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 James A. Ziegler on December 3, 2011 at 5:12pm

I just sent out thousands of personally addressed emails to Dealers and industry influencers that I know personally. The email reads as follows...

Hello friend. I am writing this letter to appeal to you to get involved or to risk losing everything. I honestly believe this is a call that is necessary for all of us to get involved OR watch yourself go out of business in less than 18 months. Please get active AND please pass the word to every dealer you know. TrueCar and ZAG have openly stated their thinly-veiled intention to dismantle the retail car business AND NOW they have raised a $200 Million Dollar war chest that I believe will be used to will bring retail car dealers to out knees. Please READ THIS BLOG...in 4 days it has had more than 12000 views.

A worrisome point sending up a red flag is the fact that Mike Maroone, president of Autonation is on the board of TrueCar. PLEASE start at the beginning of page one of the Blog and really try to understand what is going on here.

In my opinion, this is the battle of Armageddon for Car Dealers, your last stand. Discuss it, study it, and pass the word. I honestly believe based on information coming to light that  If you don't act and get on this we'll lose it all and there will only be large public company owned distribution centers. It appears to me that they're making their move and this is it.

Click this link and please forward this email to your entire list.....

http://www.dealerelite.net/profiles/blogs/true-car-and-zag-cyber-ba...

Comment by John Miller on December 3, 2011 at 4:36pm

Very Much On Track Jim, 

I think TrueCar is attempting to manipulate the natural efficiency cycle for dealerships.  This is not the best time to bring this out. 

The only positive in their court is; some say there is no such thing as Bad Press. 

Time will tell

---jm---

What's Your Story?

Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 3, 2011 at 2:37pm

@ Mike, it needs to be OUT.  Dealers dropping them like flies is sending a very clear message to their investors.  Staying in non-transactionally will still help them.  Thanks!

Comment by Mike Warwick on December 3, 2011 at 1:52pm

The Truecar reps always claim that the majority of their data is gathered through RMV records a la the way Polk gets it's data.  They claim they only need access to the DMS to match sales with leads for accounting and invoicing purposes.  Any dealer that decides to remain on this program in spite of the mountain of evidence that they are intent on crippling our industry should restrict Truecar's access to a name file with new or used vehicle list only.  They only need to verify sales.  They do not have a right to data mine your database with no compensation to the dealer.  If you can't bring yourself to cancel, at least get them out of your transactional data.

Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 3, 2011 at 1:51pm

gotcha.  I was just asking for the DealerTrack piece to be a part of the discussion, too.  

Comment by James A. Ziegler on December 3, 2011 at 1:37pm

NOT Exactly Keith,  You see dealers are unaware of what extent data is being mined...AND, No Consumer gave anyone the right to their privacy information. IF...and I said "IF" any company is lifting and even sharing data that a consumer could reasonably expect to be private...AND the dealer was under assurances that information was NOT being assimilated into the extraction, THEN this is theft of privacy information. OR, at least that how it seems to me. I will NOT make any definitive statements until I've seen it and  his attorney explains it to me when I am holding the documents and reading line by line with him. 

Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 3, 2011 at 1:29pm

Jim, that "data sharing" association TrueCar now has with their investor DealerTrack should be part of that.

Comment by James A. Ziegler on December 3, 2011 at 1:26pm

Just got off the phone with one of the largest Dealers in the Midwest... He told me things that have NOT yet been brought to daylight on this forum about TrueCar and , more specifically ZAG. What if they were extracting all of your transaction data including F&I and customer information? I will have a complete read-out early in the week that may be the smoking gun. If what i am suspecting is true there may be federal violations of the Privacy Act. I'm not saying it is or that it isn't, all I'm saying is I will have documents before the week is out and then we'll all know. I could be wrong. 

Comment by Michael Deville on December 3, 2011 at 12:59pm
Jim, that was real world, and motivating to me; however pretty still works. :-)
Comment by Jim Kristoff on December 3, 2011 at 12:43pm

Here is a great take from Adam Carolla.......he tells it like it is!!!....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJD8pZiRIzs&feature=player_embedded

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