Paul Stewart sent a message to Mark Fields that said:
To Whom it may concern:
A little background: My Father retired from Ford, I worked at Ford during summers of my College years. I have purchased a total of 13 new ford vehicles in my life, the latest of which is a 2020 Ford Edge from Advantage Ford in Stuart, Florida. Except for a 10 year period when I had a company car and kept an 2001 F150 for my wife for 17 years. I have been very grateful to Ford for this generous A and Z plan and as you can see have been loyal to Ford.
I have no complaints with the Sales person Laurel Krause, she was very professional and helpful. However, I do have issues with the Finance and Insurance person, Pablo Zambrano and the Sales Manager.
The problem surfaced the next day when we were looking through the two documents given to us by the F & I person. The actual contract (a three foot long yellow form), a pink document titled Buyers agreement and other folders in the standard documents included with the owners manual. We were looking for the monthly payment information to set up our bank on line system for recurring electronic payments, when my wife notice an $850 charge on the long yellow form for "optional GAP contract".
During our visit with Pablo , the F & I guy, we explained to him that we usually replace our cars at warranty expiration time, hence our trade in of a 2017 Edge with 29,700 miles. We specifically said more than once that we did not want any of the insurances that he wanted to provide. He showed us an untitled form with 4 levels of insurance for extended warranty and in the blank area of the form he had handwritten an note with a big Green magic marker check mark and a big Black "X" and a hand written line that he asked me to sign.
I have to say the process of trading in and purchase of a car is Brutal. During this Wuhan virus time my wife (who are at risk with our ages) sat with our N95 masks for over three hours while employees were walking all over with and without masks. Pablo never wore a Mask but did say he wiped off his area. By the time we got to Pablo we just wanted out and had to sit and sign God knows how many forms, one of which was this untitled Gap form.
When I talked to both Pablo and the Sales Manager the excuses and denials were blatant. When I asked the Sales Manager why I did not get a copy of any kind of insurance document for GAP he was taken aback. This is important because we would have never known we had any kind of coverage.
I told the Sales manager that if Pablo worked for me I would go back through the sales documents and see how many other people had the GAP insurance included. I personally felt as if this was a tactic by the F & I guy to boost his sales and take advantage of two elderly clients that he might have thought were not all that sharp.
I can honestly say I am appalled at this kind of treatment. At no time was this taken seriously and no apology was ever made. I demanded new contracts and had to make another trip to the dealer to sign revised documents.
I guess this is the way business is transacted in this generation.
Paul Stewart
8516 Gallberry Circle
Port St Lucie, FL 34952
561.716.2876 cell
pauljstewart@bellsouth.net
