Customer Must Be in the Store to Finance

THE CARDINAL RULE OF FINANCING IS THIS: WE CANNOT OFFER FINANCING TO ANYONE WHO IS NOT PRESENT IN THE STORE, WITH PROPER ID.

THE NEW SECOND CARDINAL RULE OF FINANCING IS THAT WE CANNOT OFFER FINANCING TO ANYONE WHO DOESN’T LIVE IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY WITH ONE EXCEPTION.

The customer’s permanent address on a verified ID must be within San Diego County.

If an existing customer has moved out of state but has been a customer for more than two years and spent more than $25,000, they can still finance but only if they come into the store.

We currently have two companies that we can use to finance purchases for our customers:

• Wells Fargo Financial
• Citi Financial

We are responsible for verifying the identity of the customer who is requesting credit – not the finance company. That means we have to check ID. The customer has to be physically in the store because otherwise we can’t check their ID and see that their face is the face on the driver’s license.

WE CAN NOT EVEN RUN AN APPLICATION UNTIL WE HAVE SEEN THE CUSTOMER’S FACE AND ID, AND THEY HAVE SIGNED THE APPLICATION IN FRONT OF US.

It is illegal to run a credit check on anyone without their express written permission (a signed credit application).

Out of state applicants in Canada and the US can now apply online, but we can no longer sell to them. The risk of fraud is too high. If fraud does occur, the police in the other state are not going to chase down the suspect in a crime that happened in San Diego, and SDPD is not going to another state to chase a suspect even if the crime occurred here.

It takes a lot of sales to clear a profit, and losing money and merchandise to fraud is too costly to take risks just to make a sale.

Anyone who breaks this policy by making an out of state financing sale will be subject to consequences including a training and corrections period during which commissions may be reduced or eliminated.