patrick.net

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

Updates...

Thanks Robber Scum. Your espionage services are well appreciated here. There must be some way to screw the dealers and give them a taste of their own medicine. Please discover and tell the world.
I endorse you for the Patnet Peace Prize.

You know guys, it might be a great idea to have insiders and customers in various businesses come out and state how to screw unpopular businesses.
Car Dealers
Real Estate Brokers.
Mortgage Loans.
Credit Cards.
Phone companies.
Cable companies.
Internet Service Providers.
Insurance Companies.
Building Contractors.

Strategist says

You know guys, it might be a great idea to have insiders and customers in various businesses come out and state how to screw unpopular businesses.

Car Dealers

...

I'd be delighted if that became patrick.net's contribution to the world. How can I recruit those insiders and promote their posts?

I'd be delighted if that became patrick.net's contribution to the world. How can I recruit those insiders and promote their posts?

Time to brainstorm. There is always a solution, one only has to find it.

We need some more bitches like the one who infiltrated banking inspectors a while back.

http://www.propublica.org/article/ny-fed-fired-examiner-who-took-on-goldman

Now why the fuck can't you use that kind of creativity against the banking industry?

zzyzzx says

Would be interesting to read a post about a realtor's new car buying experience and a car salesperson's home buying experience.

That does bring up an interesting scenario!

How different is selling used vs new cars?

This weenie is trying to sell me a new car.

Salesturd: "How much per month can you afford to spend on a new car?"
Me: "Nothing"
ST: "What?"
Me: "I pay cash in full"

They are almost as bad as Realtor's.

http://www.toyotaofboerne.com/

https://www.youtube.com/embed/nQlmLjBWMIw

:-((((

I'm surprised you didn't mention the back end of the finance deal. Dealerships send your financials to the bank who then offers a rate. Sometimes the finance guy bumps that rate a point or two and presents the altered deal to the customer. If said customer signs, then the finance guy/dealer splits the extra interest with the bank. It's called "holding points" and it's definitely something to watch out for. It can be worth $500-1500 to the dealer and $4000 to you over the life of the loan.

A favorite trick of San Antonio area dealerships is to load up the car with dealer add-ons. Window tint, protective film, aero kits ($$$). All those add to the dealer's bottom line.

Anybody have experience with Carlypso? They offer a car price that falls between attending an auction AF style and having to haggle with a used car salesmen. This was the traditional realm of brokers, but they seem to have added an overlay with more transparency.

zzyzzx says

How different is selling used vs new cars?

At a "new" car dealership you maybe get a better deal on a new car. Relatively speaking - the dealership itself makes more on the used cars. They'll also sell the experience better with the new car. Demonstrating all of the features right before you drive away like folding down back seats etc. This is because the MFG may call you soon after your purchase and ask how the experience was. When dealerships get too many (I heard it didn't take much) bad reviews the MFG pulls their franchise and they are then just a used car dealership or trying to switch to an alternate name.

Update: I worked for around 3 months until I finally was fired today for not pressuring customers into buying cars that were unaffordable for them. I sold a total of 7 cars.

Here is what I learned working at a dealership...

The workplace culture is very twisted. Sales managers are power-hungry assholes and psychopaths. The finance managers are also power-hungry and snakes.

A lot of the salesmen are also snakes although a few of them are genuinely taking the best interests of the customers in mind. The Finance managers and sales managers oftentimes steal the newbie salesman's commission and give them the crumbs.

One salesman was fired because he exposed that the finance manager was undercutting the commission of other salesmen. Managers try to take advantage of newbie salesmen.

2 of my coworkers were convicted felons. One for dealing cocaine and they other for a bank robbery. Apparently, the dealership actually prefers convicted felons as a veteran salesmen there told me since they are more likely to be willing to lie and be dishonest with customers.

The honest good salesmen get abused by both the customers and management. Customers think all the salesmen are scum.

While I agree that the majority are scumbags, a small minority of good honest salesmen are genuinely just trying to make a living but do not want to screw people over at the same time.

Some customers are real assholes. I had this one Indian guy who didn't get his unrealistic price, so he left. Calls me a day later but I was with other customers. I call him back, he gives his offer, I present it to my sales manager, it doesn't get approved and I tell him accordingly.

He than says "Why the hell are you calling me than? Don't call me unless you can get my price!" in a rude tone.

I tell him that I called him to return his phone call as a courtesy after which I just hanged up on the asshole once he get got on a boring rant about how he will buy elsewhere.

A car salesmen job is very stressful. Everyone of the salesmen there are stressed and workaholics. You must work 12 hours a day 6 days a week including weekends if you want to make any money. You will not have a enjoyable life with this kind of career. None of my coworkers had any work-life balance.

The salesman at my dealership were on commission only. So they have a lot of pressure to sell is why they do only commission as the dealership only cares about the bottom line - neither the salesmen nor the customer is important.

We are not allowed to tell a customer that buying the car we are selling to them will financially wreck them and it is not in their best interest to buy it. One salesmen was actually fired a week ago for doing just that.

I will reveal the dealership I worked for. It is called the "New York Auto Giant Group" & also has a name of "Atlantic dealership"

To provide a verifiable example of how fucked up the management there is and how fucked up the company culture is....

Below is a news article about a woman who donated a kidney of hers to her boss at the dealership and was shortly fired because she had to take a few days off after getting her kidney removed to be donated to her boss.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/woman-fired-kidney-donation-sues-ex-employer-article-1.1384677

Cars at the dealership are also abused a lot. The lot attendants and the salesmen drive the piss out of the cars - redlining it regularly that is later sold to their suckers.

One of my sales managers even said "Well I don't think it's right that we give a very big price difference to certian customers who we think are clueless idiots but it is what it is..."

That should tell you enough.

My suggestion for getting a good deal? Be willing to buy a used car and get it from a private seller. Fuck the dealerships, unless you work there, they will not give you a good deal at all.

So what's the bad part?

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

I worked for around 3 months until I finally was fired today for not pressuring customers into buying cars that were unaffordable for them.
***
2 of my coworkers were convicted felons.

Your next job should be selling subsidized medical insurance. It's mandatory so the customer can't say no, and it's always "affordable" because the legislation says so. Be sure to mention your experience working alongside convicted felons, because that will further prepare you for a new career as an Obamneycare Navigator.

curious2 says

Your next job should be selling subsidized medical insurance. It's mandatory so the customer can't say no, and it's always "affordable" because the legislation says so. Be sure to mention your experience working alongside convicted felons, because that will further prepare you for a new career as an Obamneycare Navigator

LOL....

+1

SoftShell says

So what's the bad part?

The long hours, the sleazy tactics you must do and the asshole managers who undercut your commission and lie to you about how much commission you really should be getting. Along with many plentiful asshole "customers".

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

Update: I worked for around 3 months until I finally was fired today for not pressuring customers into buying cars that were unaffordable for them. I sold a total of 7 cars.

holy shit dude, you should write a book. really.

a good book on the details might sell well. you have to polish it and target it right, but it would be a public service and a money maker at the same time.

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

Update: I worked for around 3 months until I finally was fired today for not pressuring customers into buying cars that were unaffordable for them. I sold a total of 7 cars.

Here is what I learned working at a dealership...

Dear Robber scum,
You really are scum. We were hoping for a weekly update and examples of poor screwed buyers.
Congratulations for being fired by your kind. We look forward to your next adventure.
What will it be?

holy shit dude, you should write a book. really.

a good book on the details might sell well. you have to polish it and target it right, but it would be a public service and a money maker at the same time.

Thanks man for the inspiration! I think I will write a book actually...

I will post it on here once I am done writing it and it is published.

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

Cars at the dealership are also abused a lot. The lot attendants and the salesmen drive the piss out of the cars - redlining it regularly that is later sold to their suckers.

you should see what they do at carmax after hours... if you buy a sports car from them, just know that around a thousand miles have been recently added by the staff during the nightly street racing challenge.

car dealers are thieving bastards. did you meet the owner? if not, he was likely taking his ferrari from his mansion down to his yacht.

please post one excerpt at a time, with a link to your self-published sales page on amazon each time. i used https://www.createspace.com/ (owned by amazon) and still make about $50/month from that little book i wrote summarizing my views on the housing market:

http://www.amazon.com/Housing-Trap-Buyers-Captured-Yourself/dp/1479156213/?tag=patricknet-20

also, you get good feedback that way to improve the writing.

to really make money, you'll need an agent, a big name publisher, a publicity tour, etc, but createspace seems like a good way to get started if you're serious. agents and publishers are more likely to pick up a book which has shown some traction in the self-publishing market.

Hey Robber Scum....I have an idea.
Start an online service that guides car buyers while negotiating in real time.
Call it....Screw the car dealer at his own game.

If the car dealer knows a scum used car salesman like you is there to guide buyers, they will cut to the chase and go for the bottom line.

Some more observations from my experience...

If you don't get the customer to test drive, you get berated by the manager. If you don't get a credit card held hostage, you get shit from the manager. If you let the customer leave with your business card without telling manager coming to hold them hostage in the dealership, you get berated as well.

"We don't want to hear that the guy is a tirekicker or not buying, nobody walks into a dealership just for the heck of it." - Actually tons of people walk into a dealership just so they can drive the cars. One customer even told me he used to go into dealerships with just the intention of being able to ride the cars.

What the dealership doesn't realize is that people have their own free will. If someone defiantly doesn't want to do something, has made up their mind, finalized it in their head and has no intention of doing what you are asking - than no amount of your convincing will get them to do anything. You can't force people to do something, they have to want it as well.

Of course, you still need to be a salesman - but at a certian point no amount convincing can achieve what you want someone to do. By force? Sure!

If the customer refuses to give up their information, you get yelled at by the manager. So the next time you shop for a car, understand that the salesmen are under a lot of pressure so just give them information even if it is bogus and just do the fucking test drive. You don't have to give real information.

Of course, don't give your credit card - the salesman get shit for it but not as much as they other things. They try everyhing in their power not to give you the card back and try to get you to leave a deposit on the car to reserve the car even if the customers wants to think about it.

If you only give the numbers to the customer, you will also get shit for it despite the fact that the customers said no several times to a test drive, demonstration and giving out their information.

Another thing I learned is that the summer months are the busiest while the winter & fall months are the slowest except during the holidays. So a commission only pay is completely absurd. Once septemeber and october comes around, business gets really slow.

I don't understand how the assholes at the dealership's management think commission only is fair to salesmen and customers' interest.

Truth is that the typical high pressure car business is doomed and ready to die once Apple comes out with their cars. I strongly doubt Apple will pay a commission. Instead the will pay a salary only just like Tesla Motors and be more like information givers and consumer orienited rather than trying to forcefully get sales from customers.

I would suprised if they would pressure customers into buying, lie, withhold pricing, give different numbers to each person and hassle the customers.

The car business is already dieing thanks to Tesla Motors but the final nail in the coffin will be once Apple comes out with their car. You will find the Apple stores to be the busiest and the dealerships will literally die a rapid epic death.

landtof says

did you meet the owner? if not, he was likely taking his ferrari from his mansion down to his yacht.

This is the owner: John Staluppi

http://johnstaluppi.com/index.html

He is in the yacht business as well. He isn't self-made: his dad gave him all the equity in the house so he could go and start a business. His philanthropy is bullshit and mainly for tax benefits along with publicity.

I actually lost one sale when I told a customer that our dealership is owned by the New York Auto Giant and that owner of it is John Staluppi. The customer was a retired police officer and said that your owner is a scumbag and I am actually in the middle of a lawsuit with the New York Auto Giant.

He told me that I'm a nice guy and it's not you but its your dealership.

After the customer left, I was yelled at by management.

Hey... It's not my fault your owner is a scumbag. I actually also went to a car show in Oyster Bay, NY for the dealership. I had to take a Prius and advertise it to the foot traffic. I had a New York Auto Giant banner up and one guy with his wife actually told me "Sorry but we don't buy from John Staluppi."

The owner of the dealership himself is a crook from what I can see.

The owner has a huge yacht himself.

Strategist says

What will it be?

I'm actually thinking to go undercover as a REALTOR...

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

The owner of the dealership himself is a crook from what I can see.

All car dealers are crooks. It makes no difference which crook you buy from.

Strategist says

All car dealers are crooks. It makes no difference which crook you buy from.

Took the words out of my mouth!

+1

Dr Mark says

Please be sincere and truthful we are not kid, this is about

the most obvious and potentially dangerous scam to hit PatNet. The phone number is in Nigeria, and instead of merely asking for your bank account information they're asking for vital organs.

@Patrick, might there be some way to have a junk/scam link so that trusted users could delete obvious junk? There used to be something like that for threads.

curious2 says

might there be some way to have a junk/scam link so that trusted users could delete obvious junk? There used to be something like that for threads.

yes, good idea. i've got the thread spam mostly eliminated, so time to do the same for comments.

Doing the car sales thing again.

Chevrolet and Buick Dealership,

I am scum

I start working tmrw

My cousin was basically given part ownership from his step father in a new car dealership in NJ. Probably takes home 300 to 400k a year. His basement flooded and it was 5k of damage. He changed the address on the invoice to the dealerships address to get the dealership insurance to pay for it. Gives you an idea of the mindset. Something he can easily afford to pay for, he has to commit low level fraud to come out unscathed and brags about it at family gatherings. Think of what he tries on his customers.

I once knew a couple of car dealers, long ago.
I was in Martha’s Vineyard and had a summer job at a marina which was a pier which live aboard boats tied onto and had power and water supply; on shore were showers and a few washing machines.
The first guy was a quiet and classy guy, he sold Chevrolets as I recall. I don’t remember his name.
The second guy was a character, Ernie Boch. He was on TV ads in Boston all of the time. He was liked by the guys who worked with me, he gave us tips and was cheerful.
Once he took a day trip to Falmouth with some people. At some point he saw something he liked; it must have been a boat or was it a car?
Boch: “I like it, how much do you want for it?”
Owner: “It’s not for sale.”
Boch: “Waddaya mean! Everything’s for sale!” 🤑

I once heard a life insurance salesman say that he listened to “buying signals”; the client asking about the price of the insurance was one.

I remember the scene in Glengarry Glen Ross: “ABC: Always be closing!”
“Close! It’s fuck or walk pal, a guy don’t come on the lot lest he’s lookin to buy.”
“You call yourself a salesman you faggot!”
Etc.

Bad time to be getting back into the business. Over the last couple of months, a thing called lending standards has reappeared.

Seems that the lenders can't make money @ 21% anymore. The buyers might even need a credit score.

Good luck selling the repo's.

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

Doing the car sales thing again.

Chevrolet and Buick Dealership,

I am scum

How’s the new and used car market? How are you doing with the sales?