Shady car dealers on Dateline NBC tonight :)

[NFS4]

HEHEHE 🙂 On now 8:00 EST

 

[Vortex22]

Shady dealers aka every car dealer?

 

[wyvrn]

Pretty lame so far. I am waiting for something really bad to happen. So far it's just the normal car buying experience.

edit: Ok looks like they tried to screw her fairly bad. But she is stupid for not reading the documentation and paying attention to the terms of the deal. She should have brought her dad with her to buy the car.

 

[conjur]

Is this that woman that got a Mustang and they setup a 6-year loan instead of 5 to lower her payments? If so, they mentioned it earlier today on the Today show. The woman is an idiot for not noticing it was a full YEAR longer!

 

[BatmanNate]

VW is gonna be on the run.

 

[draggoon01]

damn, i missed it. can someone jot down the tricks the dealers were pulling?

 

[bcterps]

Not a bad show for someone that doesn't know anything about the car buying experience. For the Ferengi out there, I would suggest checking out carbuyingtips.com or The Motley Fool also has some pretty good info as well.

<-- buying a Honda CRV in the next 2-4 weeks.

 

[waggy]

yeah there are a LOT of shady car dealers out there.

luckily my father owns a used car lot. All i have to do is tell him what i want and i get it for $200 over what he gets it for.


but having a father in the business and growing up working on car lots i have learned how to deal with salesmen. You have to read every piece of paper in front of you and don't let them pull any of there crap. don't be afraid to walk out.

 

[TommyVercetti]

She is a girl, and not a virgin! The shocking truth next on Dateline NBC.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: TommyVercetti
She is a girl, and not a virgin! The shocking truth next on Dateline NBC.

Blasphemy! women should be kept in the house! barefoot and pregnant! oh and cleaning!

 

[Emrys]

They told her just to go along with everything they said no questions so that they could find out/show what the dealers were doing. She was an example-- granted she didn't know what she was doing, but she was also told not to question ANYTHING.

 

[tooltime]

i missed it but someone told me it was good

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Yawn. This story gets redone every year by every network news show and most local stations send out their ace reporters every six months to expose this scandal. There's never anything new, it's just the same old scams being run over and over and over. People who walk into a dealer unprepared are going to be taken, period. Those who are educated about the process and refuse to be bullied win easily and can get awesome deals. The car buying process is 100% Darwinian, the strong survive and the weak perish. It's just amazing that in this day and age there are still people who are dumb enough to fall for tricks that have been reported on ad infinitum. How does anyone that owns a TV not know all this stuff already?

 

[SludgeFactory]

Yeah, nothing groundbreaking. Basic things I saw that they covered:

a) don't finance the car at the dealership
b) read everything before you sign
c) do not hesitate to threaten to leave
d) if you are a gullible idiot, you are screwed

You would learn more from reading the undercover car salesman series at Edmunds. Although it was semi-entertaining to see the salesmen play their games, especially the finance manager who falsified the naive little girl's income to get her loan to go through. When the loan was held up because the finance company demanded proof of the income, he tried 7 different times to convince her that it would be fine if she could get her employer to issue some proof of the fictitious income on company letterhead. 😀

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: draggoon01
damn, i missed it. can someone jot down the tricks the dealers were pulling?

While it did expose a couple practices that were borderline fraudulent or illegal, if not over the line, most of it was simply about stupid people implicitly trusting a car dealer to give them the best deal possible.

Lea Thompson spent about 50% of the show making a big deal about a salesman telling a young woman that he would treat her like his own daughter, and when she failed to negotiate a good deal or even read most of the freaking paperwork before signing on the dotted line, portrayed it as though the salesman was defrauding her. Like..."But what about our salesman's promise to treat her like his own daughter? Did she get a good deal? Our expert says no."

Of course she didn't freaking get a good deal. How can you get a good deal when you don't even know what a good deal is?

Buying a car isn't like shopping for jeans at JC Penney. Well, on second thought, it is somewhat like shopping for jeans at JC Penney. If someone is stupid enough to pay $80 for a pair of jeans they can find elsewhere for $40, where is the "fraud"? Where is the "rip-off"?

While I do not defend outright fraud and deception, the problem with 'exposes' like Thompson's is that they always presume the car dealer (or other business) has an obligation to ensure the consumer receives the best possible deal, and when that doesn't happen, its because the car dealer did something wrong, not the consumer.

It is the obligation of nobody but the consumer to protect what is in the consumer's best interest. When the consumer materially fails that obligation, a business is not obligated to step-in and do it for them. The interests of the car dealer and customer are mutually exclusive and adversarial.

Other countries whose societies understand this fundamental premise of trade and business do not produce large numbers of "suckers". They produce negotiators who come to The Great Land of the Sucker (the United States) because few people understand this fundamental premise. In other societies, if you pay too much for something, its not because you were 'ripped-off', its because you paid too much. There was no coercive process, you parted with your money of free volition.

In the US, there is no expectation or obligation placed on the consumer to protect their own interests. If they pay too much, its because they were a "victim". This victim mentality further precipitates and guarantees future generations of victims who believe it is the responsibility of someone else to make sure they get a good deal, not their own.

 

[Lounatik]

I just traded my '02 Honda CR-V in for a Honda Odyssey on Thursday and had a bit of fun doing it. I have only made 16 payments on the crv and I knew going into the dealer, that I did not want to pay one dollar more per month fo the van. Now, I pay 410.00 per month for 60 months on the crv(it was in short supply when I got it and I knew I was at their mercy to pay full sticker,some dealers tried to put their "dealer markup" crap in, but I avoided them) I tell the dealer that I want to trade the crv in and finance for 60 months at 410. She says okay and the fun begins. After three different salespeople/managers/floorcleaners I just told my wife to screw it and lets go,once one of the tools said this: I can get you in the Odyssey for 470.00 per month for a 72 month lease(!) and all you have to do is put 3000.00 down! I was thinking: Sweet! (Uh, insert sarcasm now) When I get up to leave, the manger runs out the door and tells me he could do it for 410 per month. The co cksucker that was haranging me about the 470 et al, leaves and isnt seen again.

If you go looking for a car, you should always have you ducks in a row regarding the financing and what you want to pay for the car. Stick to that and nobody can screw you, unless of course, they forge your name and stuff. People who do that kind of crap need to be taught a lesson: Maybe beating up their wife of elderly mother would do the trick ;>). Seriously, without a plan, you are at their mercy.

The moral of the story: BE PREPARED! I left the dealer with a 2004 Honda Odyssey for a total, including the interest on the loan,of 24,600.00. I put no money down on either my crv or this minivan and I got the payment I could afford and the interest rate I was happy with (3.3%) BTW the sticker price on the Odyssey was 26,650.00. It is a hard vehicle to bargain down on, but if you have a plan of action going into the battle, you will be a whole lot better off.

In the US, there is no expectation or obligation placed on the consumer to protect their own interests. If they pay too much, its because they were a "victim". This victim mentality further precipitates and guarantees future generations of victims who believe it is the responsibility of someone else to make sure they get a good deal, not their own.

I could not agree with this statement more.



Peace


Lounatik