re: Elderly man spends 20k on ATV; family upset with dealer

I don't know about this. I had a grandfather die of Alzheimer's and you could tell something was off with him months before the official diagnosis. Even people who weren't in the family and weren't close to him could tell that his confusion and such was outside the realm of normal aging.

Perhaps he was having a good day and the salesman was truly ignorant of the old guy's problems; in that case it is just unfortunate for the man and his family ... but as someone who's seen this disease in a few people including one family member, it's a stretch to think that the salesman didn't pick up on something. It's not like you're prefectly lucid and six months later you're completely off your rocker - this disease doesn't work like that.

I have to think the salesman probably noticed something was amiss, maybe he just chalked it up to the guy being old, and figured he'd be able to sell him on a bunch of extras and make a good payday. Even that, though, seems dirty on the part of the salesman.

I'll admit that is what salesman do: they sell their product. A lot of the time that includes taking advantage of someone's ignorance - a city boy who doesn't know what he really needs, a housewife who doesn't know what all those extra buttons do, a young guy who doesn't understand high percentage financing, etc.

Regardless of the intentions of the salesman, the dealership should have looked at the optics of the situation and quietly bought back the ATV at a reasonable price. It would have been very easy to explain to the family that they can only buy it back for 70% because of this or that, as I imagine the family going through this with their father understands that they wouldn't get a good chunk of their money back. I can't imagine this could in any way look good for them because they're either going to be labeled as the dealers that'll rob an old man or the dealers who don't care about a man with Alzheimer's.