I recently purchased a car and it turns out that they were advertising that car for more than $7000.00 cheaper. Do they have to sell it to me for the advertised price or can they raise the price? The dealership told me that they can sell it for whatever they want to, but isn't that false advertising? It's a used car so the vin number and the stock number is on the ad.The ad came out on the Thursday before I bought the car and they posted it on their website. I didn't notice it, the finace company called and asked why they charged more than the advertised price.

This happens quite often and on the bottom of the ad, there is typically a disclosure about not being responsible for misprints. If the clause is in there, then they will say it's a "Misprint", and do not have to honor their own price. They also say price only good the date of paper and not applicable with other offers.Technically, dealerships are supposed to review their ad before placement and are required to disclose the stock number, interest rate, length of term, and so on, so if you brought in the ad, then they should have honored it. Did this ad come out after you purchased the car? When did you notice this ad?

The short answer is no.Ads are like coupons. If you buy a medium pizza at full price only to go home and find a coupon for $1.00 off in the paper the pizzaria is not obligated to refund you the dollar. The same goes with automobiles. It just stings a lot more since we are talking about thousands of dollars instead of pennies.If you walked in with the ad and they refused to sell you the car at that price THEN it is false advertising.If there was a trade involved, the dealership may have had to inflate the price of their car in order to show you enough money on paper to cover your inequity in your trade-in.If this was an outright purchase call the GM and complain. After that, call the Better Business Bureau and see if you can get something done that way.

If you came in because of the ad, they would have to sell it to you at that price. You apparently did not see the ad before you made the purchase, and the dealer is under no obligation to redo the deal. You made a deal of your own free will, and bought a car! I doubt that the car was $7000 cheaper than you paid for it! If you look at the fine print of the ad, there most likely was something about the price being before taxes, tags and maybe some other fees listed. Another hook that is used in advertising is the $15000 with your cash or trade worth $6000. Some people would assume that that means that they will give you a $6000 trade, but in reality it means the car is selling for $21,000.Sorry to say, you bought a car, and you have no recourse!

With most of the companies you will see a condition that says "prices are subject to change or XYZ car company reserves the right to change price or withdraw the offer at anytime"If there are no "footnotes" attached then that's illegal. But you have to be very careful coz mostly the adds appear with a * (terms and conditions).I donno if you are in Australia but Govt here has decided to ban false advertising i.e. soon the sellers will have to put the total price in X dollars with no * (hidden costs).If you saw the ad in paper and then went and purchased the car AND there are no *'s there - I must say you stand a GOOD chance. You should take them to court for false advertisement.