Jay Welchsler agrees to purchase a car from a local car dealer, the Con Car Co. The purchase price is $15,000. Jay has the cash to pay the entire amount and wants to do so. Con's sales manager uses the following argument to convince him to finance the car: "All we require is a down payment of $3000. Then you can borrow $12,000 from our finance company at 12 percent. You will make monthly payments of $266.93 for 5 years (60 months), a total of $16,015.80. If you do that, you get to keep your $12000. Now suppose you keep this money in a money market account that pays you 8 percent compounded quarterly. In 5 years, the $12,000 will grow to $17,831.40. That means that you will be better off by $1,815.60 than if you pay the $12,000 cash.
Assume all the numbers are correct. Does the offer sound too good to be true? Why?