I feel we were put through the wringer by Chrysler Financial and Baxter Chrysler in Omaha, Nebraska over the last few months.
I'll tell you why more later but for starters here is a letter I recently sent to Chrysler Financial.
Today I spoke with Liz at the Chrysler Financial office and she proceeded to give me an earful and threatening to ruin me and my financial future on the phone.
While I'm not a writer, I feel this letter does a pretty good job at explaining what happened. If it doesn't feel free to write me back for more details. Send this on to your friends. Who says a person can't defend himself anymore against corporate giants.
The letter:
April 3, 2008
Chrysler Financial
Attn: Marketing Operations
P.O. Box 685
Roanoke, TX 76262
RE: Account Number XXXXXXXXXX
Dear Marketing Relations,
I just got off the phone with a customer service representative regarding an invoice to pay a $316.50 lease termination fee. We had a long conversation about my attempts from November 2007 through lease end with attempts to purchase the van we leased or find a new lease. In both cases we failed because no one was willing to negotiate a reasonable and/or fair settlement.
Before Thanksgiving I stopped in to Baxter Chrysler to have them start working on a new lease deal for a 2008 Town and Country. This should have been plenty of time to work something out since my lease wasn’t up until February. They assured me they could put something together and would notify me when a deal was prepared. I didn’t hear anything until after Christmas when they called to ask if we were still interested, at which point I said yes.
February 1 came and I still didn’t have a new lease so I stopped back in to Baxter to see where they were on a new deal and then I called Chrysler Financial’s office to start negotiating a lease buy out. At that time my lease buy out was $19,750. The going rate for a comparable van was $16,200 so I made an offer and asked for an interest rate for financing. I was quoted $19,750 and 7%. At that point I went back to Baxter and spoke with their lease end coordinator and he told me Chrysler doesn’t negotiate lease-ends because they have lease insurance and it doesn’t matter to them if they lose money on a lease turn in. I asked if they had any other lease turn in’s and what they were asking for them and he told me they could get me into a same year/same model for $16,500 and offered 6% financing. Needless to say, the Fed’s have been dropping rates and the going rate for car loans at that time was 4.75% everywhere else so I walked out of the store.
In summary, this letter is to tell you I didn’t have a pleasant experience with the way I was treated at the end of my Chrysler lease and I’m NOT paying the $316.50 lease termination fee. Yes, I was aware I would have to pay a $300 fee if I didn’t get another Chrysler (from you) but at this point it is not because I didn’t try.
You can call to discuss if you like, my number is (XXX) XXX-XXXX, but it’s after-the-fact. The point is that I tried and failed to work with you and I expect you to waive the fee.
By the way, we did purchase another 2006 Chrysler town and Country with the same mileage and more features than we had. We paid $16,375, got a 5-year/60,000 warranty and a 4.65% APR loan. Do you honestly think we’ll ever come back to Chrysler again?
Regards,
John H.
Thanks for reading. Keep on posting.
