Anthony Davis has been selling cars at the Velde GM Supercenter in Pekin for several years now. But he was thrown into neutral this morning when he heard the there wasn't any cash left in "Cash For Clunkers".
"I really don't know if we can deliver the man a car or not because the program was suspended," Davis told News 25. "I didn't know that until this morning when I got here."
Even Davis's boss, Rory Griggs, wasn't getting many answers.
"We just got word that The White House says it's not suspended, so we're still going forward," said Griggs. "As of right now we can't really even get into the dealer portion of the website to see whether the deals that we have in there are being processed or not."
And that's a problem. Griggs says his salesmen are making deals on faith. The government's promised a payoff that hasn't happened yet.
"We've got cars stacked back there that we're trying to deliver," said Davis. "We have delivered our cars, but we don't know if we're going to be paid for them or not."
There are other problems with "Cash For Clunkers". The program became effective July 1st and some dealers started making sales back then. But the details weren't finalized until July 24th, meaning some of those early sales weren't really sales after all.
"Some dealers took the wait–and–see approach and some dealers went ahead and started delivering cars July 1st," said Griggs. "All of those deals are getting slammed in on the 24th and it's created chaos as far as getting something approved. It's not a very easy approval process."
That's left some dealers driving without a map.
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