We had the unfortunate experience of receiving a price quote from Sons Honda (105 Sons Dr, McDonough, GA) via email on Wednesday, August 18th which was then not honored when we were ready to purchase the vehicle (2010 Honda Odyssey EX-L) on Saturday, August 21st. We received the price quote of $29,600 “out the door” by Erma Patterson; when we called Saturday morning to coordinate with Erma, we were informed she was on vacation and were connected with Andre Smith. I informed Andre that Erma had quoted us a price of $29,600 out the door on this vehicle, which was the only remaining 2010 Honda Odyssey EX-L in stock so there was no confusion about which vehicle we were referencing. Andre specifically said “if you received the quote via email from Erma, I can pull it up on her sent emails and we will honor that price”. This prompted my wife, 2 ½ year old son, and myself to drive 25 miles south from Atlanta to Sons Honda to purchase the vehicle.\r
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After agreeing to purchase the vehicle, Andre came back with a price not equal to Erma’s email quote of $29,600. Andre was able to finally find the email I was referencing and printed it out, validating that the price quote was originally sent from Sons Honda. Andre then left for approximately 20 minutes, eventually returning with Melvin Dott. Melvin then proceeded to inform me that they would not honor this price quote and said “people lose their jobs” over situations like this. Melvin also kept asking me what was the lowest price quote I received from other dealers and kept inferring that I should have know this quote was too low.\r
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Melvin positioned the situation as our fault (the customer) for not realizing the price quote was too low and that because of the situation, Erma or Andre could potentially be fired. What Melvin failed to recognize was the ultimate decision to not honor the documented price quote was solely his decision and that he, not Erma or Andre, was accountable for this decision. The impact of Sons Honda losing business by this story being posted online and with the Better Business Bureau is directly associated to Melvin – if the dealership doesn’t sell 2-3 cars now because of this story, that monetary lose is Melvin’s fault.\r
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Erma potentially made a mistake by giving us a wrong price quote. Andre made a mistake by saying Sons Honda would honor any price quote emailed from their system and not verifying the quote when we called and spoke to him. But Melvin made the conscious decision to not honor the quote, blame the customer for the situation, therefore jeopardizing the integrity of the dealership. This was an extremely disappointing situation and our objective is to communicate our side of the story, so Erma isn’t fired for a decision made by Melvin to not honor a documented price quote.\r
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