Last July, as her lease was nearing expiration, Erica Adelson brought her Honda HR-V into Cambridge Honda.

After inspecting it, one of the sales reps told her it was worth as much as $3,000 more than what it was projected to be worth when she signed the lease three years earlier.

Like all used cars, its value had surged over the last year or so, due mostly to inflation and a shortage of used cars. So it was now worth more than the so-called payoff value she agreed to when she signed the lease.

It was that value — how much the car was worth today compared with how much it was projected to be worth — that Adelson wanted to maximize.

She shopped around, and after intermittent discussions with a Cambridge Honda sales rep over several months, she decided to accept his offer of $3,000.

“I would like to proceed with your offer of $3,000,’’ she wrote in an Oct. 4 text message to Shiva Dhital, the sales rep. The next day, she was scheduled to lease an all-electric Chevy Bolt from a different dealership.

“Sounds good,’’ Dhital replied, according to the exchange of text messages Adelson shared with me. “I am off tomorrow. Please visit us to see Josh.’’

Adelson replied that she would come in early the next day.

Adelson arrived as scheduled expecting to pick up a $3,000 check and to say goodbye to her Honda. She said she remembers someone from the dealership going outside to look at her vehicle, but that there was no discussion of its condition, which hadn’t changed much except for a couple hundred miles of use since the previous inspection in July.

Josh Head, one of the managers, then sat down with Adelson and showed her paperwork drawn up for the transaction. He said the price was $1,500, half of what Adelson expected, she said.

A stunned Adelson immediately told Head she and Dhital had agreed to $3,000. But Head said $3,000 was way too high a price, and that Dhital “wasn’t authorized’’ to make the offer he did, according to Adelson.

Adelson persisted and Head eventually upped the offer to $2,500, still $500 short of the deal she had bargained for. In fact, she told the manager, the reason she got the $3,000 offer from Dhital was because she had been offered that amount from a different dealership and had asked Dhital to match it.

Adelson told me she wanted to make the deal with Cambridge Honda, not with that other dealership, because she sensed a better customer service vibe at Cambridge Honda, though she no longer feels that way.

Adelson also told me that ­Dhital was well aware of her plan to pick up her new car immediately after turning over her Honda to Cambridge Honda.

But as she sat with the manager, Adelson realized she had no good choices. Sure, she could walk away. But she didn’t want the hassle of beginning the process all over again; she needed to get rid of her old car before getting her new one.

So, she took the $2,500.

Two days later, Adelson, a 32-year-old school administrator who lives in Malden, sent an e-mail to Dhital saying the manager had refused to “honor the agreement you and I made of $3,000 for the Honda.

“To make this situation right, I would like to be paid the $500 discrepancy to fulfill our original agreement,’’ she wrote.

Dhital did not respond, so Adelson texted him, asking if he received her e-mail.

Dhital texted back: “Got it Josh is the one who touch your car and finalized the transaction! It was your decision to take it or not Sorry for the confusion Thank you.’’

Adelson shot back: “I think that is not appropriate given that you and I agreed on $3,000 and I made it clear that my coming to the dealership was to accept the offer of $3,000. I will be writing a review on Google of my experience to warn other customers that this may happen to them.’’

Dhital’s reply seemed to fault Adelson: “That’s up to you As a grown people making a decision and blaming someone else if that worth it please go ahead Thank you.’’

In an e-mail, Adelson asked for my help. When we talked, she said the way the price changed “felt dishonest to me.’’

“It wasn’t my job to check with the manager to make sure the sales rep who made an offer was authorized to do so,’’ she said.

And Dhital’s response to her complaint — “he basically called me childish for being upset about it’’ — was rude, she said.

I provided Cambridge Honda with screenshots of the text exchange between Adelson and Dhital and asked for an explanation.

Sean Van Praet, a vice president of Cambridge Honda, responded that Dhital had made several mistakes, and that the dealership will give Adelson the $500 she requested.

Dhital should have told Adelson upfront that he wasn’t authorized to set the price on her Honda and walked her through the process, he said.

He told me it was a “communications misunderstanding,’’ and in a later email to Adelson said there was no “malice or ill intent.’’

As to Adelson’s e-mailed complaint and request for $500, Van Praet said Dhital should have immediately brought it to the attention of a manager.

And about Dhital’s characterization of Adelson’s complaint as “blaming someone else,’’ Van Praet said, “I can’t condone that. When you’re dealing with the public you have to behave in a professional manner.’’

In his note to Adelson, Van Praet offered his “sincerest apology’’ for Dhital’s comments, which he said would “certainly’’ be addressed internally.

“I wasn’t happy that my team didn’t handle this right,’’ he told me.

I think it was perfectly reasonable for Adelson to rely on Dhital’s “sounds good’’ statement as consummation of a $3,000 deal. To change the terms one day later, when she was rushing around to pick up her new car, seems bogus and unfair to me.

No consumer buys or sells a car every day. But dealerships do. The burden should be on the dealership to make the terms crystal clear to the consumer and if not, to settle any later dispute in the consumer’s favor.

That’s what Cambridge Honda ultimately agreed to do. But it should have been done immediately — and without outside prodding.

Got a problem? Send your consumer issue to sean.murphy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @spmurphyboston.