Ferman Nissan N. Florida Ave. Steve Mancuso manager, Salesman Shad, whole finance dept. Deceptive dishonest fraudulent car sales practice they are coercive, unconscionable car salescum that give car dealers that reputation tampa, Florida

The above poster is right. Florida is still a state in which its legal to 'spot' a vehicle without final approval or finance terms being set in stone.

Even from a dealer's perspective, I find it extremely counterproductive. I work at a medium-sized independent lot who does outside bank financing and we NEVER spot cars because its such a pain to get the customer back in, refund their down payment/trade, and re-ready the car for front line display. In rare instances, we've had to have customers come back in and resign at a higher rate or return the vehicle, but these have been because of an issue on THEIR end (i.e. their employment not verifying, lying about being in foreclosure, losing thier job between delivery and verification) and even then we try to be as accommodating as possible. I hate doing that with $6000 cars, much less $35000 cars.

Even folks with subprime credit have enough alternatives out there for this practice to be curtailed.

Agree on a price and terms, take your trade in and you leave thinking it is a done deal. But then they use means to get you back into the dealership, only to tell you it is not a deal..and you have to put more down, or make larger payments etc etc.

You did the right thing. Perhaps there are loopholes in the law that let them get away with this, but there are CERTAINLY no laws that REQUIRE them to do this crap.

Find a better dealership. The ethical ones will either make a deal, or not. No game playing, no coming back for detailing and manuals, and keys and remote controls etc and floor mats whatever. I learned the hard way too...but I made the mistake of paying the additional down payment. I was young and naive, they will NEVER get away with this again now that I know what I know.

They want to break a deal..fine, give me my d**n trade in back and see you later. There is another dealer a few blocks away.

Its June 29, 2010.  After several conversations with a Better Business Bureau specialist who assisted in retrieving my down payment with GM Ed Palaez, they finally returned the $1500.00.  After several complaints, providing several documents and having to prove several lies that were told by the heads of Ferman Nissan they were forced to return what they were trying to blatantly steal from an honest consumer.

 They had several  excuses of why they couldn't return the down payment.  A horrible excuse was that they needed the actual credit card.  The credit card that they didn't have or need when they withdrew the money from the account even without written permission.  They also wanted owners manual returned and spare key to refund money, still no refund after they were returned.

 I received a letter of congrats from XM radio of purchase.  Nissan of North America phoned me to ask how my purchase went without knowledge that supposedly there was no purchase made.  Why wouldn't the leasing company (Nissan) not know that the lease purchase was pending and they just lent me the vehicle for a week?

I have received several adverse actions where I was denied the loan.  Why wouldn't the finance department who does this for a living and supposedly is educated in financing specifically for a dealership not know based on my credit report if I would qualify or not.  Are they in the business to lend $35,000.00 vehicles out?