Interest Rate Insanity

      It is astounding to me that just because a consumer may not have a rockstar FICO score (700 or higher), it opens them up to be totally taken advantage of with a car loan.
The other day I had a referral call me looking for some help purchasing a new car. She had already made contact with a dealer and they had a car she wanted, but something was making her uncomfortable. As we communicated, I asked her to find out certain information about her purchase. We were texting an talking. I told her to ask questions like:
What is the MSRP?
What is my purchase price?
What is the invoice price?
What is the interest rate?
How many months is my loan?
These are all important things to know. She knew that she was not a 700 and probably closer to 650. She mentioned that she had a relative to co-sign.
**This can be great but you need to make sure that your co signer qualifies.

        The consumer had put down a 200.00 deposit before she knew her interest rate or co signers information because she wanted the car..  I told her to sleep on it and follow her gut.
The next day she called me from the dealer and I could not believe what I was hearing.
Her credit score was a little lower than she thought. This gave them the open door to bump the interest rate. They told her she would be at a 12.00% interest rate vs. 4.00% she originally thought.
Her cosigner shows up and has NO credit.
**I cannot stress enough how important it is to know this information before you go into buy a car.
All of the sudden the price was very different. I told her to get up and walk out. I would help her find what she wanted. I sat on the phone with her and walked her through it.

      Within 2 minutes her interest rate went down to 7.99%!!!  Now they all of the sudden they wanted to come down on price by 500.00 and lower the interest rate. That did not happen until she was ready to leave and not purchase the car! They had the car she wanted and they knew that she was fearful with the credit situation.

If she would not have listened, they would have closed the deal on those numbers. This is Insanity.
1)educate yourself
2)know the interest rates
3)take time to get that credit score up