vpFREE2 Forums

Free car

#1

In a message dated 6/17/2007 9:02:27 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
vpFREE@yahoogroups.com writes:

My friend won a new Saturn in a drawing at the Poker Palace. When at the
dealer, Saturn Of West Sahara, they conned her into a $1000 service contract
and
an anti Theft device [to be installed later] for $533. She decided to cancel
both charges. They told her the anti theft device was non refundable,
[remember, not yet installed] she said, "But you haven't installed it yet.",
"We
can install it now." She went to her credit union with the credit card
receipt
which showed $1533 with no itemization and no non refundable

        How did they con her? Did they hold a gun to her head? Not likely.
        People blame the car dealer & salesmen. You're a big boy or girl.
        Just say no thanks. A smile helps. They'll go to work on some other
customer.

              Sy & not a car saleman

************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#2

SFuchs8753 wrote:

How did they con her? Did they hold a gun to her head? Not likely.
People blame the car dealer & salesmen. You're a big boy or girl.
Just say no thanks. A smile helps. They'll go to work on some other
customer.

I don't hold quite the indignation over this reply that jt does (but,
again, it wasn't directed at me).

What I'll chime in with is that not everyone has been around the block
a couple of times in life -- particularly when it comes to a major
asset acquisition, like a car.

While you, personally, may know up front that a $1000 service contract
is near worthless on a new car, someone inexperienced may vacillate
with fear of making the wrong decision. It's not entirely unethical
for a salesman to take advantage of that uncertainly and try to cow a
customer into purchase out of insecurity ... but it is manipulative.

What is unethical is to refuse to cancel the transaction under such a
circumstance (even if the dealership is within their rights in doing
so). This was an impulse purchase where the sales rep knows that it
wasn't an informed decision. They should put customer satisfaction
ahead of profit. This goes doubly when the dealership hasn't incurred
any cost whatsoever at the time of request to cancel.

You may disagree on the ethics, but there's no question the decision
reflects extraordinarily poor business judgment. The ill will and bad
word-of-mouth arising out of the incident will potentially cost them
considerably more than the profit they'd forego in issuing a refund.

- Harry

#3

Harry wrote about the car advice: I don't hold quite the indignation
over this reply that jt does (but, again, it wasn't directed at me).

I don't either. In fact, I believe Sy's advice was well-intentioned,
accurate, and relevant to anyone who is going to purchase anything. If
there was anything mean-spirited about the advice, I certainly couldn't
find it --- and I read it several times.

Jack Ten, you regularly lampoon several people on vpFREE (including Dan,
Jean, Skip, and me, among others) --- and largely amuse of most people
here when you do this. Sometimes people lampoon back --- in a slightly
different format. (I've chosen to call you "Jack Ten" rather than "JT"
as a mild form of teasing, for example.) If you're going to tease
others, you must learn to accept teasing back. Your lampooning makes you
a "fat target." On this site, at least, you are a "public figure" as
much as the rest of us are.

Bob Dancer

For a 3-day free trial of Video Poker for Winners, the best video poker
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