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 Keith Shetterly on December 18, 2011 at 10:45am -
Yes, Jim, that's apparently what happened in another state. This was forwarded to me, but I trust the investigating source.
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Comment by James A. Ziegler on December 18, 2011 at 10:34am
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Keith, you're saying a TrueCar inquiry came back as a contact from AutoNationDirect, do the players in the plot seem to thicken as I suggested initially?
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 18, 2011 at 10:30am
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Here's an email that was forwarded to me by a source who put a lead in to TrueCar . . . and it is associated with AutoNationDirect.com!
================ eMail follows=====================
From: request_confirmation@smtp.autousa.com
Date: December 16, 2011 .:..:..:
To: XXXXXX
Subject: Confirmation - your new car purchase request Inquiry: --------Reply-To: XXXXXXX
THIS IS AN AUTOMATED REPLY FROM A COMPUTER MAILBOX. PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL.
Dear ZAG TrueCar Customer,
Thank you for using ZAG TrueCar. We have received your inquiry for a 2012 Ford Fusion and look forward to assisting you. Your Inquiry number is --------..
Within the next 24 hours (may exclude weekends and holidays) you can expect to be contacted by a sales professional who will assist you in purchasing your next vehicle.
This contact will provide you with all of the information you will need, and assist you with answers to your questions in order to make your buying experience hassle-free and simple.
This is an automated reply from a system mailbox. Please do not reply. If you have any questions about your purchase inquiry, please don't hesitate to contact us directly at 1.888.xxx.xxxx or info@autonationdirect.com
Thanks again for using ZAG TrueCar!================
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Thanks Larry, That is absolutely brilliant. You are laying out the deepest clarity of understanding of the situation of anyone who has posted to date.
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Comment by Larry Bruce on December 18, 2011 at 10:24am
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I posted this on ADM yesterday and have been asked by several to post it here as well. Dealers who read this, you have to realize this starts with YOUR data. No matter how TrueCar got it it originated with you and you have to protect it...PERIOD.
Mr. Painter my statements & questions to you:
- A fair price is one the customer accepts based on their own parameters not oneS you artificially create with the TureCar Curve…PERIOD!
- Zag / TrueCar is a pass through middle man, your company is the very company the internet eventually eliminates. All you and TrueCar are effectively doing is creating a point for the dealer & the customer to argue about (The TrueCar price) It’s not your inventory and not your place to price it. Mr. Painter when you start paying for the dealers overhead you can start pricing the car until then GET OUT OF OUR BUSINESS. If you want to be a marketer great! YOUR JOB, bring a customer to a dealer. THE DEALERS JOB, sell the car.
- Mr. Painter & State Attorney Generals where is TureCar’s Responsibility in advertising a price? Where are their disclaimers for incentives etc?
- Mr. Painter DOES EVERY DEALER ALLOW Zag / TrueCar into their DMS? I think we all know the answer to that question.
- Mr. Painter You say you don't use the dealers DMS data but you buy data from DMS companies, here’s a shocker for you… IT’S NOT THEIR DATA TO SELL!
- Mr. Painter it might also shock you to realize that the data given to finance companies and insurance agencies (if Zag / TrueCar really is?) isn't their data to sell either and potentially is a violation of GLB (Gramm, Leach, Bililey Act) and has potential liability for the dealer.
- Mr. Painter is Zag / TrueCar willing to take a feed from the dealership that only includes what you need to bill (Name, Address, phone, email address)? I think not, but I would love to hear the answer on that one.
- Mr. Painter who holds Zag / TrueCar accountable, and for what?
- Mr. Painter if you are getting paid on the sale how can you say you are objective? That’s non-sense.
- Mr. Painter you say your vast data and research shows that price is not what drives a customer to buy convenience and selection are big decision makers, GREAT! Get rid of the TrueCar Curve and let the dealers post the price. As I said earlier it’s not your inventory to price to begin with.
Dealers at the end of the day it is up to us to protect our data from thieves like TrueCar. That is a harsh statement I know, but I have had it with TrueCar trying to justify this process its BS.
NO MATTER WHERE THE DATA CAME FROM IT ORGINATED AT THE DEALERSHIP IF THE CUSTOMER WANTS TO DISCLOSE THAT DATA…FINE, BUT YOU DON’T GET TO BUY IT FROM DMS COMPANIES, INSUREANCE COMPANIES, DATA AGGORGATORS OR ANYONE ELSE IT IS NOT THEIR DATA TO SELL PERIOD.
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Really pleased to see Larry, Ralph, Rob and others peeling the onion and exposing Truecar and the overwhelming extent of the plot. Too many people are either ignorant or bought off and have no grasp on how serious this is, saying oh well just have to sell our way past it. They don't get it. Listen to Painter's words on the video...
"...future releases will address other parts of the car buying process, financing, leasing, insurance, maintenance, repair, refueling it’s a four trillion dollar ecosystem, it’s the biggest category on the web today and from a business model perspective, being able to aggregate an audience is core to the advertising business model and the auto category is one of the most lucrative in terms of a CPM and lead generation basis…”
Scott Painter - TrueCar
He is saying they're going to take over financing, leasing, and then the service department, insurance, even refueling and maintenance. Painter and his investors intend to hijack the entire dealership system replacing it with big box retailers,,,and then dictating to the manufacturers like Wal-mart. He laid it out in no unclear terms.
Those dealerships making money with TrueCar do not get it either... the tactics they are using to overcome the TrueCar certificate lowball quote bait and switch or added addendums, or holding on the trade, high finance, etc... these loopholes are being closed by TrueCar one at a time until they disappear...poof.
Profitable TrueCar dealers are bragging about the very tactics most of us have sworn off of. No amount of motivational speeches or sales training is going to overcome this ominous threat that I believe is a result of data theft.
Painter talks about buying data that is readily available from DMS providers and other sources... Excuse me, the only information he could possibly be buying, no matter where he buys, was originally stolen from a dealers DMS or supplied by a manufacturer to somebody. We as an industry need to lock down data in sales, service and otherwise.
Vendors do need access to data and that access should only be exactly the fields of information required to perform a service to a dealer. AND, that vendor should NOT have the right or ability to sell that data or pass it to a third or fourth party or affiliate company under penalty of law.
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You made a good point there Stan
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Comment by Elise Kephart on December 18, 2011 at 7:25am
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Comment by Stan Sher on December 17, 2011 at 8:42pm
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The problem is now that when you don't honor these prices you have to monitor your online reputation more because your are prone to getting some bad reviews. It is not good either way.
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Comment by Jerry Thibeau on December 17, 2011 at 8:38pm
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It's only going to get worse Larry. This is your future ten fold.
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