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...

  1. 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".
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. AMEX, USAA and all of their affiliates do not want the bad consumer relations this push back is creating with their members and customers.
  6. 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.
  7. 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"
  8. Keep calling your National and State Dealer Associations demanding they get involved and stay involved... No excuses.
  9. 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.
  10. 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

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Comment by Ocie C. Welch III on December 2, 2011 at 7:16pm

ANY DEALER THAT THINKS THIS IS GOOD FOR HIS BUSINESS PROBALLY IS NOT A CAR MAN AND HAS AN IGNORANT LAZY SALESMANAGER THAT DOES NOT CARE ABOUT HIS SALESPEOPLE.THE SALES STAFF SHOULD WALK OUT AND COME BACK WHEN THEY ARE APPRECIATED AND RESPECTED.   

Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 2, 2011 at 5:25pm

Can you turn comments back on for a minute?  I want to put one up.

Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 2, 2011 at 5:22pm

Jerry, you might turn off the seo on that link.  Google indexed it.

Comment by Jerry Thibeau on December 2, 2011 at 5:18pm

Either a really stupid person, or a TrueCar employee.  I am going with both, a Stupid TrueCar employee!

Comment by NANCY SIMMONS on December 2, 2011 at 5:11pm

Guys!  I just spit out my White Zinfandel...not drinking the Kool Aide... I cannot believe the comments of those who have not really read or researched this debacle!  And that is exactly what it is...A DEBACLE!!!  Whenever you pit dealers against dealers on price or principle it is a lose-lose situation! 

On the other hand it is nice to see the band of dealers and vendors alike who get it and see the extreme mal-effect this will take on the industry.  It really cannot be compared to Edmunds of the short stint of GM trying to sell cars on E-Bay.  Fritz Henderson tried that while on foot out the door and the other on the banana peel and Government Motors at the helm...Dumb idea by non-car people again!  I just wish dealers/vendors could come together in good times as well to enhance the integrity of the industy.  I see on the top of my screen, "DealersUnited" and think of how families come together when someone dies, how the country united after 9/11, and whenever a tragedy takes place, folks unite to show support and look for hope in those around them!  Glad the Alpha Dawg, Tammy Darvish and others are at the helm now...Time for a Grass Roots Movement to educate and gain public awareness in the automotive arena.  What if other industries followed suit, and stripped the profits out of everthing, the need for sales people would be eliminated as kiosk and robots replaced them...What would happen to the overall economy as the trickle down effect caused a criple to the economy?  Who would be left to spend money?  Maybe I am blowing this out of proportion, but maybe I am not! 

Comment by Stan Sher on December 2, 2011 at 4:31pm

I sent in a few TrueCar leads and reached out to the contacts on the responses.  Let's destroy this cancer.

Comment by A. J. Maida on December 2, 2011 at 2:08pm

@Keith, @Jerry needs to buy those keyboards in bulk...I spit my KOOL AID all over mine too!!!!!!!!

Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 2, 2011 at 2:02pm

@ Jerry:  You made me spit out my drink.  Owe me a keyboard!!!  :)

Comment by Jerry Thibeau on December 2, 2011 at 1:50pm

@Keith,  You're wasting your time debating people on Grant's facebook page.  Most of those people can't think on their own until Grant makes a video telling them what they should be thinking.  I like Grant and his style, but his followers would probably hop on a plane with Jim Jones to Guyana if they had the chance.  Link is for any Grant followers who make it to this thread.

Comment by Jim Kristoff on December 2, 2011 at 1:48pm

@Jerry....the cluelessness is everywhere....this is why the industry, namely the NADA needs to get involved!!

The NADA will lend a lot of credibility and information to the dealer body!!

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