Most people walk into a car dealership hoping for honesty. They know dealers want to make a profit, but they still expect to be treated fairly.
Unfortunately, however, some dealerships don’t play fair. Shady ones will rely on pressure, manipulation, and plain old confusion to wear you down, then sell you something you never agreed to.
Bad car sales tactics are more common than most buyers realize, and popular ones involve bait-and-switch pricing, last-minute add-ons, or shady financing terms.
The problem is they don’t always look like scams at first. Sometimes, they start with a friendly smile and a handshake that slowly turns into an offer that starts to change.
That’s exactly what one woman says happened to her at a Toyota dealership in Arizona.
TikTok user Distinee (@tineedis) thought she came prepared. She picked out the car, had the cash ready to go, and even found a salesperson she trusted. But after multiple visits and hours of negotiation, she says the dealership pulled the rug out from under her.
Why Can’t I Work With the Salesman I Liked?
Distinee posted her story in a video that’s now been viewed over 12,000 times. Sitting in her car, she says she’d gone back and forth on whether to post, but doesn’t want someone else to get “screwed over.”
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She says she lives in Arizona and had her eyes on a truck at Big Two Toyota in Chandler. After driving the same vehicle since college, she decided it was time to upgrade.
“I knew exactly what I was looking for,” she says. She called ahead, confirmed the vehicle was available, and brought her boyfriend and his parents for support.
When they arrived, she says they met Mario, an assistant manager who, according to Distinee, was “absolutely great.” He wasn’t pushy, took them on two test drives, and gave them a clear picture of pricing.
“I text Mario the next day and I’m like, ‘Hey, I will definitely be back in,’” she says. She was leaning toward buying one of the trucks and wanted to move forward. But when she returned, she says things immediately shifted.
“As soon as I get there, they’re like, ‘You can’t have Mario. You can have JJ,’” she says. “Which… absolutely a freaking nightmare.”
Deal Goes Downhill From There
She says they talked over her, pushed the wrong deals, and ignored her requests
JJ, she says, acted like he’d been working with her from the start, even though her only interaction with him was a brief online message that seemed like it came from a chatbot.
From there, everything got messy, according to Distinee. JJ allegedly pulled the wrong VIN, quoted incorrect numbers, and kept answering other calls during the meeting.
Even when she explained her budget and the rates she was promised earlier, she says he didn’t seem to listen. “I said, oh, these numbers are not what I was quoted,” she recalls. “Also, I was quoted this amount. You also have it lower online.”
JJ purportedly responded, “I don’t know what you were quoted. You didn’t speak to me.”
Distinee tried to stay calm. “There’s no need to get aggressive. Like, I still want to buy the car, right?”
But she says he got visibly frustrated, tapping the desk, being short with her, and eventually only addressing her boyfriend and his father.
“I’m not trying to pull the race card,” she adds. “But I am Black. My boyfriend and his parents are white. And this man would not look at me, would not talk to me, and acted like I wasn’t even the one buying the car.”
Eventually, they walked out. “It was so unprofessional,” she says.
Where is the Truck?
A few days later, after escalating the situation to management and confirming another appointment with Mario, she rushed over straight from work, thinking the deal was finally going to close.
She says she’d added the truck to her insurance, gathered all her documents, and arrived at the dealership ready to sign.
She got there at 4:19 p.m. Per Distinee, they informed they’d sold the car at 4:15.
“I was like, ‘Are you freaking kidding me?’” she exclaims. “They didn’t even look at me. Still. And I don’t know if it’s a race thing or because I’m a woman, but they’ve been so disrespectful.”
Despite everything, she says she was willing to pay cash for the vehicle that day. Instead, she says she left empty-handed and furious.
Fortunately, things ended on a better note. In a follow-up post on TikTok, Distinee shares photos of a brand-new Toyota truck with the caption, “Say hello to my new ride.”
Should She Escalate the Matter?
People in the comments rallied behind her.
“Be thankful you did not buy a car from them,” one user wrote. “Report to the BBB. Leave reviews. Call the GM.”
Another added, “OMG after all that and they sold the car minutes before you arrived. Wow!”
Some shared other dealership recommendations. “If you’re looking for used, California and sometimes Nevada has cars with lower miles for the same price here,” someone said. “I hate dealing with Phoenix dealerships and I’m yt.”
And others echoed her frustration. “I don’t think it had to do with race,” another person wrote. “But they automatically talk to the man and it [expletive] me off!”
Motor1 has reached out to Toyota and Big Two Toyota via email and Distinee via TikTok direct messages. We'll update this if any respond.
