I just bought my first new car, and I had an experience interesting enough to share, so here goes.

My 01 Maxima had been giving me problems for the last year and a half, so it became time to look for another one. My wife and I researched and budgeted and made our way to a VW dealer nearby. We were helped quickly, and the salesperson didn’t put any real pressure on us–we pretty much knew what we wanted, and the price was on the order of Edmunds’ TMV, so we decided to let the dealer find financing for us. They told us that Chase could do it for 5.49 over 72, and we found that to be satisfactory. We signed papers and drove the car home (Saturday).

Friday rolls around, and my local tag office still doesn’t have our paperwork, so I call the dealer to get the low down, and the F&I guy said that Chase wanted some substantiation of our income. I had told the truth in the figures, so I had no problem faxing a pay stub to him. Just afterward, I went to the internet to read about the situation, and I read about the spot delivery scam. My heart sank.

“Here we go,” I thought. Everything smelled fishy, even though the dealer said that there was nothing to worry about. I resolved to wait the weekend at least and see what came of it.

Saturday morning, I logged on to my online banking through Chase, and my loan was there! 5.49 over 72–exactly what had been promised me–and the monthly payment was a few dollars LESS than my contract stated. Within two hours, the F&I guy had left a message with me that everything was taken care of.

The purpose of this story is to give people hope when there might be some ostensibly unusual activity with their dealer financing. Don’t completely let your guard down, but sometimes, the dealer is being honest and will actually take care of you. Thank goodness it happened to me.