I actually like the salesman. He comes off as pretty genuine, so I'm tempted to believe it's a business problem, not an individual problem. Hopefully my accessories will come it soon, and I can just take my business elsewhere.
As with most things, there are likely element of both deceit and ignorance here. I try to distinguish between outright lying and bullshit, which I define as when someone doesn't really have an understanding of what they're talking about, but talk about it as if they do (we know who we are!). You've probably been subject to both throughout this process.
No doubt there is some of both. It can be difficult to differentiate sometimes. For example, the salesperson telling us repeatedly that we would be responsible for paying any MSRP increases after we ordered. Had it been a salesperson with just a couple months of experience, I'd be more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, but our salesperson has been selling vehicles for Ford for over a decade. So the chances of them simply being unaware of Ford's Price Protection are slim to none. Still, without a formal investigation it's hard to be certain 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that they were aware of it. Without more information, there's a (vanishingly small) chance they were not.
The mere appearance of impropriety is as damaging as the actual fact of it. This is especially true if the data a customer has been deprived of favors the dealership over the customer. In those cases it really doesn't matter whether the customer has been intentionally lied to or simply the victim of bullshit. Either way, the reputational damage is done.
