It is indeed nothing more than a marketing gambit.
In the US, it is business-as-usual for car companies to run promotions on the fake interest rates, often as low as 0%.
Superficially, the rates are real enough. But you have to tell the salesperson that you will be taking advantage of them, BEFORE you negotiate a price. Try negotiating a price first, then invoking the loan offer, and the price suddenly jumps up! In other words, the offer is just a shell game.
My objection isn't so much to the shell game itsself. My objection is to the companies' claim that, by doing their sleazy business-as-usual, they are committing an act of philanthropy.
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