Just received my free $1,000 debit card from Chase after buying Prius

i guess the million dollar question is what was the interest rate on your loan
and for how much?

if you get 4-5% excellent!
if you paid 6.9% not so great ;-) you basically just got the money back if you
would have sought out a 4.05% loan like i got.

 

yes i got the card last month and if u wanna use ur card to withdraw money from an ATM, u better withdraw everything at once because they charge $2 for each transaction at the ATM. even chase's own ATM. i didnt notice and i withdrew 4 times.. lost $8.
oh by the way i called several dealers and only one dealer offered me this debit card thru chase..

 

Hides card behind his back as he says "Oh Geez..what was I thinking, Kids? I didn't realize DisneyWorld would be THAT expensive, ....well, kids, guess we'll have to save up for another year!

"Hello, BtTech, yeah, I got a windfall and I'd like to buy all the stuff you can send, money order is no problem, please send it quick."

ZC1

 

Well, they do not offer this program anymore. The bank is suppose to acutally give you a $1000 check and not a debit card. I have done this 2x and my credit union. It was part of the Green Rewards program. They stopped the program May 15th.

Alexi Giannoulias - Illinois State Treasurer

 

pay off your loan with it.

 

I was one of the earlier participants in this program. At that time, I took out a $4,000 loan and received a $1,000 check directly from the bank (there was a short list of approved banks in Illinois). The check came within a week, I believe. I deposited the check and paid off the loan in about two months.

Congratulations on taking advantage of the program. It was nice while it lasted.

 

Or you can look at it like they charged you an extra $1,000 for the car and then gave you the rebate, which technically you must declare as income and pay tax on.

Look, what it really comes down to is you negotiate a price for the car and a rate for the financing. Rebates are a scam to make you feel good. If they were honest they'd just have cut $1,000 off the price of the car or the interest on the loan.

This way you pay sales tax on that extra $1,000 that they charged you for the car, plus income tax on the same $1,000 that they gave you back. I'd have said, just take the grand off the price of the car or I walk. I don't know the rates in your state or your tax bracket, but let's say your sales tan is 6% and your income bracket is 20%: You didn't save $1,000, you paid an extra $260!!!

 

It all depend on how much you paid for the Prius.
If you get the $3000-$4000 off the MSRP, then you are ahead, otherwise just like daniel said, they charged you $1000 more and gave it back to you as rebate.

 

Whew! Daniel's got the cynic's hat on today!

Remember, folks, this is not a Toyota program rebate or a dealer-instituted event. This is (was) a program offered by the State of Illinois. It was only available for those buyers who purchased a qualifying hybrid or alternative fuel vehicle and financed it through one of the lenders approved by the State. The $1,000 was not part of any price negotiations, though some dealers may have mentioned it.

When I did it, my salesman had no idea about the program. The lender was not one the dealer typically dealt with, so there was little incentive for the dealer to broadcast the event (even if they knew about it).

The odd thing about this program is that it was offered by the State Treasurer. I think it all started because the State Treasurer was (and is) angling for higher office and wanted to have his own green program he could later advertise. The Treasurer's office was responsible for running a similar program for farmers and had developed a system with banks that service the agricultural community. When the program started there were between 12 and 16 banks involved, and they were NOT in the Chicagoland area. The closest bank to me was more than 50 miles west of Chicago.

No doubt each of us would have been better off getting $1,000 off of the purchase price, but Toyota was not sponsoring the event. If I netted $260 less, then I happily accept the $740 I received from the State, because I would not have received that benefit for anything but a hybrid or alternative fuel car.

 

Sounds like you did well to me.
Now if dealers could be trusted maybe they would be able to subsidise the car at point of purchase? But we know that will never be.

 

Oops. I didn't realize this. My bad! :embarassed:

I am a bit of a cynic, and a skeptic. And what I said does apply to manufacturer rebates, which other car companies have used in the past. In those cases they could just sell the car cheaper, but a rebate looks like you're getting "free money" when you're really just paying less for the car than the stated price. And in those cases, you are paying extra sales tax, and if you do not lie on your tax forms, you are paying extra income tax.

But in the present case, it's just the government giving taxpayer money to car buyers. (I've always though it made no sense to give tax breaks to people who bought Priuses when Toyota couldn't even keep up with the demand. An incentive has no effect when there are long waiting lines to buy the car even without incentives.)

 

This program is no longer in effect. They had a set amount they were giving away and that amount was reached awhile ago.

 

I know! I was just giving you a rough time.

I agree on the rebate concept, generally. It is great at increasing sales and revenue. Not everyone takes advantage of rebates. Even when they do, they are likely pinioned into an obligation to buy more from the retailer offering the rebate.

On the rebate as incentive on the Prius: I agree that incentives for items in high demand don't make sense from a retail/profit-oriented perspective, but from a behavior-change view, they could be very valuable. It makes the buyer more interested in paying the asking price, and this makes the manufacturer more interested in making more of the product. What makes no sense to me, from a public policy point of view, is that the incentive rebate (or tax break) is reduced based on the success of the automaker. It seems to me it was written just to frustrate the lead dog(s). By the time Detroit is ready to compete on an even stage (or close, anyway), the incentive is available only to Detroit cars and not to the Toyota and Honda cars.

If it is a good and valuable thing, why discourage it? Make it more widely available, and the car companies will make even more hybrids -- and more money. Now what do we have? Toyota and others dropping costs on SUVs so they'll go out the door, but there is no policy-supported incentive to advantage the fuel-efficient and SULEV-or-better vehicles.

 

TO: FRESHMTT,

When was your specific purchase date for your Prius?

I ask because I qualified for the $1000 debit in regards to my purchase date (March 2008) and qualifying loan prior to the program being suspended by the state of IL; however, I have been fighting for this debit card for two years now and I am getting the run around from Chase at a corporate and local level. This has been very discouraging; however, I refuse to give up.

I look forward to your response.