Originally Posted by
DennyO
Your posts above do not seem consistent to me. I would be surprised if any dealer EVER said to MC or VISA "Go ahead and pull my right to take credit cards, it's really no huge deal to me. I am not going to sell this guy a car if he wants to put it all on a card." Nobody who has ever posted on this board has ever had the experience of a dealer who let their agreement be pulled so far as I can tell. That would prevent him from accepting cards for down payments on future car sales as well as for parts and service if they are the same entity, as you seem to concede in your later post. Likewise a dealer is contractually obligated not to charge you the 2% or 3% MC or VISA fee.
So few car buyers try to put an entire car on their CC. If many did, dealerships would either a) stop accepting credit card payments, b) start building the CC fee into the price or c) manufacturers would start offering a "CC fee holdback" into the invoice price. If they don't do "b" or "c", dealerships won't wait for customers to have the CC merchant agreement pulled...they'll do "a" themselves. However, since so few customers do try to put the entire purchase on their CC, the decision to accept such payment is much more weighted by accepting a sale for a loss and making it up with quota/CSR bonuses rather than the fear of having their merchant agreement pulled. Since so few buyers cut into their profit margins with a complete CC purchase, they'll almost always go along and take the sale. This is why you never hear of a dealer getting their merchant agreement pulled.
If a finance manager gives you the runaround with CC limits and you don't want to play
kevinsac's game of leaving the dealership and having them sweat a lost sale, don't break out the "I'll threaten to have your merchant agreement pulled" card. Instead, break out the "I'll nail you on the CSR if we don't close this today" card. Or break out both, but the latter one will get the deal closed much faster than the former.
Regards,
Chris