A car salesman shared a strange story about a customer who wanted to buy an expensive car. Keith Ron Powell posted a video on TikTok talking about his experience with someone who came to his dealership ready to spend big money, but things did not go as planned. Powell said he first saw the man pull up in a Toyota Camry. The customer then walked into the dealership saying he wanted to buy a Bentley or another luxury car that costs around $200,000.
But there was a problem. The man only wanted to pay $500 to $600 every month and was putting down just $1,000 upfront. “We used to get weird people like this all the time,” Powell said in his TikTok video. Powell told the customer he needed to run a credit check first before they could move forward. The man said no and wanted to test drive the car instead.
He told Powell he had a 700 credit score and thought that was good enough. Powell then did the math and showed him what the payments would actually look like. Even with zero interest over five years, the monthly payment would be about $3,400. Powell told him that $1,000 down would not help much when buying a $200,000 car. The story ended with Powell saying they just looked at each other, and people watching the video figured the customer left without getting his Bentley.
Wait, so do you actually need a credit check to test drive a car?
This whole thing made people wonder if car dealerships can really make you do a credit check before test driving a car. The answer is usually no. Most of the time, all you need is a valid driver’s license to take a car for a spin. Dealerships need your permission before they can check your credit.
There is a law called the Fair Credit Reporting Act that controls how credit reports work. The Federal Trade Commission says that car dealers cannot pull your credit report if you are just looking around or taking a test drive. They need you to sign something that says it is okay, and they can only do it when you actually apply for a loan through them.
But some dealerships still try to push for credit checks before test drives. This happens more with expensive cars or cars that are hard to find. They might say it is required to see if you are serious about buying. What they really want to know is if you can afford the car so they do not waste their time. Some fancy car dealerships say they do this to keep the miles low on special cars.
People had different reactions to Powell’s video. Many thought the customer was being unrealistic about what he could afford. One person wrote that even getting a regular Camry for $500 to $600 a month would be tough these days. Other people made jokes about it. Someone said maybe the customer meant 50 years to pay off the car instead of five years. It shows how some people do not understand how much luxury cars really cost. It also got people talking about how different dealerships have different rules about credit checks and test drives. Just like other car-related stories that go viral, this one has people debating what is fair when it comes to buying cars.
