GM Financial Car Leasing Scam

March/06/2018 8:55AM
7 interesting comments, join the discussion
Please follow and like us:

I have enjoyed the pleasure of working with this fine organization for the past week. Here’s the situation. A family member recently passed away. She prepaid a lease on a car and had seven months left on the lease. My research showed the car companies were compelled to allow transfers on leases including GM. The dealer told me I could transfer the lease for $595.  I contacted family members and found two who were interested in using a car for 7 months with almost zero miles for $595.

The dealer called back to say there had to be 12 months left on the lease for a transfer.

I got a copy of the lease from the car dealer but it did not include an account number for the lease. I called GM Finance to see what their policy is.

The gentleman, who was a rude as a government employee, told me he could not talk to me without an account number. I finally got an account number and called back. This time I was told no conversation without a social security number. Got that and called back. Now I needed a phone number and address.

Got all that and called back. Hold time 20 minutes. Finally got a nice lady who said if a death occurs in the first six months of a prepaid lease there can be no transfer. If it occurs after 12 months, no transfer. But, none of that language appears in the lease. She said a fair majority prepaid the lease since there is a financial incentive. In the process of all of this I found this as well.

I’m in the process of transferring my lease on a 2016 Volt. GM Financial goes out of its way to make this process as time-consuming as possible. First, it’s taken a week for GM Financial to approve the lessee’s credit. There isn’t anything wrong with his credit (a credit check was run before submitting the application to GM); and a credit check takes minutes to run. Why GM takes a week is beyond me. Second, it takes GM Financial 30 days to transfer the lease–and that’s after the credit has been approved. No one whom I’ve spoken to at GM Financial can explain what takes 30 days, but they insist that it can’t be done before that period of time. So I’m looking at ~40 days to assign the lease to someone else. This is ridiculous and just seems like an effort to discourage people from transferring their leases. Based on my leasing and buying experience, avoid leasing. Wait until the end. Then you’ll really have some complaints.

Does it appear that the financial arm of GM is running a little scam to disadvantage people who lease cars from them? Especially those who prepay. If something happens the first six months, GM takes the money, you have a window after six months to one year, then they take 40 day to transfer. Every phone call is a 30 minute wait. Government Motors.

Please follow and like us:

Other Articles You Might Enjoy:

  • No Related Posts

Comments (7)

  1. Ronald Gonshorowski says:

    You bet, I understand.
    I have a 2005 Buick, built in Mexico.
    It gave up after only 140k miles.
    While driving to another town with a friend, I noticed a 1999 Envoy with more miles and built in the USA. It has more options and is a great car for just $1300.
    That is way lower cost that it would cost to have the head gaskets replaced on the Buick.
    The only new car I plan to buy in the future is an Elio.
    I have never leased because it has never been a good deal no matter how I crunched the numbers.

  2. Doug Gordon says:

    My first car was a Buick Skylark Ltd. When I looked at the car, I noticed a mark in the plastic panel on the front passenger side like a hot knife had melted it, and pointed that out to the salesman. He assured me that it had been noticed when it arrived on their lot and a new part had been ordered, when it arrived they would call me and arrange an installation. (I did not yet know American built cars means you can take it to the dealership as often as you like to get it NOT repaired).

    So, I wait weeks and no call, finally I call them. Well, the explanation was that the car on their lot is identified one way, once they sell it to me, they lost that link, so when the part arrived, they didn’t have the car to put it in and no way to tell it should be for me, so they sent it back. BUT, they could order the part two day delivery and I scheduled my installation, got a friend to drive to the dealer and take me to work after I dropped it off. All day I’m checking to see what the progress is as to whether my car is ready or not.

    Finally the end of my work day comes, I get my friend to drive me to the dealership after I have assurances that it will be ready when I get there. Nobody seems to know the status when I get there. I finally see my car with the door wide open the interior panel not in. It seems for the Ltd vehicle, that there is a hole in the panel that an extra interior light shine through, and there is a patch of fabric/carpet matching the floor carpet glued into a recessed area on the panel that is not there in the standard model.

    Now, the part they ordered I swear to God had a 37 digit part number, with numbers and letters. That makes for a total of 36 (26 letters of the alphabet + 10 digits 0 through 9) raised to the 37th power possible part numbers. that is a bit larger than 3.8 x 10^57. For reference, there are roughly 7 billion people on the planet, or 7 x 10^7

    BUT, in order to get the correct part they had to add the suffix “LTD” to it to get the panel for MY car. So, they had been cutting a hole for the light with an exacto knife and ripping the carpet piece off my panel and trying to glue it onto the part they received.

    They finally admitted that it could not be made to work correctly and put the old panel in there temporarily, re-ordered the correct part and two days later I got to do the drop off/pick up again all over.

    I called and asked to speak to the owner of the dealership to complain about my experience, but I was told he was out to lunch.

    Three hours later I called again, he said he had just gotten back, and was glad I had called back because he had forgotten all about calling me.

    That pretty much sums up dealing with American car selling/dealers in my experience.

    Sadly, I found when my mother passed away that death was not an excuse to get out of paying for a lot of long term things.

    And don’t get me started on trying to get the dead off of mailing lists. three years since my brother would have been eligible for Medicare this year, and I am getting a tremendous volume of mail from AARP and others trying to get him to sign up for Medicare supplemental insurance policy. I have no idea how they know he would have been 65 this year, but don’t know he passed away three years ago. I suspect our highly efficient government agencies are at work on this, no doubt they make money off of every name they sell to the insurance companies, and so they have no incentive to purge anyone who might not be living. Sigh!

  3. ManOwaR says:

    Ronald Gonshorowski says:, thanks so much for the post.Much thanks again. Really Cool.custom written essays

  4. Bill Robertson says:

    Sent email outlining issue on 2/27/18. Got this response today: 3/7/18.

    Dear Mr. Robertson,

    Thank you for contacting GM Financial.

    In response to your message, it will be necessary to contact Customer Service at 800-436-1463 so that we can provide you with the best possible service.

    Hours of Operation:
    Monday through Thursday, 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. CT,
    Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. CT,
    Saturday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. CT

    We appreciate your business.

    Sincerely,

    GM Financial
    Lease Customer Service
    leasecustomerservice@gmfinancial.com

  5. escola says:

    Thank you Kimberley. Much needed

  6. Brian says:

    My father passed away with a little less than a year left on his lease. We grounded the car immediately and returned it in perfect condition to the dealer. GM financial kept denying that we ever grounded it. After they finally recognized that we did, we thought it was over. Come to find out GM financial kept withdrawing the monthly payments for a year following his death from an account that we needed to go through court to gain access to. They are absolutely horrible in their interactions as they have no empathy for your loss or anything. They just want their money. And the kicker is they sold the car in the auction while they continued to charge my father’s account for it. When someone passes that should be grounds to end a lease. We finally shut that account down and now they are demanding even more money. They already took more than what was left on the lease. We requested a refund and they are talking about putting my mother into collections for a lease that ended and was for a person who passed away. What a horrible company. Heartless and cruel people. Do not do business with them.

  7. Car Guy says:

    Leasing is usually a better option as financial think tank teaches us, you buy what appreciates and lease what depreciates. With the lease you only pay for the time you use the car, usually based around 50% of total cost. Which means you drive better cars at a lower monthly payment. Plus, you always have a car that’s under warranty.
    Prepaying a lease is a rookie mistake. Also you want to stay away from down payments when leasing. This is reserved for purchasing. Remember, any down payment or prepayment can be lost if the car is totaled.
    Yes, GM is horrible when it comes to lease transfers. It is just like dealing with a government agency and the process takes at least 4 weeks. As opposed to, say, BMW, which handles all docs electronically and usually turns a transfer in about 10 days.

Leave a Reply