Dealership offers woman $5,500 for her car, what she finds when she gets home makes her call them out for ‘ripping her off’

A TikTok user named Luke Cameron found out she was being badly undervalued by a car dealership when they offered her only $5,500 for her trade-in vehicle. Cameron, who goes by @lakeviewliving on the platform, shared several videos talking about her frustrating car buying experience. She decided not to buy a new car because the trade-in offer was insultingly low.

According to Motor1, Cameron told the dealership worker that she went home and did her own research. She quickly confirmed that the dealership was trying to trick her. In her TikTok video, she showed a paper with three separate online offers for cars identical to hers in make, model, and mileage. She said, “I found that when I told them they were ripping me off by offering me $5,500 for my vehicle…turns out they were ripping me off.”

The similar listings she found online ranged from $16,900 and $16,990 up to $20,998. If a dealership offers you $5,500 and then lists the same car for nearly $17,000, they are clearly trying to make a huge profit. Cameron figured out the dealer was going to make over $10,000 on the trade-in alone.

The dealership wouldn’t negotiate and tried adding expensive extras

The dealership refused to lower the price of the new car she wanted to buy. They also tried to add an $11,000 warranty on top. After she explained all her problems, the sales rep tried to make the deal better by acting like throwing in some weather tech mats was a big favor. Cameron found that attitude “laughable.”

After she drove home, the dealership called her back trying to save the sale. The worker asked if there was anything he could do to sell her the car. Cameron saw this as a chance to turn the negotiation around completely. Stories like this show why dealerships lose customer trust when they use deceptive tactics.

She told him to sell it to her right then for $46,000 including tax, tags, and title, with a warranty, all weather tech mats, and the Suburban mats included. She added that they would have to deliver the car because she wasn’t driving back. The worker immediately said no, claiming “There’s no way I can do that.”

The salesman then tried to use her previous offer against her. He said she had offered $48,000 just the day before. Cameron shut that down quickly. She told him that since he let her leave and “stew on it,” the price had dropped. “Tomorrow it’s gonna be $45,” she warned him, “Just letting you know. You wanna sell the car?”

She even knew the car had been sitting on the lot for 52 days. She told the salesman she knew this because “Your people have big mouths.” She said, “Small brains, big mouths, not a good combination for sales people.” However, in a separate video, Cameron mentioned that her trade-in vehicle had water damage.

Commenters pointed out that this condition would justify a much lower trade-in quote compared to clean models. If the car had major water issues, that $5,500 offer makes more sense from a business view. Unfortunately, damaged vehicles often face costly repairs that dealerships factor into their offers.