All posts by Mike

“We don’t have to do that.” Beware GM Financial & Capitol Chevrolet

Personal stuff, , , , , ,
You can have an 800+ credit rating, pay the monthly lease, but if there’s a misunderstanding about the lease extension, Capitol Chevrolet and GM Financial might come to your house without warning, hook up the car and tow it away. Without so much as a phone call or email. While continuing to cash your lease checks. GM Financial’s website says this about their workplace- We Act with Integrity- We do the right thing, the right way. We operate with integrity toward each other, our customers and the markets in which we operate. Adhering to moral, ethical and professional standards is “the heart of it all.”

(Update at bottom; still not resolved)
“We don’t have to do that.” Perhaps the final word in customer service with GM Financial & Capitol Chevrolet?

We’ve been Chevy Volt people for over 6 years. Leased a 2013 model for 3 years, then a 2016 for another 3, the latter car from Capitol Chevrolet. My wife loved that car. We were hoping to get another until Chevrolet announced there would be no more new models. Our lease was up at the end of December, 2018. I called and received a 2 month extension, at the same terms, so we could have some time to look for a new car. I was told 2 months at a time was the way lease extensions worked (I preferred 4 but that wasn’t an option). We were very happy with the Volt so not in a huge rush; after the two months my wife kept sending them the monthly checks, which GM Financial dutifully cashed, with notes asking that the lease continue to be extended. This continued from March through the most-recent check, dated May 30 and cashed by GM Financial on June 7th.

10pm Sunday night, June 23rd, my wife tells me somebody is in danger of backing into our car and damaging it. I look out the window and see a tow truck hooking up the Volt, preparing to take it away. The guy had a legit repo order from GM Financial & Capitol Chevrolet.

What the heck? Can’t get ahold of anybody at GM Financial on a Sunday night. Call the next morning, get someone who tells me we were in violation of the lease agreement because we hadn’t returned the car when the December extension expired.

The woman at GM Financial told me they’d sent a letter (not registered) on June 7th telling us the lease was expired and they could seize the car. I asked if she could re-send a copy of the letter to me. “We don’t have to do that.” This, I assume, is on their recorded call. It was pretty surprising to hear that.

Even-more surprising is that neither GM Financial nor Capitol Chevrolet sent a single email, appparently leaving just a single message on a business answering machine sometime in March, which we never heard.  A misunderstanding that wouldn’t have continued had they done so. They were happy to keep cashing the checks, for an expired lease. Since the lease was null & void, does that money go into a tip jar? Obviously not, but one has to wonder, is this any way to run a customer-facing business?

Earlier Sunday, prior to the repossession, my wife had mentioned how much she liked that car and maybe we should just pay the residual and buy it. Capitol Chevrolet and GM Financial certainly ended such thoughts. I cannot wait to see what they’ll be billing us for the repossession, despite getting back a 3 year old car with less than half the expected mileage (13,000 miles in 3 years) in great condition.

If you’re thinking about leasing a car using GM Financing, you might want to ask them whether they’d bother to call or email you if something seems amiss, to try and eliminate any misunderstandings. They legally don’t have to. I get that. But how much effort does it take to pick up a phone or send an email, and create happy customers that give happy referrals, vs have to be concerned about unhappy customers steering people elsewhere? “We don’t have to do that” is something I’ll never forget. A great reminder of how not to treat my own paying customers. Note to Capitol Chevrolet- You’ll find I sent questions about this to you via your website a couple days ago. You didn’t reply, presumably because “We don’t have to do that.”

Updated 8/7/19- Lots of back & forth between me and Capitol Chevrolet’s social media manager since then, all of it trying to get something going between Capitol Chevrolet and GM Financial to see if what happened to us was “normal” procedure. Hard to believe it’s “normal” not to make a single phone call about the car but keep cashing checks, and then tow it away 10pm on a Sunday night. Rachel (the social media manager) says they tried, but GM Financial cannot release any information due to “privacy laws.” That may be, but does not preclude someone form Capitol Chevrolet from asking GM Financial to look into it and see if it was done according to their standard procedure, and, if so, questioning if that standard procedure seems an appropriate way to deal with Capitol Chevrolet’s customers.

Best time up Kings in 2 years, 1 month & 8 days. Not that I’m keeping track.

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Picture has nothing whatsoever to do with the story. Except maybe I’m jealous of how quickly Kevin could put out a forest fire while I’d be struggling to put out a lit match.
Fifth strong ride in a row. This is something I could get used to. I don’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve had a string of 5 good rides in a row. Seems like a very, very long time.

Just myself and Kevin this morning. No leg warmers, but it did get down to 51 at one point, causing us (briefly) to question that decision. 57 or so on Kings, and that was pretty close to perfect for climbing. I’d lowered my expectations before beginning the climb because, after all, just how long could this string continue? And my right leg still feels a bit done-in from pushing through those cramps at the end of Sunday’s ride. But, you just push on the pedals and go, right? One foot after the other.

Yes, it still sucks that I’m sounding like a steam engine and you literally cannot hear Kevin breathing at all. You can feel a bit sorry for yourself, wondering how much is left on the table just because you can’t get air. Making things a bit worse, I’d frozen the bottom third of my bottle, hoping to keep contents cool during the ride, but the 2/3rds I added this morning somehow managed to largely re-freeze!!! So I couldn’t get much water on as I climbed, and it seemed like I really wanted to drink. But, you just keep on going.

The timing points were beginning to become familiar again, a dramatic change from the past couple years where my gradual deterioration had made them (the timing points) irrelevant as I continued to enter new, ever-slower territory. But now, I feel like I’ve pretty much turned back the clock to just before my Essential Thrombocythemia diagnosis, just before I started taking the meds that reduce that all-important Hematocrit level the fueled Lance Armstrong’s victories via EPO.

How did I get to where I am today? Part of it is likely the weight I shed when I was off the bike for two months from the dual pelvic fracture. You’d think you’d gain weight, being off the bike, but my routine was so out of whack, my mental state so bad, I lost my appetite for food for a while. I thought I’d regain the weight, and in fact, even worked to try, but it’s pretty clear my body has created a new setpoint, about 8 pounds lighter than I was before. And equally true it’s a very healthy weight and not indicative of anything bad resulting from my mild bone marrow cancer. Curiously, a cancer-reformed body is what Lance Armstrong claimed reshaped him into a Tour de France winner. Just strange to think it too a serious fall on black ice to make me a better cyclist. A possible silver lining to what had otherwise become a very, very dark period in my life.

OK, back to the ride. No snake or rabbit or even hawk spottings today, just one banana slug trying to inch its way across Kings. We did the entire ride fog-free, seeing the very edge, almost touching it, as we made the left turn from 84 onto West Old LaHonda. Kevin’s riding pretty strongly again, but isn’t descending quite as fast as I’d like. He gets through the corners fine, perhaps even a bit better lines than I take, but his aero positioning needs some work and he doesn’t push it on the straightaways. He’s not quite the opportunistic rider I am, probably because he doesn’t need to be. It’s the weaker rider that has to make the most of everything presented. The stronger rider makes it known where it hurts.

So how long will it last? I don’t know. I’m sure there will be a few days coming up where I get a chance to “ride casual” at someone else’s pace. Can I get any faster? I think so. I shouldn’t jinx things, but I think I can get back into 28-something territory in the near future. Faster than that? I doubt it. The odds of me ever seeing a 27-something, much less 26-something, are likely several years in the past. I’ve got the will, I have the strength, but I don’t have the air, and without air, I’ve only got about three minutes of strong effort before I run out of gas. I have given some thought of pushing for something better, a stronger drug to free up my lungs, but there are risks that come with those drugs and I largely seem to be able to work around my limitations and still enjoy climbing.

One thing I have in my favor- I very rarely dream. Almost never. So I’m not haunted by the ghost of past version of myself, the climber I might have been. Not when I dream anyway. Maybe it’s worse that those things sometimes come to me when I’m wide awake. 🙂