Why did the Kia dealer take back the trade-in of a $94,000 EV9?

When we first see TikTok creator Ariel B (@the_arielb) in a recent video, she’s locked in the women’s restroom at the Greenway Kia East car dealership in Orlando. She’s not happy at all.

The main problem is that Ariel is unhappy with the dealership’s failure to honor all of the terms agreed upon during a previous visit. And now the sales manager has the keys to her Chevrolet Tahoe and refuses to give them back to her.

Aside: For more details on why car dealerships take control of a customer’s keys before closing a deal, check out this Daily Dot article.

“The car salesman and manager gave me a deal on paper that financing can’t deliver. So now I’m being talked down to and told, ‘We’ll help you with your first car payment.’ I don’t need your help. I just want the deal I was given. So I tried to rescind my offer,” she said.

She’s here to try to buy a new $94,000 Kia EV9.

“I already paid my $5,000. I did my three things, and the three things they’re supposed to do, they can’t do. They promise a lower payment. They don’t deliver it. They promise lower interest rates. They don’t deliver it. Then they try to tell you, ‘Oh, we’ll give you a $7,500 rebate.’ The state of Florida is actually giving me that $7,500 rebate, not you. That’s something you legally have to give me when I switch from a gas car to an electric car.”

At the end of the clip, which has been viewed more than 300,000 times, she ventures back onto the dealership floor like a soldier heading into battle, armed with her cell phone recording everything.

She confronts them in front of the camera

In the following clip, which has over 800,000 views, she is greeted by a trio of dealership employees, including the salesman who she says spoke to her condescendingly while he was in an office and tried to rework the dealership’s part of the sales contract.

As the camera pans to us, we hear the salesman tell her that the deal she originally agreed to will be honored and that it’s time for her to sign the papers.

“This should have been suggested when we were there, when you were talking nonsense to me behind closed doors, not here in public, while two other men were staring me in the face and now you’re talking politely to me. But when we were there behind closed doors, and you were saying you were helping me make my payments, and we were trading for trading nonstop because you’re so picky about your $800, that’s when you should have been polite. Not now, in public.”

A cut at the end of the clip makes it unclear whether Ariel signed the deal or not, but as she drives off with the keys to her Tahoe, it certainly appears that the dealership had an EV9 on the lot that was meant to be sold and on the road.

Why she speaks

In her latest salvo with the salesperson, she reminds anyone dealing with questionable sales tactics that there’s a definite advantage to having a large online audience like Ariel’s TikTok account’s 1.2 million followers.

“The only difference between me and every woman sitting in this lobby is that I’m going to ruin you online. You picked the wrong girl. So thanks for trying to take advantage of me while I was sitting here and correcting yourself in public.”

Commenters on the original clip offered Ariel plenty of encouragement and advice.

“I would 100% call the police. They have no right to keep your keys!” one wrote.

Another advised withdrawing the $5,000 deposit. “Place a stop payment on that check as soon as possible for your deposit if it was a check,” he wrote.

@the_arieb ♬ original sound – The__Ariel_B

Another person said the dealership may have inadvertently done Ariel a favor. “I used to be a Kia tech and honestly stick with your Tahoe, the EV9 still needs a lot of tuning to fix,” she added.

The Daily Dot reached out to Ariel via direct message and the dealership via an online contact form.

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