Interest on our down payments?

[David Chaffin]

When I went to pick up my Maverick at Jeff Smith in Byron GA. they tried to tack on an additional $6,000 to the quoted price. They never told me this. EVER! I just about blew my top! I finally got them down to $1700.
I will be speaking to a lawyer. Good thing I insisted they not put a dealer decal on it. I won't advertise their business for free.

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[Mendicant]

Irrelevant.

A security deposit paid to a landlord is very different from paying a deposit to a dealer for the purchase a new vehicle.

I understand that it is not relevant, but I am answering the question as it was literally asked. That is "who I know of that pays interest on a deposit."

 

[MikeYork5]

When does that asteroid get here?

Don't Look Up -

 

[Michaelkov]

Really? I was told you couldn’t order one without it. How else can you place the order then?

My dealer never asked for a down payment. I paid MSRP.

 

[19mustang65]

Mine required 1k deposit

 

[pxpaulx]

On a $500 account you make nothing. But on much larger amounts you make a decent amount of interest. Why do you think companies don’t refund you right away? You think they can’t. No they hold it on their books to get the interest off of it. 1 day of interest on massive sums of money is worth a lot more then you think.

I'm sorry, but this is simply untrue. You're thinking the deposit amount to some grand ponzi scheme here, when the reality is a deposit is just a commitment to a future purchase. Some dealers trust that you'll be buying without a deposit, others are requiring larger amounts as part of proof to Ford that they have committed buyers, yet others require none. It is up to the individual dealer to decide what, if any deposit, they take for custom orders.

Lets bear out the premise that there is some grand scheme here. A dealer has 500(!) custom orders and requires a $500 deposit. That amounts to $250,000! Lets give an average wait time of 6 months, and a very generous 1% in a money market (I promise you, if any business took deposit money and directly invested it they would promptly go to jail - well maybe not promptly, but eventually - all money crimes leave a trail that eventually gets found - source me, 15+ years working in Financial Crimes).

Where do we arrive after 6 months of interest earning a 1% on $250,000? $1,252.61 richer.

Now I don't know about you, but if I were running a business to earn $2,500 a year from 500 customers I don't think I'd be in business very long.

A deposit serves only 2 purposes. First, a commitment from a buyer. Second, proof to Ford that if a buyer backs out they can show that the buyer made a legitimate commitment, and they aren't trying to game the ordering system for additional allocations. That's it.

 

[pxpaulx]

The OP mentioned $500 as a deposit amount. At an annual interest rate of 3.30% , that amounts to $16.50 per year. Divide that by 12 months and your losing $1.38 per month in interest.

I don't claim to be a math wiz, so please let me know if I didn't calculate this correctly.

So, it costs $1.38 per month to wait in line for the hottest selling $20,000-$30,000 truck in America.

Yeah, it's deal breaker for me.

Sounds about as bad as the guy that wouldn't buy from Granger because they added the cost of a tank of gas to his DORA. I mean, literally one of what 3 or 4 dealerships in the entire country selling actively below invoice in a totally transparent process (equated to almost $2K on my loaded XLT), but nah, they are nefariously adding $60 bucks!

And yes your math is correct - $1.38 a month.

 

[pxpaulx]

When I went to pick up my Maverick at Jeff Smith in Byron GA. they tried to tack on an additional $6,000 to the quoted price. They never told me this. EVER! I just about blew my top! I finally got them down to $1700.
I will be speaking to a lawyer. Good thing I insisted they not put a dealer decal on it. I won't advertise their business for free.

I hope at the very least the $1,700 was for a few garbage add-ons like vin etching and low-jack protection...

 

[jbpoole]

When I went to pick up my Maverick at Jeff Smith in Byron GA. they tried to tack on an additional $6,000 to the quoted price. They never told me this. EVER! I just about blew my top! I finally got them down to $1700.
I will be speaking to a lawyer. Good thing I insisted they not put a dealer decal on it. I won't advertise their business for free.

Another great example of why I'd rather have a sister in a whorehouse than a brother who's a car salesman.

 

[rlhdweman]

Bwaaahahahaha!!! 6 months of interest on a simple savings account amounts to what; $1.27??

That would be a great return right now! I have an account that I keep a $500 balance in, for the entire year of 2021 I received 13 cents! That's .13 of 1 dollar! Interest is a thing of the 20th century, its gone & probably forever.

 

[jewc75]

I know lots of dealers that do not require a deposit, the ones that do are scumbags. One of the reasons i was willing to drive anywhere in Texas to get one, local dealerships suck.

 

[stoptothink]

That would be a great return right now! I have an account that I keep a $500 balance in, for the entire year of 2021 I received 13 cents! That's .13 of 1 dollar! Interest is a thing of the 20th century, its gone & probably forever.

I-bonds

 

[DryHeat]

Another great example of why I'd rather have a sister in a whorehouse than a brother who's a car salesman.

Because you know how to find a car on your own? (Just guessing...)

 

[Cmill11]

This is probably a stupid question but is ford applying any interest to our payments that they are holding?

I am going on 6 months at this point since I placed my order. In that time I am sure that ford has made a pretty tidy amount of interest having all of our payments sitting in the bank for them.

you figure roughly 10,000 orders with $500 down and that’s $5,000,000. Now I am no math wizard and I am just guessing at the amount of orders and amount that was put down. But at just 2% interest they are making $100,000 a year on our money.

they pulled this with the bronco saw that they could have extra cash on the books and now are pulling it on the maverick and I am guess next will be the lightning pickup.

maybe it’s time to consult one of those class action lawyers.

Yea I didn't have to put any money down either.

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