Application Fee?

[CompShooter]

Brian brings up an interesting point I forgot to mention. The dealer said it's a $100 application fee which you have to pay whether you get approved or not.

Not how would you feel about the dealer if you just got rejected for a loan but you still had to fork out a hundred bucks?

Consider this, if you wanted the tractor, FEL and backhoe, the BH might push the loan to income ratio to a point where you might get rejected. So the logical thing to do would be to drop the BH and re-apply. Another $100. Hopefully you get approved this time.

 

[66gladiator]

'Course on the other hand, you'll have the customer (almost weekly) who will use an hour or more of a salesman's time looking/trying a tractor, another hour haggling price, 1/2 hour completing/submitting an application and then he is turned down because he "forgot" about the __________ (bankruptcy, judgement, foreclosure, slow pay, etc.) and is turned down for credit and you have nothing to show for it. Even worse, if you have another customer or two that you could have been waiting on.
After quite a few of those, you too might be thinking about an application fee (WE DON'T CHARGE ONE BTW!)
And then there are the 15-20 minute "service calls" looking for free advice.

 

[DiezNutz]

Sounds to me like that's just the nature of the Sales business ever since there's been sales, like it or not. Last I checked, there isn't a "sure thing" in that business and good salesmen don't try to hedge their bets on one.
Any time I've been saddled with an Application Fee, I've insisted that it be refunded to me/applied toward the purchase if the transaction is completed successfully.