(outside) look at your true situation.

As for the inquiries everything I stated you can verify.  A maximum FICO is 850 and Inquiries are only worth 10% so just on the math(forgetting everything else) your score could not drop more than 85 points just because of inquiries.  There are other possible reasons it dropped(Higher debt to Limit ratio on Credit Cards, Late Payment(s), Collection Account(s)...).  It is also very possible that you are trying to compare two different scores, either from different credit reports or different scoring methods.  There are dozens of scoring methods not just FICO and trying to compare a score from one method with a score from another is like comparing Apples and Oranges.

I still agree with you that the dealer probably did you dirty by not being up front about the credit issue, which based on your relatively low FICO going in should have been a red flag.
Even Robert's calculation lowering you from the 680s down close to 600 would have been atrocious on the dealer's part if caused in large measure by their actions.

Now that all said, I side with Robert on your bankruptcy not having anything to do with the dealer. You evidently were in over your head already when looking to dump the Mustang, and your FICO was probably in decline, if not free fall by then. you probably got caught in a s****.> Robert is correct about the 10 year effect too. And neither he, I or any other frequent poster on this site work for the dealer (and I assume none of us work for Ford Credit either).

There's definitely got to be more to your situation than a shifty dealer causing you to go bankrupt.

The two rebuttals came amazingly fast after my initial post to be credible, non-biased replies, so I suspect them to be employees of the Pierre auto group, or friends of the Pierre Auto Group trying to downplay my review.  That's okay though, I made my point.  Yes, my score dropped from a 688 to a 590 JUST FROM INQUIRIES, and I have the credit reports to prove it. YES, I DID want to trade to a less expensive car from a more expensive car, but both (questionable) rebuttals completely missed my point: that Bill Pierre Ford on two separate occasions ripped a deal from under me after having made an agreement to sell me a car, getting me to commit with a signature, congratulating me, shaking my hand, and ASSUMING (the mother of all screw-ups) that the financing was in place, and then telling me sorry, we can't sell you the car as agreed.  We need at least $3,000 down after having told you $600, so forget about the approval.  The lenders Bill Pierre Ford balked at the credit approval, and the letters of denial from those companies clearly stated the reason for the denial was excessive credit inquiries, and nothing more.

So you can argue against me all you want, but the point is that Bill Pierre Ford cannot be trusted. If they agree to sell me a car and then change their mind because their finance department is incompetent, that is not my fault.  All the other stuff about my financial situation is irrelevant. But one thing is clear: I am out of the car buying business because of what Bill Pierre Ford did.  I have to protect myself against what Pierre Ford might do, or who they might send after me.  End of story.

I am not really here to give you a lesson on how credit reports and scoring works because you obviously already know everything.

So telling you things like that each hard inquiry to your report doesn't lower your score by a set amount of points would be ignored by you since you already know everything.  Telling you things like as with everything else in your credit report the most weight is to the recent items.  So with inquiries even though they stay on your report for 2 years, the biggest effect is the first 6 months and after a year they are basically ignored in scoring.  But again since you already know everything you don't care about that either.  Heck, I won't even bring up the fact that they will combine inquiries for Car loans into one to allow for "Rate Shopping".

Then telling you that regardless of who you want to blame, Credit Inquiries did NOT force you into Bankruptcy.  You are just fooling yourself into thinking that, but again since you already know everything I guess you are going to ignore that fact.

You can also try to talk yourself into thinking that you wanted to go from a $28,000 car to a $14,000 car as a "birthday present" to yourself.  But I bet the REAL reason is you bought a car you could not afford and needed to get a cheaper car.

After three years, I will have emerged from BK with no inquiries for three years, a solid payment history (over 20 years), and a FICO of about 720.
- Again you seem to think inquiries are everything so I am sure you will ignore this to.  But the Bankruptcy will be on your Credit Report for up to 10 years.  Since you have declared Bankruptcy you will either be forced to close your accounts, or your creditors will close them for you.  Thus you will have NO recent history.  So forget that 720 FICO for quite a while.  Do you know how to get your credit built back up...applying for credit and that will put inquires on your report.  Oh but I forgot you already know all of this.  I won't even go into the higher interest rates and fees creditors are going to want you to pay because of the Bankruptcy.

Good Luck..You are going to need it

Unfortunately, once a dealership does a hard pull on a credit report, it will stay there for two years unless they intentionally contact TransUnion, Experian and Equifax and specifically ask for each inquiry to be removed. I visited Bill Pierre Ford twice: first in October, 2010, and then in February, 2011, and both times they shotgunned my credit report, ergo, they had multiple lenders all do hard pulls on my credit report, knocking my score down 5 points for EACH hit. Now I can't borrow from anyone because Bill Pierre, and other dealerships, put me in the 500 range and forced a bankruptcy.  I made the choice,  yes, but given the (terrible) cards I was dealt I had no choice. The only thing that repairs a credit report is time. 3rd party companies cannot do it, although they try to sell you on such services. After three years, I will have emerged from BK with no inquiries for three years, a solid payment history (over 20 years), and a FICO of about 720. But it will be a moot point, because of what Bill Pierre did, I will never be in the market for a new car. I could not in good conscience allow myself to go through that humiliation again. Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me. I should have known better, but it's too late now. The truth is clear to me, however: Bill Pierre Ford only cares about one thing: money. If they truly cared about their customers, all of what I had posted would not exist and the Focus that I pictured below would be back in my driveway. But Bill Pierre Ford made me bring the car back. What kind of way to do business is this, anyway? I could get financing on a $28,000 Mustang but not a $14,000 Focus???? Something is definitely wrong here, and I know what: they don't want me driving a car with a lower value-to-loan ratio, and the dealership would have lost money on the deal. I did not ask them to lose money on their account, I only asked them to honor their part of the agreement, since they agreed to sell me the car and I agreed to buy it.  When their lenders balked, then they reneged. Then it's all of what you see here, and much more to come.

So for your 49th Birthday you wanted to trade in a 2010 Mustang for a 2010(or is it 2011) Focus.  That alone makes no sense unless there is some other reason behind this choice, but okay let's go with it. 

It sounds like they did a "spot delivery".  In that they say you were approved when in fact you weren't.  This is very common and with a lot of dealers it is so that the customer can take the car without having to wait for final approval.  With some less than honest dealers they do a "spot delivery" when they know it will be impossible for you to get approved at the terms they quoted you.  Only to hit you with the bad news a few days later, where since you now have had the car(and they hope you want to keep it) they think they can get you into a less favorable deal(higher interest, more down payment, longer terms).

So you didn't fall for it and returned the car that time...GOOD.  But how did you end up there again 4 months later?

Another confusing statement is your claim on your credit report.
That removes all other aspects from the equation, including my credit report. I walked in there with a 688 FICO, and thanks to these clowns shotgunning my credit report, I dropped to a 590!

- When people mention "shotgunning" they usually are referring to Credit Inquiries.  So if it is truly a FICO score it is basically impossible for your score to drop 98 points on just inquiries.  On FICO inquiries are only worth 10% of your overall score, this means at most it would have dropped by 85 points(Max FICO is 850).  With most inquiries only affecting your report by 3-8 points, and FICO treating multiple inquiries for car loans as one(to allow for "rate shopping") 85 points would have had to been an extreme case, but it can't push the 85 points to 98 points.  Even if it is a FAKO(Fake FICO) score 98 points would seem to be an extreme as well.

 So I am not saying your score didn't drop but there has to be other reasons behind it and not just because of the dealer, unless there is more that you have not posted.

Unfortunately, Mr. Botton, you offer only words, and they are too little, too late. The damage is done. If I were in your shoes, I would have dipped into my own pocket to get me into the Focus I had chosen, and I would have been happy for life. When you let a guy like me, determined, purpose driven, Myers-Briggs ENTJ walk away, it will cost you a lot more than just one car sale. I should have a Focus sitting in my driveway. I am in a position now that cannot be reversed, and it is all based on the actions your dealership chose.  To lose one sale to save a few bucks, that will multiply negatively over a hundred fold, maybe even a thousand. I'm a published author. I wrote Highliner. It won't be long before I'm on the radio, and I won't hesitate to mention that I cannot recommend Ford products or services at this time.  Amends were not made, and apology is not enough.  I still don't see the 2011 Focus in my driveway. Heck, I even passed on the newer ones. I wanted the one I had chosen. So on it goes, all over the Internet.  Words are not enough.  I'm a reasonable person, and I have been more than patient.  If I did not like the Focus at all, I would not go to this much trouble. Having a deal ripped out from under me is not something I will soon forget. I have a very long memory.  I would much rather be touting the benefits of my should-have-been new Focus rather than ranting, but I felt completely justified in my complaints.  Last I heard, the customer is in charge, and must be left with the last card to play.  I really, really liked the Focus I had picked out, the one your dealership made me bring back, the ones I am attaching pictures of.  I could never forget this (negative) experience, and I want others to know about it, because I did nothing wrong, and I feel like I was wronged!  And I absolutely hate it when businesses argue with customers rather than making them 100% satisfied instead of filled with a terrible resolve.

We need to hear from the OP that your dealership and Ford Credit arranged for this customer's credit rating to be repaired. Frankly, I don't know what you could do other than that at this point to make anything think they can trust trying to do such a deal at your place.

When dealers stop playing such games in desperation to close a deal, forcing someone to bring back a car you already sent them home with and ruining their credit, maybe then they won't have to see themselves plastered on RR, scrambling to repair the damage.

Dear Mathew M,
 
My name is Roger Botton, General Manager for Pierre Auto Centers.  It is with a sincere apology I write to you.  Our team at Bill Pierre Ford pride themselves on customer service and it appears we clearly missed the mark while working with you.

Customer relationships are very important to us, and I would like to talk with you about it in person. I have tried to find you in the system but need more information about the transaction. This review was written in 2011 but you mention something back in 2010?

Please allow me the opportunity to understand the details of your experience with Bill Pierre Ford.   I can be reached at 206-364-2200. Again, I apologize for not serving you with exceptional service.  I am looking forward to talking with you soon. 
Sincerely,

Roger Botton
General Manager
Pierre Auto Centers