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Some retail stories stick with you for reasons nobody expects.
This one starts with an older couple happily buying a car together.
Then, barely a week later, the husband returns alone with heartbreaking news.
See how one dealership chose compassion over the contract.
The saddest car deal I was ever a part of
Circa 2014 I sell a Fusion to a nice older couple. It was a husband/wife both in their mid 70s.
The wife wanted a reliable car to drive her grand kids around in, and have something to do errands.
They didn’t have a trade-in (thankfully)
Anyway, the lady fell in love with the Fusion.
It seemed like an easy enough sale.
I just remember them being a really nice to work with couple, and they where happy with the numbers and drove away.
Little bit more then a week later the Husband comes in, he approaches me and asks me if we can talk.
I take him into my office, and as he begins talking, he starts to cry.
I already have a feeling where this is going.
This is really sad.
I hand him some tissue, water and tell him to take his time.
He gets his composure together and tells me his wife died the day after she bought the car from us (heart attack).
Also because of his wife’s death, he won’t be getting her pension anymore. He simply can’t afford to keep the car.
I take him to my GM office, this is above my pay grade.
He gets the story.
The GM sounds like a great guy.
I was for sure my GM was going ask for a death certificate at the very least.
My GM looks at this older man and says “I’m sorry for your loss, are you sure this is what you wanna do?”
The old man says “Yea”
My GM then said he needs to inspect the car as long as its in good order, no damage, etc we are unwinding the deal and we’ll act like it never happened.
The car looked good.
We get out to the car, it literally had 65 miles total on it, his wife had barely driven the car.
It was obviously in great condition and my GM said “I’ll do you one better, I’ll unwind the deal. Its Thursday, I’ll unwind the deal at 5PM on Friday just in case you change your mind call me before 5 on Friday ok”
The man had a few questions, mostly revolving around how this will affect him.
We explained his loan will be refunded, and we’ll take the car back and essentially it’ll be like he never bought the car.
This was a really nice gesture.
I then asked the man if he had come here with a way to get back home.
He said he hadn’t thought that far ahead.
I offered to drive him home, and I dropped him off.
He never did show up that Monday, we unwound the deal.’
FYI my manager googled the wife’s name and saw her obituary and said he’d use that to justify the buyback to the owner.
What a sad story, but I’m so glad the manager took compassion on the customer and helped him out.
I’m sure it felt good to have a little bit less stress getting rid of the car payment.
Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.
This good deed will probably bring them more business.
This person would’ve offered even more help.
This is a good point.
Kindness and empathy for the win!
The manager did the right thing.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who received a work email from a place she never even applied.
It is a sad story.
The man returned after his wife suddenly died, explaining that without her pension he could no longer afford the nearly untouched car.
The dealership unwound the entire sale, gave him extra time to reconsider, and OP even drove him home afterward.
For once, the paperwork came with a little humanity.
