Car salesman are dishonest!! [Long]

[Mark Healey]

I was hoping you'd proove me wrong about car salesmen here but then I read this:

Now, we get inside, he tells me that he had told A-Rod over the phone he could only afford $299 a month on a 2 year lease. My fellow salesman tells him of course we can do it, come on in.

[Now let me pause for a second here. Some people may think of this as misleading a customer. I think of it as giving us an oppourtunity to make a sale. It's not lying if you don't tell them the whole truth. Being honest and telling people I can't sell them a car for what they want does not feed my family.]

It is misleading the customer in order to get an opportunity to make a sale.

The guy gave specific criteria to be met. Saying "of course we can do it. come on in" is lying plain and simple, When you do it to get someone into the store in order to pitch something else It's called a "bait and switch".

If you think that it's OK, you deserve the car salesman reputation.

When I catch a salesman in a lie I never buy from him. I may go to another store or simply come back when he isn't working, but he doesn't get the comission.

[RailroadMonster]

It's not lying if you don't tell them the whole truth.

Actually, I do believe it is. Webster's dictionary lists a definition of lying as "to create a false or misleading impression". That sounds, to me at least, like not telling "the whole truth." Which brings to mind: when one is sworn in for a trial in the United States, he swears to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth".

I am not trying to nitpick or anything, but come on. Do you expect customers (sucky or not) not to complain when you tell them half-truths? I will be honest. I have lied to a customer before. Like Anakah said, I wouldn't tell a customer that I hate my job and want to go home either. But never have I lied about actual transactions. That is just not good business. Those two things are completely different. Don't get me wrong, I hate SCs just as much as the next guy. Maybe even more. And your SC does sound like a whining, little jerk. Especially with the essay. Some people are just not cut out to buy things. They have suckiness in their blood. Anyway, don't lose faith in the human race. Not yet, anyway.

[kibbles]

If you think that it's OK, you deserve the car salesman reputation.

To be fair I don't think the point of the OP was to debate about car salesman but rather to talk about the sucky actions of the SC.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

What I want to know is, did the salesman know the lease program had been discontinued when he first talked to the kid? Or did he only find out about it being discontinued when the kid came in?

I have to say, the more I think about this, it sounds like the salesman lied to the kid to make a sale. Or at the very least offered "nonfull disclosure".

Granted, the kid was a sniveling idiot to bang out an 8-page essay on how disappointed he was he couldn't get the car he wanted, but there may have been a good reason behind it.

[Mr. Rager!]

I can tell you from experience, don't tell a customer "no" (sales training, lots and lots of it). Like even if a customer asks me if something is something is in stock and we don't have, I don't say "no". I typically say, "we can order that and have it here in a week."

A LOT sales people will not lie. They work around the question to give you the most positive answer. If anything, it's confusing.

Now, the kid was being a brat. He felt that since he was lied to... he could like himself. Horrible. Of course, the first salesman should've come up with a more appropriate answer other than, "yeah, we can do that".

It should've been handled better from the start, but there's no need for the kid a brat and write an 8-page essay.

[Rahmota]

Yes they are....... (Oh sorry I thought you where where looking for agreement. )

At the dealership I worked for the salesmen where all liars and encouraged to lie. Not telling someone the whole truth is the same thing as a lie. Anyone who said anythign about a car or plan or package that even remotely resembled the truth was fired before the end of the day.

As for the kid with the English major I'll agree that probably took him the trip home to get the document ready in his mind and maybe 15 minutes to type and run through spellcheck and print. Really useless and pointless of him to try that as going into a car lot he should have expected to be getting yanked around but hey ya live ya learn.

[protege]

Sorry, but I think the salesman did lie a bit.

If a salesman would say something like "I'm not sure, lemme go check" and then "well, that program has ended, I'll see what I can do" I'm more likely to want to work with them. However, if they waste my time, and lie to me, you can be damn sure I won't buy from them...and I *will* tell others about the experience.

I am *not* trying to slam salespeople at all. The vast majority of them are reasonable, and do not try to screw the customer. However, there are a select few who will do that. Occasionally, you can get those salesmen to play by your rules.

For example, I do not take kindly to poor attempts at humor, especially that at my expense. A certain Chevy dealership found that out the hard way in '94. Long story short, my car had just been totaled in an accident. At the time, I still had the neck brace on, and was sometimes in my own little world. (Taking a steering wheel to the face will do that a bit.) Anyway, Dad and I went to the dealer to see what they had. No sooner did I step into the showroom, when one of the guys said that "unless you're buying a car *today* I'm not going to walk up there with you." Now, I don't know about you, but we were pissed! I wasn't in the best mood to start with, and the guy just pissed me off. I lost it and went apeshit on him, and then his manager Watching all of this from the sidelines was another salesguy...who literally ran after us as we were leaving. He apologized for the idiot's behavior, since he was "joking" and was hoping he could at least get me to look at a car. I relented and let him show me a Geo Storm. Unfortunately, we couldn't afford the payments. (Still in high school, no credit ) But, I probably would have bought a car from the second guy.

Ford dealership down the road was different. Even though I had no credit, they were willing to work with us. They were only too happy to let me try out a slightly-used Escort and a new Aspire. Both cars seemed to fit my needs. However, I couldn't afford the Escort, and the Aspire had just come out.

I hit paydirt at the Chrysler dealer... They'd just received a '91 Tercel in trade, and were having a hard time selling it. Not too surprising, since it had no radio, no A/C, was a 4-speed, and had some damage to the paint. The dealer wasn't willing to negotiate much..but he ended up taking $2k off the price, simply because they realized I was right--the car wouldn't sell for what they were asking. IIRC, the car (new) was just over $8k, and they wanted nearly $7 for it. Why, exactly would I pay the nearly-new price, for a 3-year-old car? They came down, and I left with it. Throughout the ordeal, the salesman was nothing but polite, and didn't try to screw me over.

Fast forward to 2000--the Tercel has to go. After 100,000 miles, it's falling apart. Again, most of the dealers were pretty damn nice. That is, until I bought Rupert. The guy I dealt with was an absolute prick from the get-go. For one, he insulted me by insinuating I couldn't afford the car. He kept going on about how I "needed to budget things carefully." I was pissed, since I'd just walked in the door! He's lucky I liked the car, otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. That salesman got what was coming though--he'd pissed off someone else later, and got bumped to some meaniningless "management" job, and eventually got fired.

What I'm trying to say is, one ior two bad experiences will tarnish how you look at people. I try not to look at car salesman as bastards, but my previous bad experiences sometimes cloud that judgement.

[digilight]

From what I read, isellcars (ISC) didn't lie to the college guy (CG) he took the story he was given at face value and didn't see a need to verify it prior to CG coming in. I would think that ISC's associate is the one at fault if he had been in comunications with CG about this.

For what its worth I do think that there are a large amount of sucky car dealers (not all of them, not even most of them) but car dealers are like lawyers, they have been damaged by the shitty actions of a few.

When we bought our last car we went to a local used car mega store (basically the local walmart of used cars). We looked at a used windstar van. We liked it (at the time) signed the papers and had the loan rate locked in. After driving it for the weekend we liked it a lot less. And on monday we had a call from the dealership to come in and talk to them. We knew what it was about, our credit didn't qualify us for the rate they promised us, and gave us on the contract. So they tried to get us to sign a new contract with a higher rate and higher payments. We said hell no, take the car back and we will be on our happy way.

We would have been perfectly within our right to keep the car at the rate promised us and not pay a penny more, this was just our out and we liked it.

We ended up buying a much better van from our friends brother in law who is also a fleet sales man for a local chevy dealership. We knew that we were in good hands, Our friend would have kicked his ass and cut off his chocolate chip cookie supply if he screwed us over .

We even verified with him our theory on having to resign the contract with the other dealership. He explained to us, that no, we didn't have to sign anything. We could have keept the van and the dealership would have had to lower the price to keep the payments in line with the new interest rate. He even said that this is a common occurance at some dealerships, and they rely on the naive nature of their clients to just resign at the higher rate.

The only thing I'm surprised with though is that no-one has mentioned the fact that its odd that a 24 year old student is leasing cars and not buying them. At his stage of the game there is no benefit to a lease (tax deduction as business expense) younger people tend to put more miles on vehicles, going out of town, bar hopping, etc.

[ISellCars]

Wow 22 replies. Who'da thunk it.

Anyways, let me go back to what a few people have been saying and address some things:

To the people who disagree with my statement about "misleading the customer" and "it's not lying if you don't tell":

Alot of people are in jobs where you get paid hourly. Some people get paid salary, regardless of how long and how hard they work. And some people get paid by commission. If I work a 60 hour week, do everything I'm supposed to do, and don't sell a car... I get nothing. I get a pitiful "draw" check, which is usually about $250-$300 as a way to give us some money to pay bills and eat. However, next car we sell, that draw comes out of the commission.

MY JOB is to sell cars, plain and simple. If I have the opportunity to sell a car, I'm going to do everything I can to sell that car. If a customer calls and says "I want to get a new car, but I can only afford $299 a month, can you do it?" Absolutely I can. Now, there are restrictions. You're going to have to put money down, and you're going to have to finance for at least 5-6 years, and you're going to have to have excellent credit. But if I told you all of that over the phone, you would have said "Thank you", hung up, and I would never have had the opportunity to sell that car. What kind of salesman would I be? Honest? Yes. Broke? You betcha.

What did it cost him? An afternoon? Not even? Hell, even I didn't know there wasn't a lease program for the vehicle any more. Every other '06 model had one, for some reason that one didn't.

That customer was not lied to. I can put you on a $100 a month payment plan, however there are going to be restrictions. As far as I know, the CG (college guy), never stated how much money he wanted to put down, and how long he wanted to lease. 2 years is a very short lease, our normal terms are 3-4 years.

Yes, alot of car salesman lie to customers in order to sell them a car. And I agree with almost everyone on here, when I deal with a salesman who's dishonest, I don't buy from them either. Now, I was caught up in this situation where I kinda had my back up against the wall, and was doing what I could, unfortunately things didn't work out. But never once did I lie to him, or anyone for that matter.

Everyone in sales lies. You ever go to a store, pick up a product, and ask one of the workers if it's any good? What's their answer "Oh yeah, it's real good." Come on, give me a break.

[NightAngel]

...
Everyone in sales lies. You ever go to a store, pick up a product, and ask one of the workers if it's any good? What's their answer "Oh yeah, it's real good." Come on, give me a break.

I disagree. I don't lie when I'm selling and I'm a good sales person. If someone brings up a sucky movie I say, "I've heard really awful things about this from a lot of people- are you sure you want it?" 9 out of 10 times they put it back and get something else.

Even if they don't get something else they are greatful that I was honest- then you know what they do?

They come see me again, and again and again.

As for the plans I have to sell- it's bad to lie. I assess the customer's needs and then sell them something that actually WILL benefit them. If they don't come in very often and none of the plans will benefit them- I tell them so. Then you know what happens?

They come see me again, and again and again.

One moment of total honesty can turn a sometimes (or first time) customer into an all the time customer.

I even get new people who say, "I was told by my friend to ask for NightAngel 'cause she'll tell it like it is." It's a good feeling.

[ISellCars]

Now that last statement of mine might have been a little off. I don't think it came out how I meant it to. However, to try and make it sound better.. Not everyone tells the WHOLE truth. Especially when it comes to sales. Yes, there are honest people who will tell you their honest opinion.

But I've never been in a store, when I asked the opinion of one of the workers about their products, and they said something negative about it. Maybe it's just personal experience.

[NightAngel]

I'm sure there are some places that the employees would get into trouble for doing it the way I do. I guess I've been lucky with my employers in that sense. My sales numbers usually prove that my way works well for me also. My Mom says I could sell ice to an Eskimo- but I wouldn't.

[Rahmota]

Isellcars; I have to disagree with you about the salesmen. But then oh well I'm the final arbiter of who I spend my money with. A salesman doesnt tell me everythign about the situation or hedges his answers I'm going to call them on it and give them one opportunity to tell me the whole truth and facts about the sitation. failure to do that and i will walk. And I will tell anyone who asks me why i'm walking what the deal is.

I love goign car shopping with my friends because when i mention that I work as a mechanic and used to work at a car lot it makes some salesmen nervous especially if I start using car salesmen terms right back at them.

As for the pay scale and how you get paid at the dealership. *shrug* Its your choice as to how you make your money but I'll tell ya if I ever walked through your doors and dont get the whole story 100% truth I'm walking right back out. The door swings both ways you know.

Nightangel is right when she says the difference between keeping and loosing a custoemr can be the honesty factor.

[Mark Healey]

MY JOB is to sell cars, plain and simple.

A job you choose to keep doing every time you go to work.

If I have the opportunity to sell a car, I'm going to do everything I can to sell that car.

Aparently including misleading the customer.

If a customer calls and says "I want to get a new car, but I can only afford $299 a month, can you do it?" Absolutely I can. Now, there are restrictions.

Those last two sentenses contracict each other. Do you know what Absolutely means?

You're going to have to put money down, and you're going to have to finance for at least 5-6 years, and you're going to have to have excellent credit.

Now the honest thing to do would be tell him you need more informaion and ask him for it.

Everyone in sales lies. You ever go to a store, pick up a product, and ask one of the workers if it's any good? What's their answer "Oh yeah, it's real good." Come on, give me a break.

Happens all the time. I do it all the time. I sell books and when a customer ask my opinion of a given book I give an honest answers. The look like this.

"I've never read it."
"I thought it was great".
"It was so bad I didn't finish it"
"I've not read that one but I've enjoyed other books he has written."

And sometimes the critiques go more in depth.

There have been people who ignored my opinion to their regret and there are those who ignored it and found that they didn't share it. They second group can use me as a negative barometer.

Honorable salesmanship is about finding the best match for the customer, not what will get you the biggest comission

[Gawdzillers]

You know how I killed the wait time?
I hopped in one of the showroom cars and pretended I was picking up chicks.
Oy...