A Phoenix, Arizona, woman is speaking out after a car trade-in deal she made with Bell Honda allegedly went wrong. As reported by AZFamily, Morgan brought her 2015 Honda in for repairs, but she lacked a down payment, so the dealership persuaded her to use the vehicle as a trade-in instead.
According to Korissa Morgan, she spent hours signing documents on a digital tablet as part of a “paperless” process. She left the lot believing the dealership was now responsible for paying off her existing Honda loan. However, weeks later, her original loan company contacted her regarding missed payments, indicating the trade-in had not been completed.
The case of the disappearing trade-in
Alarmed, Morgan returned to Bell Honda requesting her contract. The document she was eventually shown reportedly did not list any trade-in vehicle. Furthermore, the contract date was July 17, five days after the actual purchase on July 12. Her insurance policy supported the timeline with a start date of July 13.
To make matters worse, the dealership initially claimed they did not even have the vehicle, despite Morgan turning over the keys and her personal belongings. With the assistance of AZFamily, the Honda was finally located on the dealership’s lot.
Instead of resolving the contract issue, the dealership sent Morgan a notice demanding that she remove the vehicle from their property. Because she could not afford payments on two vehicles, Morgan was ultimately forced to surrender the 2015 Honda.
Lack of trust: a pervasive industry problem
This incident illustrates the growing consumer vulnerability inherent in digitized auto sales processes. As Ray Shefska, co-founder of the car-buying advocacy service CarEdge, explained to AZFamily, the use of tablets and “paperless” transactions often leads to rushed contract signings and insufficient buyer explanation, creating an environment ripe for exploitation.
A CarEdge survey revealed that 82% of Americans do not trust dealerships to treat them fairly, a statistic that industry critics say points to fundamental issues in consumer protection and sales ethics.
Meanwhile, the shift to signing sensitive documents on iPads and tablets can inadvertently obscure critical terms of the deal, leaving consumers in the dark. According to analysis by the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), high-pressure, digital-only signing environments may make it easier for sales staff to quickly scroll past important disclosures, such as arbitration clauses or trade-in waivers, minimizing the customer’s chance to review them thoroughly.
A Reddit comment about Morgan’s situation echoed this: “I cannot stand dealerships who do the “everything on a tablet” business paperwork (TBH, any business that does that), but especially when combined with ‘we’ll email it to you.'”
The comment added, “NO! GIVE ME PAPER HARD COPIES NOW! Otherwise, no deal. My last dealer new vehicle interaction produced twenty-three pages, and five more were not included in the pile. Yeah, ended up getting over $2K back because of it.”
Is this a Yo-Yo Scam?
And while the Morgan case involves a trade-in discrepancy, it shares elements with “yo-yo” financing scams, where a dealer lets a customer drive away with a car before calling them back days later to announce the financing fell through, often forcing the customer to agree to worse terms or return the vehicle. Such practices are common enough that many states have considered or enacted legislation to protect consumers from these delayed, detrimental contract changes.
Morgan, who expressed feeling “in a hole” financially, hopes her experience will serve as a warning to other buyers. Neither Bell Honda nor its parent company, Berkshire Hathaway Automotive, provided comment on the situation to reporters.
