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
Comment
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Comment by Thomas A. Kelly on January 24, 2012 at 7:16am
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Thank you Heather.
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on January 24, 2012 at 7:11am -
TrueCar - Eternally vigilant . . . on your customers. Just another reason. ;)
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Comment by Heather Graham on January 24, 2012 at 7:08am
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Tom - as long as you are signed up with them, the can bill you for a lead - no matter how old I believe. If you leave them the they can pull for 90 more days per the contract.
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2:30 to 3:30 am every morning David.....Still looking for that worm.
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Comment by David Ruggles on January 24, 2012 at 5:07am
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Hey Tom, you're up early this morning.
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Question: If I inquire through TrueCar and a TrueCar dealer responds to my inquiry...... and within 90 days of my inquiry, I buy a vehicle, any vehicle from that dealer....Does that dealer owe TrueCar money?
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I'll check it out Keith! Thx
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on January 23, 2012 at 3:54pm
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@ All on the Outing Issue: I forgot I wrote a blog about not outing dealers, back on December 1: First, Do No Harm.
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on January 23, 2012 at 3:22pm
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@ Heather - Exactly! Thank you. This is what happened before with such "outing", but on another issue: ADM and DE index VERY well with Google, and the dealer in question's SERP1 position 2 was an ADM article written by an ADM member about the dealer's advertising (essentially an ad car) and all the discussion arose around that. Eventually, the GM of the dealer himself came on the board and lit folks up for introducing negatives in a market no one knew--and pointed out, for example, that his closest competitor was running even MORE of that type of advertising! Essentially, he questioned why he was being called out on his own SERP1 and also (strongly) challenged folks to help him do business better rather than use him as a negative example. Calmer heads prevailed in short and the blog was pulled by the author from all platforms. Right thing to do, and a lesson for all. I mean, really, do any of us need this blog or the ADM blog showing SERP1 on any dealer? Especially those who may not yet even KNOW of the issues or understand them?
There's another GM on here, and I won't call him out, who was chiding us all about seeing black helicopters from TrueCar. And he was presented by TC as one of their best dealers.
Just last week I see his "light went on" about TC in his posts, especially in "light" of Mr. Deitz's email to Jim Ziegler. THAT is the kind of advocate we need to create, and I'm happy to help all.
Thanks!
@ David: I'm personally proud of every word you highlighted. I hope this my position is clearer, and that others here who have taken the time to write helped some understanding. Thanks.
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I'm curious as to 'whom' the dealers would be 'outted' to and why that would make any difference to them.
GMs and Owners make their own decisions and are often, as we all know, slow to change their opinion. Many have been around the block lots of times and it is their choice if they want to put themselves at perceived risk in order to book a few more sales (I'm sure there are many areas where there are just a few dealers left and they are benefitting at the moment). No one really knows how big this will get and if dealers will be affected.
This forum puts a light onto what is happening, various outlets are reporting, states and associations are communicating with their members. I, as I'm sure others are, are making those I know aware of the issues....and leaving it to them to decide what to do.
Outting dealers I'm afraid would give Painter/Truecars fuel for their fire in my opinion. It's noble to want to help the other dealers, but I have to agree with Keith and Scott.....has to be done privately.
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