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Sometimes a fun experience turns sour. This is what happened to us during the last few days of car shopping.

We’ve been shopping for a new vehicle, and have pretty much settled on the Chevrolet Trailblazer. This past Saturday, we asked a salesman at a local dealer to watch for one that met our specs and price range, as we were having a tough time finding what we were looking for.

So, Monday, I receive an email from him stating he had found a 2007 Trailblazer for $20,500 and gave us a few specs on it, but no photos or details. He wanted to know if we would like him to have it brought to their dealership (it was at another dealer in the Denny Hecker group of dealerships). I asked for more info first, photos, etc. He said he would get them to me once his internet manager came in, Tuesday morning.

In the meantime, I was thinking…. “hrm… I think I’ve seen a Trailblazer with the same specs on another website…” so I went to the Denny Hecker site, and found one that matched pretty closely, except the price was $18,969. It had the VIN displayed, so I asked the salesman for the VIN of the one he was looking to sell me. You guessed it… the VINs matched!!

I was livid… for about five minutes. Then I realized I could potentially use this to get a lower price on the SUV. Fast forward to yesterday around noon. I get an email from the salesman saying the Trailblazer is now online (”oh, really?”), and do I want them to bring it up for me to see.

I checked it out on the site where it had been priced $18,969, and now it was priced $21,995!!! What the heck?!??!! Can this be legal? I proceeded to call the Minnesota Attorney Generals office to query them about this. They said it sounded very suspicious, and that I should pursue the vehicle letting the dealer know what I found, and if I was not satisfied with their response that I should file a complaint which could possibly result in their dealer license being revoked.

Needless to say, I’m going to file that complaint in the morning.