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Smart Shopper Stories from the Sales Frontlines
47991 messages, Last post on Nov 29, 2009 at 5:32 PM
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After reading about 30+ of the most stomach-churning stories of people being criminally taken advantage of, I noticed that the dealerships failed in five areas. 1. Sales people who lack the basic social skills of a monkey. 2. Misleading advertising (radio in particular) that offers set amounts for any car pushed, pulled, or towed in. However, salespeople pretend to not know about the ad, or they claim it applies to something other than what the buyer has. Under normal circumstances, these types of misunderstandings happen. BH takes it to another level, calling customers liars when they repeat the ad they've heard. 3. Taking trade-ins but failing to pay them off in a timely manner or at all (wrecking havoc with credit.) Buyers may end up not having a new car as financing falls through and new car is taken back. Then they have their old car repossessed because 1-2 monthly payments have not been made. Sometimes they don't even bother to change the trade-in's title over, but sell it to someone else anyway. Then the new buyer has a big hassle. ***4. Used cars that are advertised as new (mileage recorded incorrectly and sent to DMV; MSRP sheets not posted on "new" cars; cars previously titled that are sold as new; huge mileage cars sold as demos.) ***5. Deceptive financing practices (offers to approve anyone and then blaming their non-approval on the buyer's already disclosed bad credit; "done deals" with signed contracts & cars taken possession of >before actual approval for finance) They have truely raised this to a new art form by manipulating and falsifying credit appl. info. to get pre-approval. The funny thing is that the credit co. sometimes calls the buyer to verify the info. I guess BH expects the buyer to keep up the lie. These "oopsies and misunderstandings" have to be approved of by management. I bet they are even teaching these tricks in training. Yet due to overburdened state attorney generals and signed arbitration contracts, very little is done. All I could find were fines paid to the state, none to individuals. And still, they sell thousands and thousands of cars a year!
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Replying to: snakeweasel (Jul 31, 2006 5:12 am) Now I live in a smaller town in a different state, not far from Bend. Some would consider it metro and they even complain about the traffic, but I just don't get it. To kind of make this post on topic, I have yet to visit the dealers here, but there is only a couple BIG dealers that sell all different types. One sells Fords to Kia's and Hyndias the ither Dodges, Honda'a and Toytotas. A smaller Chevy dealer. But not a whole lot of selection. When I get ready to purchase my next vehicle I may just go back to AZ where I can have my pick of Dealers and or vehicle. But that all depends on what I am looking for I guess.
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Replying to: roundtrip (Jul 31, 2006 6:19 pm) We need a "deep-throat" from inside Bill Heard.
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Replying to: roundtrip (Jul 31, 2006 6:19 pm) The Bill Heard dealerships are good at knowing how to push its sales practices to the very edge to maximise profit...without becoming unlawful. |
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Replying to: the_big_al (Jun 27, 2008 3:16 pm) Its the 14th largest with about 3.25 million. As I said we have suburbs here that have more than 100,000 so I really don't see 100,000 population as large for a metro area. When I get ready to purchase my next vehicle I may just go back to AZ where I can have my pick of Dealers and or vehicle. Wouldn't it be easier to go to Portland?
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Replying to: mark156 (Jul 31, 2006 5:42 pm) Land Rover always had the problem that most british companies had and that is under capitilzation. They had some pretty good engineers, designers and stylists but they had no money to work with. What just boggles my mind is that nearly all of the equipment, with the expeption of the vehicle's platform itself, the air suspension system, and the four wheel drive system, in the new Land Rovers comes from either volvo, jaguar or aston martin yet Land Rover still languishes last or near last in quality surveys. Jaguar has scored very good in recent quality surveys and volvo has done well too. Engines are Jag and Aston and so is the tranny. The safety equipment is straight from volvo. Denso makes our nav system along with many other systems. Bosch makes most of the rest of the electronics. The only persistant issue I have seen has been air suspension issues with early LR3s and Range Rover Sports. The air suspension system is incredibly complex and can sometimes trigger faults when they are not really needed. |
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Replying to: louiswei (Aug 01, 2006 3:17 am) You might want to watch the use of names like "thief" "criminal" etc.
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the truth hurts. |
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is a Dateline investigation. Someone needs to email them the story and links. Do you think re the Attorneys General in states now stopping such practices that there might be a lobby group on the part of dealers and BH participates heavily in those? Even though most (all?) other dealers wouldn't condone intentional practices like these, their voice is overwhelmed. |
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Replying to: jmurman42 (Aug 01, 2006 5:40 am)
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