There’s hardball and then there’s whatever game Javuan Banks’ imaginary new car customer is playing in the viral video Banks posted three days ago.
Banks, a veteran salesman at Napleton Nissan in Saint Louis, Missouri, has a sideline as a popular TikToker with over 115,000 followers. In his latest video, he plays out a whopper of a “what if” story about a fictional customer with more than a little leverage.
@javuanbanks GOING INTO THE DEALERSHIP RIGHT BEFORE THEY CLOSE ON A TIME CRUNCH TO GET THE BEST DEAL 😂👀 #carcomedy #CarSalesHumor #800creditscore #dealership ♬ original sound – Javuan Banks
Banks posted the video on Monday, and it’s since picked up a staggering 7.6 million views. Banks captioned the video, “GOING INTO THE DEALERSHIP RIGHT BEFORE THEY CLOSE ON A TIME CRUNCH TO GET THE BEST DEAL.” He uses the hashtag #CarSalesHumor to let us know he’s poking fun at his industry and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
In it, Banks is confronted at the door of his dealership by a customer demanding to make a last-minute deal on a new car.
The on-screen text reads: “You have perfect credit at the dealership at 8:00 p.m.”
“How you doing man, I’m trying to get a car,” his hypothetical customer asks him.
“We’re about to close,” he tells the man, but, wanting to make one last deal for the day, he hustles back inside to try and make it happen.
The first sign that this situation might just be a joke is when Banks “draws up” a contract inside a spiral notebook and proposes three different payment plans all at a literally unbelievable 0% interest rate.
But the real proof that the situation is entirely a gag comes when the “customer” insists that he has a “900” credit score—an actual impossibility by most current credit score scales, which only go up to 800.
“How you do that?” Banks asked his customer before being “strongarmed” into a deal where the dealership is actually paying the customer every month to take the Nissan Rogue he came in to “buy.”
Most of Banks’ viewers seemed happy to be kidded along and many responded in kind in the comments.
“999 credit score for me. until I buy a car then it drops below 800 for a year each time,” Jimmy Pants (@jihgu101) wrote.
“I actually have a 1000 credit score, just got sold on a 2023 Redeye Charger, currently paying -300, plus cookies from my bank every month,” another added.
One fellow salesman did comment that he had seen a similar score once, writing, “I’m in F&I at a dealership, and I’ve only ever seen a 900 one time in my career. Plenty of 850+’s tho.”
For what it’s worth, while it’s probably inadvisable to try to buy a car minutes before the dealership closes, there is a prime time of year to buy a new car.
According to marketwatch.com, “Your best bet is to buy between October and January 1st. December is particularly ripe for deals, discounts, rebates, and other incentives as well. This is because car salespeople are aggressively working to meet their monthly, quarterly, and yearly quotas.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Banks via email for further comment.
