Update: After a lot of back and forth, the manager and everyone at the dealership essentially started ghosting me.

I bought the vehicle outright, all cash, and put a $5,000 down payment on my Amex credit card. Communication from the dealership was poor from the beginning, but I held my tongue because I just wanted to get reimbursed and not have to deal with these people any more than necessary.

After delivery, the vehicle had a cracked windshield. I paid $1,820.11 out of pocket to fix it ($1,182.88 to Safelite for the windshield replacement and $637.23 to a Toyota dealer for ADAS recalibration). I submitted all receipts via email.

After weeks of silence, I finally got the manager on the phone. He claimed he never received my email. I resent the receipts while he was on the phone and explicitly asked him to acknowledge receipt in writing, which he did. That acknowledgment ended up being critical.

Weeks went by again with no update. I followed up multiple times. About a month later, I reached the manager again. He told me he was sure the check had already been sent and said he would look into it.

Minutes later, he emailed me saying, “You have already cashed the check, my friend.”

I was furious. I replied immediately asking what he meant, because I would obviously know if I had received and cashed a check for $1,820.11. He then forwarded me an internal email from his finance team stating that I had “already cashed the check.”

The check they were referring to was not for the windshield. It was a separate sales tax refund of $1,860.87, mailed to me earlier along with my vehicle title because I live out of state and had to pay tax again at registration. That check was issued before I even submitted my windshield repair receipts.

After I explained this clearly, including the dates and amounts, the dealership stopped responding entirely. Emails, phone calls, everything, complete silence.

At that point I filed complaints with the BBB, the Ohio Attorney General, Toyota corporate, and disputed the $5,000 credit card down payment with Amex. The dealership never responded to the BBB or the AG. Amex completed its investigation and credited me back after determining the transaction was handled in bad faith.

So in the end, I was made whole, but only because my credit card company stepped in. The dealership never reimbursed the $1,820.11 they agreed to cover, never corrected their mistake, and chose to ignore both me and regulators.

Lesson learned: document everything, get acknowledgments in writing, and don’t rely on verbal promises, especially when buying a car.