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What's the deal with Interest?

1255 Views 11 Replies 11 Participants Last post by  rbullett
So I put a deposit down close to 9 months ago now... That's a good chunk of money just sitting there - doing nothing - EXCEPT gaining interest. Who's interest is it? Mine that 'll get applied to the cost of the car when[if] and ever arrives... or the dealers free money?
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I think you know the answer to that one. ;)

The money you would have made in interest is far less than the premium you'd have to pay to buy an Elise right now if you wanted to.
I think it's the dealer's free money. When you car comes in, you'll get your deposit back or it's applied to your car, but definitely not with the interest.

I think the deposit also helps the dealer purchase the car, which is probably why some dealers want a $3,000 to $5,000 deposit (Galpin in CA?) before they get invoiced for the car.
Allan Gibbs said:
I think the deposit also helps the dealer purchase the car, which is probably why some dealers want a $3,000 to $5,000 deposit (Galpin in CA?) before they get invoiced for the car.
Heck, most dealers probably have 4 or 5 elises paid for in deposits. :rolleyes:
you get nothing. But don't worry, you didn't give up anything.

interest rates at a bank are around 1%. For your $1K deposit you would have earned $7.50

Just don't buy the undercoating and you come out ahead!
Galpin is $3000 down for the deposite, and another $7000 upon ordering.

But, it's the dealer free money.

I don't consider it a problem as I'm not expecting to get rich off the interest of $3000. At worst, I miss out on a cheese burger at McDonalds. Which is a good thing :D
I think it's much more significant than that, not per person, but as a whole. If Symbolic takes $2000 from about 250 people who want to waitlist, they're sitting on a cool half-million bucks in cash.

That's enough to put a few Lambo's in inventory or just sit back and collect meager cash interest. Even at 2%, that's $10,000 a month for doing nothing.

I could digress about how maybe that would pay for someone to call customers with updates, but...
Ground Loop said:

Even at 2%, that's $10,000 a month for doing nothing.
that would be $10,000 for the year, not per month.
Ahh, right you are atyclb!

Now I remember why I'm not a banker, loan shark, or out of debt...
For me, there's a direct link between the deposit and a stock I later sold. It was the only stock I was holding at the time back around April and I didn't want to sell it because it was underperforming for the long time I held it and I felt it should have been outperforming (AAPL). It was sell the stock or take back the deposit. As of close today, I would have had around $800 more if I'd taken the deposit back instead of selling the stock. Worse, I have yet to use the money from the stock for what it was intended - buying a house. Compounding that, whether I get an Elise completely depends on the house I end up buying. So to sum up - CRAP!
Ascot only charged me a $500 refundable deposit....and they told me to come on down to drive it after I told them I wanted to order one....overall a great experience so far
Unless you got the dealer to put it in writing that you will receive the interest, the money belongs to the dealer.
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