TRUE CAR and ZAG Cyber Bandits, Parasites or Good for the Car Business?

Jim Ziegler asks...

I am hearing a lot of discussion about True Car and ZAG. I continually scratch my head and wonder if desperate dealers are doing the marketing limbo "How Low Can You Go?"

Are we so bad at what we do that we have to line up and pay vendors to lose money? AND, who is giving these people access to your data that is used against you?

Who owns these companies and what might be their ulterior motive? Sometimes I ask questions to which I already know the answer.

Am I wrong?

What do you think... JIM

Jim Ziegler's Guidance and Recommended Action Plan:

Ten Areas We Need to Concentrate on to Bring This Monster to It's Knees...

Government investigation of ALL Data Aggregators taking consumer information from dealers' DMS. Sadly enough, dealers who do business with TrueCar are exposed to liability charges. Cut off all access to unecessary data, no matter who takes it from the dealers DMS and make it illegal to "resell identifiable consumer data" and "transactional data".
Educate Your Fellow Dealers; If anyone takes financial transactional data, they expose the dealer that allowed it to violations, especially if it is passed on to other vendors or shared.
Educate Consumers to what they're doing with their information...
a. You buy a car from a dealer, do you really want your personal information, and maybe even your financial information, passed along and sold and shared by "God knows who?"
b. These People Charge the Dealer $300 which the dealers have to build into the deal
c. Your Privacy and the Security of your Information could theoretically compromise your identity if you do business a company that takes data from the dealership.
Educate Investors and potential investors they could possibly be mislead if anyone is telling them this is a safe investment because of all of the dealers pushing back, associations pushing back, and government regulators in many states coming after TrueCar's business model as NOT compliant, in some cases they're saying it is Not Legal.
AMEX, USAA and all of their affiliates do not want the bad consumer relations this push back is creating with their members and customers.
Cancel your dealership's Affilation with TrueCar. Tell people with TrueCar certificates that YOU don't honor TrueCar and you feel the company is NOT reputable. Educate consumers as to perceived data exposure if they buy from a TrueCar dealer. Make sure that each consumer knows that using TrueCar actually increases their vehicle cost by $300 to $400.
Make the dealers selling at huge losses take all of those deals. Big problem right now is too many Nissan Dealers and others are taking huge losers to get the factory money. The TrueCar reverse-auction business model will continually push those numbers down until the factory money is non-existent. Consumers need to hear from many dealers, "We don't do TrueCar"
Keep calling your National and State Dealer Associations demanding they get involved and stay involved... No excuses.
Get the Manufacturers into the game. If GM, Ford, Toyota, and other majors change the rules about how we advertise and do business to protect the dealers, we can cut off their ability to set pricing. So keep it up at every dealer meeting. Call your Dealer Council Members and protest to your factory reps. Tell the manufacturers, if they want showroom and facility improvements, we need the ability to make fair profits.
Tell everyone you know. Educate other dealers and industry people. Watch the Painter interviews... I believe this is the first time a vendor has publicly announced they intend to bring down the dealers and hijack our business, taking our profits and starving us out with our own data. Painter has said manufacturers and dealers should go bankrupt and he, in his God-like way "will control distribution..."
When the TrueCar-Yahoo Deal kicks in we need to stand firm and "Just Say No" we don't honor TrueCar deals.

Read this article as a reference: http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20110831%2FFIN...

AND, if you doubt the mission... read this... http://www.zag.com/websiteASSETS/whitepapers/ZAG-WhitePaper3.pdf

Tags: &, AMEX, Allen, Bank, Capital, Capricorn, Commission, Company, Conference, DealerTrack, More…

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Comment by James A. Ziegler on December 22, 2011 at 6:00pm: Okay, all of you readers and members of the tribe... here's your newest mission. We are absolutely winning big time now. Over the holidays, between the holidays... you need to call-telephone- at least 20 other car people and educate them about TrueCar, and sign them up here. There is a major event about to happen and we need all the witnesses we can get.

Comment by James A. Ziegler on December 22, 2011 at 5:42pm

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Thursday, December 22, 2011

Attention All FADA Dealer Members

Important Information related to dealers and their use of True Car/ZAG

From: Ted L. Smith, CAE, President (DD) 850-224-2580

True Car/ZAG is definitely in the news across the country and you should take immediate steps to educate yourself fully on all of the legal and business issues involved in your contract with this vendor.

Most states are focusing on the potential or alleged violations of their state advertising laws and laws concerning brokerage or “bird dog” fees. Please remember that under Florida law you as the licensee are responsible for any violations with respect displaying and advertising vehicles. (F.S. 320.27(9)(b)3 - Misrepresentation or false, deceptive, or misleading statements with regard to the sale or financing of motor vehicles which any motor vehicle dealer has, or causes to have, advertised, printed, displayed, published, distributed, broadcast, televised, or made in any manner with regard to the sale or financing of motor vehicles.)

As important are the issues surrounding the collection of data from a dealer’s DMS system and the issues involving privacy and security of that data.

With so many issues being discussed and the potential for concerns we would urge you to contact your attorney to discuss your options and the impact of Florida law on your dealership’s advertising practices associated with this or any other vendor that you employ to display pricing scenarios.

Florida law requires that the advertised price include dealer pre-delivery service charges and it appears that the True Car web pricing excludes these charges and adds them later on the pricing page. The Attorney General’s office has not yet, to our knowledge, ruled on whether this methodology is a violation of S.501.976 of Florida statutes.

The states of Kansas and Colorado have issued warnings to dealers about per se violations of brokering and advertising laws.

Please be aware that there are legal issues of privacy, data use and ownership, as well as data access, when you allow an unrelated third party to access your DMS system.

You should pay specific attention to what information is being mined from your DMS system and how that data is being used and/or controlled. Does your new Privacy statement take this sharing into account? If you are an open portal for data mining, you may also find yourself drawn into a complaint about data misuse. You must decide for your store(s) whether it is a good idea to give any vendor or business partner access to your DMS.

CLICK HERE to access Florida Advertising Guidelines (login required)

FADA is pleased to provide the advertising guidelines (not all inclusive) to FADA dealers as a means of assisting you as you place advertisements in paper formats and in electronic sources throughout the state and on the Internet.

The regulatory authority for dealer advertising in Florida is the Office of the Florida Attorney General and various others, such as municipal governments that may have local ordinances governing dealer ads. Our industry has some specific statutes (Florida’s Decep

Comment by Michael Correra on December 22, 2011 at 12:15pm: An Open Letter To Scott Painter;

Mr Painter,
As a former ZAG fan and one who personally brought ZAG into 4 prior dealerships I have a simple question for you. Using your own business example; I currently have MTD 63 leads from 3rd party lead provider A at a total cost of $1102.50 and have closed 8 of them for a per lead amount of $137.81. From 3rd party lead provider B I have 36 for a cost of $612 and closed 5, so thats $122.40 each, again by your practices. My question is this; at an average of $130.10 per closed lead why do you rape car dealers for $299 for your leads while portraying yourself to consumers as the savior of the car buyer and pandering to the beliefs that car dealer are bad and you will disclose all the secret profits they dont want everyone to know about? It seems that the difference between the actual market average (lead 'good deal' price) of $130.10 and your (unlicensed broker fee) cost of $299 is QUITE some profit margain when compared to even the % of profit in the window sticker of most automobiles.
So Scott, would you sell your leads for $130 per? Oh wait, you dont have a brokers license and charging a finders fee for an individual transaction would be illegal.... nevermind.

Comment by Jim Kristoff on December 22, 2011 at 12:12pm: Comment by James A. Ziegler 23 minutes ago

We have some surprises coming for the bad guys soon... I am so proud of our band of merry men here. JIM

_____________________________________________________________________________

I can't wait to see what is next!!!

(gets out popcorn, soda and an overstuffed chair to watch)

Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 22, 2011 at 12:00pm: Jim, for fun, why don't you list the states here so far. :)

Comment by Craig Lockerd on December 22, 2011 at 11:57am: Cant wait for the Surprise my friend!

Comment by James A. Ziegler on December 22, 2011 at 11:46am: JASON, By all means, you know I am a friend of your company. Glad to see you here.

ANYWAY THE BET'S OVER THE STATES I WAS TALKING ABOUT HAVE ALREADY DONE IT.

We have some surprises coming for the bad guys soon... I am so proud of our band of merry men here. JIM

Comment by Jason Sellers on December 22, 2011 at 11:41am: @Jim, I'm a betting man just not against you! LOL I hope all 50 states will go that way. I'm trying to lead the charge here in West Michigan!

Comment by Eric Damiani on December 22, 2011 at 11:28am: In PA you must have a license, I don't understand how True Car can Advertise Pricing without being a dealer. It looks like they are in violations of the same things as in Colorado.

http://www.pacode.com/secure/data/037/chapter301/chap301toc.html

I have emailed PA Dealer Assoc and have not heard anything. Any PA Dealers please contact them!

Comment by Stanley Esposito on December 22, 2011 at 10:37am: Thanks to all of you guys. Your hard work is paying off. I am proud to be associated with everyone of you!