Glad I have something to contribute - at my brand, you get all sorts of entitled types, but one in particular springs to mind. This is long as fuck, so bear with me.
Wind the clock back to March 2015 - I was green as the grass at Augusta, trying to learn the ropes in my new sales gig. Never sold so much as a gram of weed at that point, but I was anxious to prove myself and build up a strong customer base.
Enter the kid, Tim. He looked the part, talked the part and acted the part of a trust fund prodigy looking to spend $200k on the latest and greatest R8 V10. He rolled up in a C63, couldn't have been older than 20 and knew the car inside and out. His Dad had an R8 from us already, and he was here to help him order the next one. He didn't care to drive one and even my noob ass could see this was the real deal. Seemed like a slam dunk from the moment he walked in, right?
Fuck no.
We go through the order guide and he's picking all the right stuff. R8 V10 Spyder, 6 speed manual, Suzuka Grey with a red roof and black/ red diamond stitch interior - the whole 9 yards. He even wanted us to put in carbon fibre door sills that lit up saying R8 for an extra $6k. Sure thing bud - add it all on there.
I'm sweating my ass off thinking I'm about to close a 10 pounder, and we've built in half the available F&I products to wrap this thing up in a jiffy. I ask him if he wants to lease it or finance - not this time squirt, Dad's writing you a cheque on delivery. Cool beans.
Here's the fun part: Tim had Dad's credit card and was ready to give us a deposit to get his order in. They'd fucked off to one of their vacation houses and weren't gonna be back until the weather was less Canadian. The way he specced it, we'd be lucky to see the car in 6 months. He had no issues with that - and was happy to sign off on the deal and give a $10k non refundable deposit.
We place the order with Audi, exclusive bits and all. Car is about to go into production, and I call up Tim to give him the good news.
"Hey Tim - just got word from Audi Canada that we've got a build slot for your car and we'll probably see it here by the beginning of the summer"
"Oh hey man...yeah, I've been meaning to call you. I can't do it. My parents saw their credit card bill and flipped out on me. They told me I need to go get their money back right away."
"Wait, what?? What happened to your Dad writing a cheque for it on pick up? We can't give you back your money man, we're gonna be stuck with this thing."
"I dunno man, my Dad is super pissed. Says you guys shouldn't have sold it to me, and that I need to get the money back."
At this point, I had no idea what to say, so I did the only thing a greenpea knows how to do - run to my mom and dad.
I told both my sales managers that he wanted to cancel and the silence that fell was deafening. These two guys shared an office at the time - my GSMs face turned beet red, if he had something in his hand, he would have crushed it. My SM just had a look of pure disappointment, as if he'd known all along that this deal was too good to be true.
At that point, it all turned into a blur but Tim's dad ended up filing a complaint with Audi Canada, and was ready to smear us everywhere he could until we gave him back his money. My GM seemed to think we'd have no issues moving a manual R8 - so he eventually relented and gave Dad his deposit back, and we'll have a nice piece of inventory for the showroom.
Fast forward to a few months later - car lands and it's an ugly duckling. It was absolutely perfect, except Tim had picked these shiny chrome wheels that clashed horribly with everything else. The car had a sticker just over $200k too, back when an R8 could be had for a buck eighty...
It sat and it sat and it sat. It moved around the showroom and taunted me for months. They gave me hell for that one right up to the moment my colleague sold it December 31 - the last day possible to lease it. They still managed to make $4k on it too...Thanks again Tim!