An Aurora man is accusing a Boulder car dealership of playing fast and loose with the price for a Toyota Prius, and has lodged complaints with the state’s attorney general and Better Business Bureau.

In response, the dealership said human error led to the vehicle being listed at the wrong price, a mistake only discovered with the customer began the purchasing process.

“The individual who entered the vehicle into the computer system accidently typed the wrong price,” said Sarah Waldman, a spokesperson for the Larry H. Miller group of dealerships. “Once the dealership was made aware of the mistake, they corrected it.

“This was a mistake, and not an attempt to deceive the customer.”

Greg Kinney said he and his wife have been searching for a used Toyota Prius for the past few months, so they were happy to find a low-mileage, 2011 model at a reasonable price — $10,425 — at Larry H. Miller Toyota in Boulder, via an ad on used car marketplace Carfax.

After a call to confirm availability, the couple drove to Boulder on Tuesday evening for a test drive, which went well. The Kinneys decided to purchase, splitting the cost between cash, a credit card and a small $1,024 loan from the dealership.

That’s when things got “kinda slimy,” Kinney said.

The salesman left to “check with the finance manager” about the loan. After “about 15 minutes,” he returned to say the price had been a mistake — the dealership had paid $12,000 for the car, and so couldn’t let it go for less than that.

“I said to my wife, ‘This doesn’t feel right,'” Kinney recalled. “As we were walking away, I thought, ‘That was a bait and switch.'”

Back home in Aurora on Tuesday evening, the Carfax ad was still up, for $10,425. It remained listed at that price Wednesday afternoon, but the Carfax listing shows the price was updated to $15,000 — 43 percent higher than the price quoted to the Kinneys — sometime later on Wednesday.

Kinney said he filed complaints with the Colorado attorney general and Denver office of the Better Business Bureau, alleging false advertising. A representative for the Attorney General’s Office did not respond to inquiries seeking to verify the existence of a complaint.

The BBB does not confirm the existence of complaints until it has attempted resolution between the business and consumer, a spokesperson said. Only after resolution are complaints made public. There are six existing complaints against Larry H Miller Toyota, under the name Boulder Toyota, one of which was related to a change in pricing.

Waldman said that the pricing error was discovered when the salesperson helping the Kinneys looped in a superior to help with the purchase process.

“The sales manager immediately recognized that the price was incorrect, and communicated it to the customer, with an apology,” she said. “The dealership did offer to reduce the price of the vehicle to our hard cost of $12,900, which is less than the value of the vehicle.”

Carfax lists the estimated value of the vehicle as $14,490.

But Kinney says the sale started to go south while he and his wife were still with the salesperson, who became visibly “unhappy” when the couple explained their financing plan.

“It felt like (he was thinking) ‘I can’t make enough money off this sale so I’m going to up the price.'”

Auto dealer loans are second only to service in terms of their profit, Forbes reported in 2012, averaging about $1,100 per vehicle.

“Many dealers make more on financing and add-ons than they do on the sale of the cars” themselves, said John Van Alst, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, who is an expert in auto finance issues.

Consumers frequently complain about dealers pressuring them to take loans, Van Alst said, adding that 75 percent of cars purchased in the U.S. are financed at the dealership. Such loans often carry marked up interest rates, with the dealer splitting the additional revenue with lenders.

Shay Castle: 303-473-1626, castles@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/shayshinecastle