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 James A. Ziegler on December 15, 2011 at 11:32am
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Painter is suddenly everywhere defending TrueCar BUT like your pappy always said... "Cockroaches always run when you shine a light on them"
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“We get information from dealers and consumer systems; we also buy data from DMS providers. And we’re now seeing it come in from lenders and insurers. It’s also available at state registration tax and title office. Anyone who buys or sells a car leaves a data trail, and understanding this data can be key. This data includes make, model, trim condition, configuration of cars, all down to the ZIP code,” Painter told Auto Remarketing.
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People have been asking why I haven't posted more on these blogs in the last few days? Well, as you are about to see, I've been doing some things behind the scenes that are about to fall like a row of dominoes... Watch and smile the next few days/weeks and you'll see the handiwork JIM
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Group 1 booting TrueCar, This is only the beginning, I predict in the next few days we will see several of A-Tier manufacturers, import and domestic, following the VW example and booting TrueCar ... next watch and see the relationship with USAA and AMEX deteriorate as consumer complaints stack up with the better business bureaus and government regulators possibly taking a deep look. Look for investors to run for cover as this deal turns sour. Just my opinion of course, I might be wrong...Let's see.
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Comment by Al Mosher on December 15, 2011 at 9:01am
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Posted by James Easter in this discussion - "Oh, and btw...Just moments ago I submitted an immediate cancellation of the TrueCar/Zag program for all of our 14 stores in the Gettel/Gatorland Automotive Group - DONE!! Have a great day all!"
Breaking News last night on DrivingSales.com - DrivingSales learned tonight that Group 1 Automotive has ordered its 108 dealerships to drop TrueCar.
The ball is rolling and it will only pick up speed. Congratulations to these dealers and all others who have booted TrueCar. KILL THE BEAST!
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 14, 2011 at 10:08pm -
I come here on this blog to alert you to this conversation via comments on ADM - TrueCar has offered to talk to me, and I have asked that the conversation between myself and Scott Painter be pumped live for listening to as many as possible! I'll let you know whatever arrangements are made.
Here's the exchange for reference, start from the bottom.
Comment by Keith Shetterly just now
Chintan, I guarantee you that I will have listened to, re-listened, read, and re-read every word available by the time any call occurs. It's no problem about the timing; it's the holidays! Thank you, and we'll work it out.
Keith
Comment by Chintan Talati 5 minutes ago
Hi Keith,
No problem. I'm happy to listen to your proposal. And hopefully, you've had a chance to review some of Scott's comments on our blog with the open letter. These have come directly from him. I'll be on a plane tomorrow in the afternoon but will be available before and after that. I just want to be open with you in case it takes more than a few hours to hear back from me.
Thanks,
Chintan
Comment by Keith Shetterly just now
Chinton, I found your email in my SPAM folder from yesterday about 8:30pm my time (Central),a and I will reply to that. I don't have a voicemail from you, and I don't have a direct message on Twitter (see below, though I obscured others enough for their privacy but still to identify they aren't you). I'll answer your email, and I appreciate very much your effort to contact. I think your resume, which includes Edmunds up to 2010, is a unique qualification for your PR work here, and we'll see what we can work out.
Personally, for that transparency that gets talked about, I would prefer that we talk with an audience of my peers (if they want to listen in on a 1:1 conversation) listening. I might be able to arrange, or perhaps you can with your larger budget, a GotoMeeting between myself and Mr. Painter that could have some attendees from these boards on listen only? I realize there might be a short conversation we could have for introduction ahead of that, but these issues sit amid st an uncertain future for dealers everywhere who would like to modernize without general catastrophe.
So, I'll email you this proposal. I believe that you have tried to contact me since yesterday, and I appreciate the time you've taken for that.
Thanks,
Keith
Comment by Chintan Talati 42 minutes ago
Hi Keith,
Thank you for your note. Scott Painter would be more than happy to contact you. I've reached out to you via e-mail, phone call and twitter over the last few days. Feel free to reach back out to me and we can set something up within the next few days.
Thanks,
Chintan Talati
TrueCar
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After what I was able to achieve this morning... you'll see it in the next couple of days... I will be willing to bet the "Short Money" is the correct call on TrueCar. Sit back and watch, it's coming..
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Comment by David Ruggles on December 14, 2011 at 1:41pm
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Looks like my response to Scott Painter's open letter to the world was truncated. :)
The complete version is available at my blog:
http://autosandeconomics.blogspot.com/2011/12/war-with-truecar.html
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Comment by James Easter on December 14, 2011 at 1:18pm
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Oh, and btw...Just moments ago I submitted an immediate cancellation of the TrueCar/Zag program for all of our 14 stores in the Gettel/Gatorland Automotive Group - DONE!! Have a great day all!
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@Eric: they are going to need a price REDUCTION - say, down to ZERO after all of the dealers cancel & stop this madness!
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