Jim Ziegler wants to know: " It's 9:00 AM - Do You Know Where Your Inventory Is?"

DID YOU AUTHORIZE YOUR INVENTORY TO BE POSTED ON ANTI-DEALER OR HOSTILE WEBSITES?

5:00 AM and the Alpha Dawg is on the Point. Actually been awake since 4:00 AM. Did you ever have so much on your mind you couldn't sleep because you were thinking so hard? Well, a lot of side issues that came out of this Cars.com battle that are bothering me and I intend to pursue them.

First of all many people reported on the blogs and on Facebook and in Private Chats and Messages. That your inventory was showing up on TrueCar and CarGurus.

Well, that is troubling. One participant in the blogs emailed a statement that ALL of our vendors, or at least most them, are brokering off our inventory to other websites you didn't subscribe to. OR, perhaps buying and selling your inventory to brokers and listing services where other websites pick up your cars and put them on their own sites. The example they used in the email to me was a listing site the sender claimed to me was brokering your inventory back and forth between these lead generator vendors buying and selling inventory to each other... your inventory, for $6.00 to $12.00 each. I have not investigated fully but I believe there's got to be some truth to that in essence.

I HAVE NO PROBLEM RIGHT NOW WITH TRUECAR
I think their model revisions are as in line with dealers' best interests as any of the others.

BUT, I have a severe problem with CarGurus. I believe they are anti-dealer and NOT good for us or the consumer... my opinion based on what I have seen.

CarGurus is an alleged lead generation service that Tells The Consumer whether or Not Your Unit Pricing is a Good Deal or a Bad Deal (in their opinion?) During the course of all of this, one of my dealers discovered his Chevrolet Tahoes listed on CarGurus and labeled as a Bad Deal. The rub is He never gave any inventory listing to CarGurus. According to him, the only vendor he was aware of with his inventory was Cars.com. Have you checked, CarGurus to see if your cars are listed there when you don't do business with them????

I am not sure if Cars.com, AutoByTel, AutoTrader, or any of your vendors have the right contractually to do this. I am also researching that. They may be acting strictly within the rights you have signed away somewhere in the deep paragraphs buried in the text of your agreement with them. We will find out.

Here is the questionable language in the Cars.com contract you probably signed that allows them the right to ship out and export your inventory to God knows where to websites with questionable reputations?

4. Content. Customer grants Cars.com a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, transferable, license to access, edit, store, enhance, modify, adapt, translate, copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, publish, perform and display publicly, prepare derivative works of, and otherwise use Content, and to sublicense such rights through multiple tiers. Cars.com reserves the right to modify the Sites and Products, and to edit or reject any Content or portion thereof from use on the Sites or Products in its sole discretion and without notice."

You and your dealer need to get this renegotiated OUT of the contract completely for your protection.

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Comment by James A. Ziegler on May 4, 2013 at 4:22pm: YES OR NO DOES CARS.COM OWN AND OPERATE THESE DEALER-BASHING WEBSITES AS MANY SAY THEY DO?

DEALER BASHING WEBSITES OWNED BY CARS.COM????

www.whypaysticker.com

www.carpricesecrets.com

Stats on those sites average around 5000 visitors a day... I regressed the way those sites looked all of the way back to July of 2003 when they were put online. screenshots are increasingly evil. We have the screenshots so if anyone changes the sites we can show the history.

I was just informed that Dealer Refresh - Jeff Kerschner's blog had this story over a year ago... and published it here---> http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f46/anti-dealer-messages-websites-ru... Which, to me makes it even worse that they would leave it up and profit from it after it was exposed before. Shameless. That is sort of double-verification. Of course, we have a lot more traction here now. It gives me more respect for Dealer refresh.

Comment by James A. Ziegler on May 4, 2013 at 4:19pm: You did the right thing Jim Wilkinson

Comment by JIM WILKINSON on May 4, 2013 at 3:41pm: I sent in my 30 day notice for the 2nd time in a year and miraculously both times my leads spiked, my phones rang but this time I am not changing my mind. I get some great reports from cars.com but I think I can do a better job attracting leads with my own digital marketing.

Comment by James A. Ziegler on May 4, 2013 at 5:38am: TOP SECRET CARS.COM INTERNAL DOCUMENT DISCLOSED

Comment by James A. Ziegler on May 4, 2013 at 5:37am: A Cars.com representative today told one of my dealers that they could only cancel the inventory feed to CarGurus if they also canceled all of the feed to all of the other websites they're sending your inventory to. EXCUSE ME! That is such a big pile of crap they're serving up there. I view that as a tactic to keep you with CarGurus. Okay, either they WON'T do it... OR... is Cars.com saying they are such a LOW-TECH COMPANY they can't perform such simple operation as excluding individual sends out of the feed. Actually there are some sites I'm sure the dealers would be glad their inventory is sent to if they were given an option. BUT, Cars.com chooses to be so NON-TRANSPARENT as they refuse... as in they refuse... to disclose who all of their affiliate and partner vendors are that they are sending your inventory to.

So much for all of the flowery language like customer friendly transparency, great shopping experience and a list of other buzzwords they use on us. Excuse me, Cars.com, we're ready for you to start giving us a good selling experience and being treated as customers instead of advertisers.

CarGurus and a host of other renegade vendors have the audacity to tell our customers our paid ad is a bad deal by their standards. Most of you never asked anybody to put you inventory on this malicious website to start with. That was Cars.com business deal with them and it's NOT in your best interest. I'm sick of paying vendors to tell people we're bad and they're protecting the consumers from us and we'll screw you if the vendor doesn't protect you from us. That goes for CarFax and all of the pigs getting fat feeding at our trough. Finally, The Automotive community is standing up to all of these pretenders and saying ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

We've been told repeatedly that Cars.com is the BEST of all of them. Probably TRUE, and isn't that sad... some of the others must be really really bad.

Comment by James A. Ziegler on May 3, 2013 at 3:07pm: You might be wondering why this page has gone a little quiet today. Well, all I can tell you is we're doing some really-really huge things offline about the Cars.com situation. The Alpha Dawg Tribal Council is working overtime and will be rolling out an intensified campaign next week... there will be a lot of Twitter on the right conference Hash Tags.

Comment by James A. Ziegler on May 3, 2013 at 1:33pm: TOP SECRET CARS.COM INTERNAL DOCUMENT DISCLOSED

Comment by James A. Ziegler on May 3, 2013 at 7:30am: I just received an internal document that Cars.com sent to the field staff. It is basically their talking points to answer dealers' questions concerning this Blog. I am flattered, I am mentioned by name in this "Do Not Distribute" internal document. It is two pages and plain English.

One thing I am very pleased to hear is that Cars.com does NOT sell "Leads" not to anyone. They do however, in the document discuss "Their Affiliate" sites and YES, CarGurus does receive an inventory feed amongst others they feed out. Of course the document I have says "CarGurus is focused on a great shopping experience and helps dealers reach serious shoppers".

Okay, of course I contend they don't offer the DEALER a great selling experience.

Regardless, Cars.com refers to CarGurus as a "Partner" and they also mention another partner "Autotegrity" that I am unfamiliar with.

This document is clever in that it says "The dealer can opt-out of the CarGurus feed" by calling (888) 252-7731 or online at Support@Cars.com

BUT it also says they will NOT provide a list of their partners to dealers. This is their version of transparency I suppose. They will give up CarGurus (Because we've already outed them) BUT THEY WILL NOT disclosure who their other partners are. (until we 'out' them one at a time I guess) The document also mentions their "Santa Monica sites" may be selling a small percentage of leads to third parties. BUT Cars.com only sells leads to dealers. (AND, of course as of this week, they only sell that lead to the dealer that paid for it once)

Now, this document is labeled FAQs for Internal Use Only... No need to say how I came by it. I suspect however, they actually wanted me to have it. It might have actually been written for me to see. All of the language in the document talks about customer shopping experience and why these policies are good for dealers BUT there are many issues it does NOT address such as what monetization does Cars.com receive by these "Partnership" and "Affiliate" relationships? Are you guys at Cars.com just shipping dealers' inventory to undisclosable sources because you want the dealers to have more exposure as the document says? OR is there some profit motive that is not discussed here. Is all of this Partner and Affiliate action FREE like a barter system? OR is someone cashing in somewhere in this relationship with all the customer rosy language surrounding it?

I will not publish the document because I have it in paper with watermarks and identifiable things that might compromise who gave it to me.

Comment by James A. Ziegler on May 2, 2013 at 7:54pm: smile :)

Comment by Doug Davis on May 2, 2013 at 7:33pm: James, give us a list like the FBI's Ten Most Wanted.