Horrible South Coast experience (long)
Sep 14, 2009, 12:30 AM
#1
Horrible South Coast experience (long)
There were some errors on my part, but this was an extreme case of mis-communication over and over, with nothing done on South Coast's end to remedy any of it.
The background is as follows: I'm on my way out of the Navy and was debating on getting an Evo X for months. I only wanted an OB GSR with SSS and Aero, anything on top of that I would consider. I originally had a bad *** deal in Illinois using the VIP program, but when I was ready to sign paperwork and pick it up, the price changed last minute because the VIP program doesn't actually work with other rebates.
After pricing things out, the "SMASH" deals were just shy of that insane VIP deal I almost had. South Coast also had almost the same exact car that I was looking at locally except with 7 miles instead of 60+. That was a pretty big deal to me since this is my first brand new car and I feel better about getting an absolutely brand new car vice one that's had a few test drives under its belt and who knows how many farts (not from my own ***) in the Recaros.
Since the OB GSRs were getting very rare around June of this year, I knew I had to act quick. I talked to Sam about the OB inventory and of the 3, this was the 7 mile SSS + Aero beauty that I wanted. I told him I want it, what do I do to make sure that one is mine? He had me put a $500 deposit down and via e-mail I printed out the form and e-mailed it back and put my deposit down quick.
Things were going pretty well up to this point. They didn't tell me when they'd be sending out the paperwork and then I went out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean for a week. I came back and called them up wondering where the paperwork was and they had no clue, they said they sent it. I let them know I was gone for the past week and they sent it again. It is now early July and I tell them I'm getting ready to go out in the middle of the ocean again.
The paperwork arrived on July 7th and the date of sale said July 6th. I don't know if any of you saw the promotional deal about free window tints and Ralliart tails, but I inquired about this since my sale was happening in the middle of the weekend. It was worth a shot but obviously (you'll see why it's obvious later on) that wasn't gonna fly.
I reviewed everything at least twice to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. I was easily approved for 0% APR for 60 months with a credit score of about 800 or 802 or something like that. Then I looked at the two rebate forms, one for military and one for loyalty. I co-signed on a loan for a blue Evo VIII for my brother, and as a co-owner of an Evo, let alone Mitsubishi, I was told by Melvyn (Melvin?) through my brother that this qualifies me for the loyalty rebate. The rebate forms that were sent to me were slightly pre-filled out, meaning they went ahead and checked the boxes that said the rebate has already been applied as down-payment and the checks are to be mailed to the dealer... WHAT???
This was the very first time I got upset with this dealer. I'm glad I looked this all over because who knows if I would've even received a rebate had that not been caught. I called them and let them know of the big problem there and they said oh it's no problem, you can just change it. I also was a little iffy on the rules and regulations being that the paperwork said there's 2 days from date of sale to process the military rebate and 1 day was spent sending it to me. I was then told that's just a technicality and it will be fine.
I filled out all the paperwork and sent it back to them. They wanted every single page notarized and after spending an hour at my credit union, I came to the conclusion that they have some strange perception of what notarizing documents entails. I had one notary document to cover all of my signatures regarding the sale and told them that's what they're getting. They said well send it off and we'll see if that'll work. I sent it off and didn't get a reply, and then went out to do circles in the ocean again.
While I was out I was curious as to how the paperwork was going since I hadn't heard anything back, so I looked up South Coast online and sent a message wondering what the status is. I got a reply from a certain J. Enriquez that works at South Coast that everything was fine and that my car was recently shipped and should arrive at my address shortly. WHAT (again!)??? Now I got an extremely nauseous feeling that someone had taken delivery of my car to have some crazy fun in while I'm stuck in the middle of the ocean. One of my buddies hooked me up and let me call out from whatever satellite phone system aircraft carriers use and I got a very static-filled call through to South Coast. Of course I couldn't get a hold of Sam and whoever it was on there was like I have no idea about the car, I can barely hear you, can I have Sam call you back? I said no, you can't have him call me back I'm in the middle of the ocean and it was hard even getting this call through. He then asked if I could call back then, I said probably not but I'll try.
I wasn't able to call again and had to go to sleep that night feeling like I made a horrible mistake. I got an e-mail a day or two later from Sam saying disregard that message, the car is here with me we're not shipping it anywhere. Finally some relief so I could eat a decent meal again.
August 3rd I'm finally done doing circles in the ocean and I buy plane tickets to LA for my brother and I to pick the car up. At this point I've told Sam that I was still undecided if I want to have the car delivered or pick it up myself and drive it back to Chicago. After I have plane tickets I let him know I'll be there on the 20th to pick the car up. He says cool, can you remind me closer to that date because I have a horrible memory. I say yeah that's no problem.
On Saturday, August 15th, I tell him again that I'm flying in on the 20th and he says alright, can you e-mail me the itinerary and we'll pick you up from the airport. He also asked if I could fly in to the closer airport and I said sorry I can't change the tickets, he said no problem.
Tuesday, August 18th I decide to go to an Illinois DMV to get plates and registration so I can have plates on the car for the 2000 mile drive back. While I'm there I pay the IL sales tax (big mistake that I'll severely regret later).
Sam has my itinerary and everything's all set to go. I fly out there and arrive at 9:20am on the 20th. No Sam around, so I call South Coast to say heyyy I'm at LAX and Sam said he'd pick me up, but there's no Sam, and she says he's not in yet can I have your number and I'll get a hold of him and let him know? I gave her my number, and 10 minutes later Sam shows up in his own car and then flies me down the highway at a good 90mph pace...
During casual conversation he says "Hey, you haven't paid the sales tax yet right?" I reply "Yeah, I paid it when I got the registration." Then he says "But you haven't paid the California sales tax though... right?" I say "Nope, I paid the Illinois tax." That's when he tells me that might be a problem, I might still have to pay CA sales tax.
I get to the dealer and then they're all discussing what needs to be done and long story short they come to the conclusion that I need to pay $2800 in sales tax (already paid $2400 to IL) before they can give me the car. My brother and I agree that this is F'd, why the hell wasn't I informed of this weeks ago when I said I'd be flying in and picking the car up? Sam gets very defensive and says that he ****ed up, sorry. We're kinda like uhhh that's it? You ****ed up, sorry? Then he says yeah it was my mistake I should've let you know, but there's nothing that can be done from here. We need a bill of ladding or proof of sales tax in California. We try to get them to have the car shipped just across the CA/NV border so that they can have their bill of ladding and we can go about our business because we're tired of wasting away hours of our lives in this dealer and starving since we hadn't eaten anything since Chicago about 7 hours prior.
Sam isn't getting us anywhere so we want to speak to someone who can, and Sam replies that if anything's going to come of this, it would go through me. I'm telling you right now that there's nobody in this dealership that will approve of anything I don't approve of. So we ask to speak with the manager anyways. After dealing with her, she agrees to ship the car out of state, but conveniently no tow truck company that can produce a bill of ladding can do it today, Monday at earliest.
Now we get into an argument about paying the CA sales tax, I'm ready to take the hit and pay another hefty sales tax payment, and then go back to IL to request my money back. She says they recently made it a rule that you can't use credit cards for purchases over $2000, so she'll call up corporate to see what they can do. We wait another hour, but in the meantime we get to sit and chat with Josh, the financing guy. Josh is very straight-forward and throughout this entire experience was nothing but helpful. He was the only sign of intelligence in that entire store. He brought out the loyalty rebate form for my brother to sign, and this shocked my brother because he faxed the loan paperwork weeks ago and Sam told him they lost it, please resend. My brother thought that was BS and kept trying to get a hold of someone to get that paperwork through and could not get a call returned for the life of him. Josh said the paperwork was there all along, he handles all that stuff. Wtf. That was a relief though.
Now the manager lady comes back in and says, we'll ALLOW you to use your credit card to pay the CA state tax. Oh thanks, I'm so glad you'll take my money now. So with this horrible experience finally coming to a close, we see that all we've gotten out of this 4-5 hour hassle is the allowed payment via credit card. All this time, the car wasn't even ready for us to take anyways, it was being detailed. I paid for the car a month and a half ago, and even made my first payment on it before seeing it, let Sam know the date I was picking it up almost 3 weeks prior, and we're still waiting on it now that we show up that day.
Soooo I tried getting those Ralliart tails at least since the car was technically sold on the weekend of the promotion, but again, no deal.
This thread is not intended to resolve an issue. This thread is to inform others of a horrible experience I had personally. When Sam said "I ****ed up, sorry," he also went on a rant about "go ahead and bad mouth us on the forums." So here I am, taking Sam's advice and bad mouthing them on the forums.
It was a great price on a brand new Evo X though!
PS: if you've made it this far, you're likely to reply with something like "you should've known you would have to pay CA tax to pick it up there." In that case, no, I really shouldn't have known. The lady at the IL DMV didn't say a word about it when I told her I was picking it up in LA in a few days, Sam never mentioned it when he knew I was picking it up in person in 3 weeks, and I've never bought a car out of state in my life.
The background is as follows: I'm on my way out of the Navy and was debating on getting an Evo X for months. I only wanted an OB GSR with SSS and Aero, anything on top of that I would consider. I originally had a bad *** deal in Illinois using the VIP program, but when I was ready to sign paperwork and pick it up, the price changed last minute because the VIP program doesn't actually work with other rebates.
After pricing things out, the "SMASH" deals were just shy of that insane VIP deal I almost had. South Coast also had almost the same exact car that I was looking at locally except with 7 miles instead of 60+. That was a pretty big deal to me since this is my first brand new car and I feel better about getting an absolutely brand new car vice one that's had a few test drives under its belt and who knows how many farts (not from my own ***) in the Recaros.
Since the OB GSRs were getting very rare around June of this year, I knew I had to act quick. I talked to Sam about the OB inventory and of the 3, this was the 7 mile SSS + Aero beauty that I wanted. I told him I want it, what do I do to make sure that one is mine? He had me put a $500 deposit down and via e-mail I printed out the form and e-mailed it back and put my deposit down quick.
Things were going pretty well up to this point. They didn't tell me when they'd be sending out the paperwork and then I went out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean for a week. I came back and called them up wondering where the paperwork was and they had no clue, they said they sent it. I let them know I was gone for the past week and they sent it again. It is now early July and I tell them I'm getting ready to go out in the middle of the ocean again.
The paperwork arrived on July 7th and the date of sale said July 6th. I don't know if any of you saw the promotional deal about free window tints and Ralliart tails, but I inquired about this since my sale was happening in the middle of the weekend. It was worth a shot but obviously (you'll see why it's obvious later on) that wasn't gonna fly.
I reviewed everything at least twice to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. I was easily approved for 0% APR for 60 months with a credit score of about 800 or 802 or something like that. Then I looked at the two rebate forms, one for military and one for loyalty. I co-signed on a loan for a blue Evo VIII for my brother, and as a co-owner of an Evo, let alone Mitsubishi, I was told by Melvyn (Melvin?) through my brother that this qualifies me for the loyalty rebate. The rebate forms that were sent to me were slightly pre-filled out, meaning they went ahead and checked the boxes that said the rebate has already been applied as down-payment and the checks are to be mailed to the dealer... WHAT???
This was the very first time I got upset with this dealer. I'm glad I looked this all over because who knows if I would've even received a rebate had that not been caught. I called them and let them know of the big problem there and they said oh it's no problem, you can just change it. I also was a little iffy on the rules and regulations being that the paperwork said there's 2 days from date of sale to process the military rebate and 1 day was spent sending it to me. I was then told that's just a technicality and it will be fine.
I filled out all the paperwork and sent it back to them. They wanted every single page notarized and after spending an hour at my credit union, I came to the conclusion that they have some strange perception of what notarizing documents entails. I had one notary document to cover all of my signatures regarding the sale and told them that's what they're getting. They said well send it off and we'll see if that'll work. I sent it off and didn't get a reply, and then went out to do circles in the ocean again.
While I was out I was curious as to how the paperwork was going since I hadn't heard anything back, so I looked up South Coast online and sent a message wondering what the status is. I got a reply from a certain J. Enriquez that works at South Coast that everything was fine and that my car was recently shipped and should arrive at my address shortly. WHAT (again!)??? Now I got an extremely nauseous feeling that someone had taken delivery of my car to have some crazy fun in while I'm stuck in the middle of the ocean. One of my buddies hooked me up and let me call out from whatever satellite phone system aircraft carriers use and I got a very static-filled call through to South Coast. Of course I couldn't get a hold of Sam and whoever it was on there was like I have no idea about the car, I can barely hear you, can I have Sam call you back? I said no, you can't have him call me back I'm in the middle of the ocean and it was hard even getting this call through. He then asked if I could call back then, I said probably not but I'll try.
I wasn't able to call again and had to go to sleep that night feeling like I made a horrible mistake. I got an e-mail a day or two later from Sam saying disregard that message, the car is here with me we're not shipping it anywhere. Finally some relief so I could eat a decent meal again.
August 3rd I'm finally done doing circles in the ocean and I buy plane tickets to LA for my brother and I to pick the car up. At this point I've told Sam that I was still undecided if I want to have the car delivered or pick it up myself and drive it back to Chicago. After I have plane tickets I let him know I'll be there on the 20th to pick the car up. He says cool, can you remind me closer to that date because I have a horrible memory. I say yeah that's no problem.
On Saturday, August 15th, I tell him again that I'm flying in on the 20th and he says alright, can you e-mail me the itinerary and we'll pick you up from the airport. He also asked if I could fly in to the closer airport and I said sorry I can't change the tickets, he said no problem.
Tuesday, August 18th I decide to go to an Illinois DMV to get plates and registration so I can have plates on the car for the 2000 mile drive back. While I'm there I pay the IL sales tax (big mistake that I'll severely regret later).
Sam has my itinerary and everything's all set to go. I fly out there and arrive at 9:20am on the 20th. No Sam around, so I call South Coast to say heyyy I'm at LAX and Sam said he'd pick me up, but there's no Sam, and she says he's not in yet can I have your number and I'll get a hold of him and let him know? I gave her my number, and 10 minutes later Sam shows up in his own car and then flies me down the highway at a good 90mph pace...
During casual conversation he says "Hey, you haven't paid the sales tax yet right?" I reply "Yeah, I paid it when I got the registration." Then he says "But you haven't paid the California sales tax though... right?" I say "Nope, I paid the Illinois tax." That's when he tells me that might be a problem, I might still have to pay CA sales tax.
I get to the dealer and then they're all discussing what needs to be done and long story short they come to the conclusion that I need to pay $2800 in sales tax (already paid $2400 to IL) before they can give me the car. My brother and I agree that this is F'd, why the hell wasn't I informed of this weeks ago when I said I'd be flying in and picking the car up? Sam gets very defensive and says that he ****ed up, sorry. We're kinda like uhhh that's it? You ****ed up, sorry? Then he says yeah it was my mistake I should've let you know, but there's nothing that can be done from here. We need a bill of ladding or proof of sales tax in California. We try to get them to have the car shipped just across the CA/NV border so that they can have their bill of ladding and we can go about our business because we're tired of wasting away hours of our lives in this dealer and starving since we hadn't eaten anything since Chicago about 7 hours prior.
Sam isn't getting us anywhere so we want to speak to someone who can, and Sam replies that if anything's going to come of this, it would go through me. I'm telling you right now that there's nobody in this dealership that will approve of anything I don't approve of. So we ask to speak with the manager anyways. After dealing with her, she agrees to ship the car out of state, but conveniently no tow truck company that can produce a bill of ladding can do it today, Monday at earliest.
Now we get into an argument about paying the CA sales tax, I'm ready to take the hit and pay another hefty sales tax payment, and then go back to IL to request my money back. She says they recently made it a rule that you can't use credit cards for purchases over $2000, so she'll call up corporate to see what they can do. We wait another hour, but in the meantime we get to sit and chat with Josh, the financing guy. Josh is very straight-forward and throughout this entire experience was nothing but helpful. He was the only sign of intelligence in that entire store. He brought out the loyalty rebate form for my brother to sign, and this shocked my brother because he faxed the loan paperwork weeks ago and Sam told him they lost it, please resend. My brother thought that was BS and kept trying to get a hold of someone to get that paperwork through and could not get a call returned for the life of him. Josh said the paperwork was there all along, he handles all that stuff. Wtf. That was a relief though.
Now the manager lady comes back in and says, we'll ALLOW you to use your credit card to pay the CA state tax. Oh thanks, I'm so glad you'll take my money now. So with this horrible experience finally coming to a close, we see that all we've gotten out of this 4-5 hour hassle is the allowed payment via credit card. All this time, the car wasn't even ready for us to take anyways, it was being detailed. I paid for the car a month and a half ago, and even made my first payment on it before seeing it, let Sam know the date I was picking it up almost 3 weeks prior, and we're still waiting on it now that we show up that day.
Soooo I tried getting those Ralliart tails at least since the car was technically sold on the weekend of the promotion, but again, no deal.
This thread is not intended to resolve an issue. This thread is to inform others of a horrible experience I had personally. When Sam said "I ****ed up, sorry," he also went on a rant about "go ahead and bad mouth us on the forums." So here I am, taking Sam's advice and bad mouthing them on the forums.
It was a great price on a brand new Evo X though!
PS: if you've made it this far, you're likely to reply with something like "you should've known you would have to pay CA tax to pick it up there." In that case, no, I really shouldn't have known. The lady at the IL DMV didn't say a word about it when I told her I was picking it up in LA in a few days, Sam never mentioned it when he knew I was picking it up in person in 3 weeks, and I've never bought a car out of state in my life.
Sep 14, 2009, 05:51 AM
#5
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Tough situation.....
There have been many instances of good and not-so-good experiences with the Southcoast buying process.
When I bought my Evo IX from them a few years back it was a 10 minute phone call, paperwork sent, paperwork signed and returned, car scheduled to ship to FL all within 4 business days. (Things broke bad from there with the shipper but that's another story)
By the the sound of your experience, it's obvious that Southcoast isn't well equippped to handle a more complex deal (one that spans over 3 months from initial deposit to delivery).
The tax issue can be confusing, however just like any other major transaction, it's "buyer beware". It stinks that SC did not explain to you the situation re: CA sales tax, but you really can't expect the woman at the IL DMV to know the CA rules either.
Anyway, the post hightlights the fact that the ultimate responsibility lies on the buyers shoulders and that despite how "great" the Soutcoast deals are, we need to cross our own "t's" when dealing with Southcoast as it is obvious they are not "walking people through the process" as to avoid confusion..
There have been many instances of good and not-so-good experiences with the Southcoast buying process.
When I bought my Evo IX from them a few years back it was a 10 minute phone call, paperwork sent, paperwork signed and returned, car scheduled to ship to FL all within 4 business days. (Things broke bad from there with the shipper but that's another story)
By the the sound of your experience, it's obvious that Southcoast isn't well equippped to handle a more complex deal (one that spans over 3 months from initial deposit to delivery).
The tax issue can be confusing, however just like any other major transaction, it's "buyer beware". It stinks that SC did not explain to you the situation re: CA sales tax, but you really can't expect the woman at the IL DMV to know the CA rules either.
Anyway, the post hightlights the fact that the ultimate responsibility lies on the buyers shoulders and that despite how "great" the Soutcoast deals are, we need to cross our own "t's" when dealing with Southcoast as it is obvious they are not "walking people through the process" as to avoid confusion..
Sep 14, 2009, 03:55 PM
#6
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damn that sucks man! whats the word on your sales tax refund? i remember when i bought my IX out of state (CA), they took almost 4 weeks to deliver the damn thing when it was supposed to be 1. i didnt have any major issues with the car other than it almost 4 months for me to get the title. SD only gives a 14day temp plate so i couldnt drive it, pretty much, for the first 3mos i had it. i just stared at it in my garage all day long. lol! hope youre loving your evo though.
Sep 14, 2009, 06:41 PM
#7
I'm currently out of state, as soon as I get back I'm going to the DMV with form RUT-25X, which amends the RUT-25 to reflect errors or changes. I put on there that there was $2800 previously paid to CA so my IL tax should have been $0 and the resulting balance is -$2400. I don't know how long it will take, but hopefully no more than 3 months.
Loving the X though. Trying my best to keep it immaculate but I'll probably give up on that battle soon.
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Sep 15, 2009, 03:42 PM
#9
Evolving Member
Exactly, stop listening to fools on here telling you to go to southcoast because they have great deals lol, their deals arent that great. Now look at all the money you spent.
Sep 15, 2009, 04:04 PM
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Op: Dang thats a pretty crazy situation you had to deal with!
I'm in Hawaii, and I dealt with Mark M. and he pretty much took care of me the whole time.
It was almost smooth as butter =)
I didn't have to pay Ca. tax, but I ended up paying Hi tax as it was required to have the car registered.
I'm in Hawaii, and I dealt with Mark M. and he pretty much took care of me the whole time.
It was almost smooth as butter =)
I didn't have to pay Ca. tax, but I ended up paying Hi tax as it was required to have the car registered.
Sep 15, 2009, 11:02 PM
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Well glad to hear that you got your evo man!
Sometimes we have to go through great lengths to get what we want eh?
Sep 15, 2009, 11:17 PM
#15
Cursing, not knowing whats going on, not being able to remember dates, etc. Sounds like some Class A service to me 
The fact that he carelessly said those things to you and even stated "go ahead and bad mouth on the forums," WOW
It doesn't matter who's fault it was anyway, the cursing and unprofessional nature of Sam's actions are rediculous!
It's bad business like this that costs people LOTS of money
The fact that he carelessly said those things to you and even stated "go ahead and bad mouth on the forums," WOW
It doesn't matter who's fault it was anyway, the cursing and unprofessional nature of Sam's actions are rediculous!
It's bad business like this that costs people LOTS of money