Key public-record excerpts
“I thought this was strange since my wife had just purchased a Honda from Colonial Honda in Dartmouth 3 months prior, using USAA, and they let her take the car the same day.”
“if we used USAA it would take up to 10 days for the payment to go through and we would have to wait to get the car”
“I still have to say that it's unfair to the buyer to be punished for using your choice of payment.”
Full record text
Came in to buy a 2011 Honda CRV EXL with Nav with my wife, who I should also mention was 8 months pregnant at the time. We decided to go to Tasca first since we found them through our USAA car buying program. I planned to trade in my 2002 Jeep Cherokee for a compact SUV that would be better on gas and safer for our new baby. We had an appointment with Alex for 3:00 .Once we arrived we were helped by Anthony Castergini in sales and I was amazed at how smooth the sales process went. Anthony is a great guy. There was none of the typical head butting over prices that I've experienced at other dealerships. In a few minutes, we had settled on price that worked for us. Once we agreed on the price of the car and amount for the trade in I remember thinking, "Why can't other dealerships be like this?". Once we moved into the financing process we seemed to hit a few bumps in the road. We came in pre approved by USAA and planned to finance through them. Kyle told us that if we went with Bristol County Savings bank we might be able to get a lower rate and we could take the vehicle that day but if we used USAA it would take up to 10 days for the payment to go through and we would have to wait to get the car. I thought this was strange since my wife had just purchased a Honda from Colonial Honda in Dartmouth 3 months prior, using USAA, and they let her take the car the same day. We were also told that if we started the financing process with USAA that we would have to leave our Jeep with them, since once the paperwork was started, they officially "owned the vehicle". This meant that we would have no way of driving home from the dealership. Naturally we wanted to leave with the car that day! So with no other choice, we agreed to let Kyle check with his banks to see what our interest rate came back at. At this point it was 5:00 on Saturday and the banks were closed and dealership was closing. At this point, if we had another way to get home we could have just left our e-check from USAA at the dealership and had them start the process the next day. Since we had to take the Jeep home, the process was delayed until the next day. The next day we decided to leave the Jeep for the trade in drop off our e-check and wait for them to let us know when the car was ready. We called ahead a few times to Kyle and didn't hear back and once we arrived we had to wait a few hours since Kyle was busy. We became very frustrated by this experience. After about 2 hours we were approached by Eva in financing and she told us that she would be helping us. Eva was great! She gave us meal tickets to the café and was very straight forward about the financing process. As our financing situation was becoming worse, Eva stepped in and saved the day. Eva worked through all of the paperwork in no time. I then left my Jeep and we left in my wife's car waiting to hear back from the to pick up the car. Each day I became more frustrated over the fact that we could have driven the car off the lot the same day if we had used "their banks". It just didn't sit well with me that because I wanted to use USAA, I had to wait a week to pick up my car. I also thought it was strange since USAA's car buying program actually sent me to Tasca in the first place! By the time Thursday came I called in to check on the car. I knew it was Anthony's day off so I tried financing dept multiple times with no answers. Me and my wife left messages and did not hear back from anyone. ( I later found out that the payment had actually already gone through at the time !). At this point I was so frustrated I called to speak with George Tasca Jr about my experience and left a message with his secretary. Surprisingly George returned my call and spoke with me about my experience. He seemed to understand my frustration and explained their policies on financing. Although I really appreciated George contacting me and him helping me to better understand why Tasca's policies differ from other dealers, I still have to say that it's unfair to the buyer to be punished for using your choice of payment. Finally on Friday Anthony called and told me that the payment had cleared the day before and that I could come pick up the CRV. I met again with Anthony, and was very happy to finally take the car home. Anthony apologized for the delay in financing, which he really had no control over, and even offered to pay for the cost of Inspection! I have to say, even though the overall experience was not what I expected, dealing with Anthony and Eva were definitely the highlights of the process . With everything else that had happened ,had I not been dealing with such a professional sales person as Anthony chances are I would've taken my business else where. I've had the CRV now for about a week and it runs great, I would also seriously consider returning to buy my next car, especially if some changes were made to their financing policies. Sales was Great! Financing Needs Work!!!
Original source
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