While we spend a lot of time on this site talking about the importance of writing a good complaint letter, of finding the executive contact info, and cc’ing letters to appropriate regulatory bodies, sometimes the best way to win is to stop playing Mr. Nice Guy and start playing hardball. Demonstrate, in no uncertain terms, just how much more costly it would be for the business to ignore your complaint than to resolve it. That’s the lesson learned from, Unscrewed: The Consumer’s Guide To Getting What You Paid For.
His first story is about how he himself got screwed, and then unscrewed, on the first car that he bought…
After happily put-putting home in the new car, he noticed an ad by the dealership in the paper offering a $1500 discount for any car purchased over the weekend. For some reason, his salesman never mentioned this offer to him. When Burley tried to ask for the deal retroactively, the dealership said sorry, we can’t change a contract once it’s been signed.
“I replied, “What do you mean? You advertised the special. The sale representative should have told me about it! It’s just not fair.”
“That’s our policy. I’m sorry.”
“It’s a bad policy,” I said, for lack of any other words, and hung up the phone.
I was livid. I’d just been screwed out of $1200… Something had to be done.”
That day, Burley typed up a notice and printed out tens of copies. He went to the dealership manager’s office, who continued to try to stonewall him and refer to their “internal policy”. Burley opened the envelope and placed the flyers in front of the manager.
“What do you intend to do with those?” he asked..“Mr. Smith,” I said coolly, even though my hands were sweaty and shaking, “at this point, it doesn’t really matter to me whether I get my money back or not. I am going to exercise my First Amendment right to stand on that public sidewalk in front of your dealership. I’ll hand one of these flyers to anybody walking onto your lot. I’ll be carrying a picket sign with the same message.”
The notice said: “AKAMAI MOTORS LIES TO ITS CUSTOMERS! They advertised a car at one price and then sold it to me for $1,200 more. For details, please call Ron Burley at [redacted].
I continued, “I’ll bet that, in just a handful of Saturdays, I can convince a couple of dozen people to shop elsewhere. It could end up that, by not paying me what’s due to me, you lose ten times that much in future business. It won’t put any cash in my pocket, but I’ll feel a lot better about things. What do you think?”
Mr Smith returned to let Burley know that bookkeeping was cutting his check at that very moment and he could pick it up on his way out.
Burley could’ve filed complaint letters and made calls up the management food chain, he could’ve cc’d letters to the Attorney General and the FTC, and maybe even eventually been forced to take the dealership to small claims court, where he would’ve won, as it is actually the law that merchants have to honor their advertised price. Instead, he chose a direct course of action that in broke the problem down to terms that any simple business could understand. Much more expeditious, and probably more satisfying.
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@ScoobyInc: You will want to seek legal counsel regarding this. All new vehicles must be sold with a window sticker and a dealership that fails to do so is breaking federal law (Automobile Information Disclosure Act). It’s only a $1,000 fine/vehicle if it never was put on the car but it’s a whole lot more if they’ve done it intentionally.
Only problem is that it’s already been nearly nine months now so I’m not sure how strong your case would be. Threatening legal action won’t do much; a lawyer threatening legal action will do a whole lot more. Good luck.
I’m normally a pretty passive guy but I draw the line for some things. Years ago I was renting an apartment that came with an ancient washing machine, and after a few months of use it died-needed a new motor. My landlord at the time figured he could get me to shell out for the motor by claiming misuse on my part.
I explained to him that yes, I could buy the motor, but when I moved out I was taking the motor with me (it’d be my property, right?). He was pretty surprised and wanted to know why-after all, what would I need it for? My answer: spite, pure and simple. I would’ve put the thing under glass and made it my dining room centerpiece before I let him get it!
@KRUZ01: I’d say you’re a bad business person based on your grammar and spelling.
Aside from that, if somebody knows to ask for invoice pricing, then they have either been in the car business before, or have friends or family in the car business.
I used to work in a dealership – fortunately in service, not in sales. One of the service writers was the general manager’s (and later the owner) brother. I got all kinds of information that nobody else in that dealership would have been privy to.
You selling a car for $500 over invoice is probably going to result in a satisfied customer, which in turn is going to give you a good CSI score, which in turn is going to put a LOT of money into your boss’s pocket, which should trickle its way down to you in some form of incentive.
Tell me I’m not right, and I’ll tell you that you should go get a job at a better dealership because the customers aren’t the only people that your boss is screwing.
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i used to sell cars. basically, the dealer is getting the same minimum profit no matter what the negotiation is. sure you’d get $500 off, but then you wouldn’t get free floormats, etc.
@KRUZ01: Why can’t you sell a car at invoice? you’re still making a profit, you’re just not making as much as a profit as you’d like but then again there are so many people who go to dealerships without doing any homework at all. So I bet you get plenty decent checks, unless you’re an asshole of a salesperson (and we know there are plenty of those).
@ScoobyInc.: I have found that alot of dealers will toss the window sticker into the console or glove compartment, if they just received the car or there was a big sale or etc. You should have asked to see it. I would sell the car privately. I can’t imagine that you can’t get what you owe on it since you say that you hadn’t really driven it to much. Then go get what you want and do lots of research.
I’d say 90% of salespeople are all running scam. They are out to make money of course. Car salespeople are not paid until they make that sale. My ex was a car salesman and he would come and tell me all the crazy things they do.
A guy who is getting a paycheck by selling you car is really going to tell you something like “hey we have an advertised special this weekend, do you want to take advantage of it”? This guy got lucky that he just happened to look in the paper and see it.
If you’re car shopping and go in blindly then don’t cry when you get screwed. Vehicles are marked up outrageously. There is a Kia dealership by my parents house. They had a weekend special I think on a Kia Rio. Anyways all weekend long it was marked at 7,999 on the front window. Well come Monday and that price was gone. They had a new special, i think it was the “get screwed special”, that same Kia Rio was now marked up to 12,000. So yeah a 5,000 dollar mark up in just one day. Do your homework.
@doormat:
Interesting – first I’d heard of this.
For anybody who cares, it seems that both parties dropped their suits within a year.
[www.reviewjournal.com]
Unless something else happened since then?
BTW, note the choppercarsfraud.com website. It’s apparently created by another guy, who has a huge grievance against The Chopper. But his site and story seem to me to be on the edge of paranoid schizophrenia….
When my mom purchased a 1974 Chevy Nova almost brand-new, she was so disgusted with it she parked it in front of the doors at the GM finance office in Fort Worth and left a note on the windshield telling them where to shove it. She never paid another payment, and she didn’t get a peep from GM.
@KRUZ01: Ever heard of negotiating? You’re torqued off because your customers want to negotiate? You equivocate that with stealing one’s children? You have no clue how the world works do you? Incidentally, nobody walking on that lot owes you anything. The time you spend with the customer who buys nothing is paid by the customer who buys something. It’s called the cost of business. It’s clueless salesmen like you who give “salesman” a bad name. I know, I’m a salesman, and I get a ton of repeat business because I’m not like you.
Kudos for the customer who stuck it to this dealer. I’m a business owner and it really torques me off when I see other business owners take unfair advantage of their customers to undercut me. It’s nothing short of criminal. What this customer did was neither extortion nor libel nor racketering. It’s called exacting well-deserved justice, and I sleep well every night knowing that will never happen to me.