Nice Cars Consumer Alert

If you're looking for a good deal on a car, you might want to stay away from Nice Cars.

NewsChannel 9 found out the buy here-pay here dealership charges interest rates as high as 28 percent.

It's a raw deal that's left customers thousands in debt, some ending up paying twice the value of the car they purchased.

"You have dug yourself in a hole the minute you signed for that car," said Charles Hixon of the Consumer Credit Counselor Service in Chattanooga.

"Twenty-eight percent is exorbitant in today's market."

But dealers like Nice Cars get away it due to the customers it targets.

Buy here-pay here dealerships sell to people who can't buy a car anywhere else, those with bad or no credit.

Often desperate for a ride, folks say yes to the deal, which at Nice Cars -- just like other similar businesses -- can mean very high interest rates.

"Most of the time," Hixon said, "they're not going to pay attention to the interest rate and sign whatever they can to get the car."

And this leads to real-life nightmares -- and a lot of debt.

Viewers have flooded our Web site with comments about the mistakes they made by going to Nice Cars.

One writer says the car she bought "was listed at $9000 but my ending balance was over $17,000. This company is just another example of how poor people or people with credit problems get taken advantage of."

Another customer says the book value on the car she bought from Nice Cars was "$7,500 and we are paying $16,000 for this car, and I think that is stupid. They are just rip offs, and we knew that, but we have a child and needed a ride."

"What people are writing, does that surprise you?" asked NewsChannel 9's Seth Seymour. Hixon responded, "No, that doesn't surprise me at all."

Hixon says buy here-pay here dealerships defend their practice.

"Their side of the story is, this person would never be able to get a car unless they bought it from us at this level of interest rate," he said.

But Hixson calls it a predatory business, one he says many don't realize.

"But if they did realize, people probably would still do it because they don't have another option."