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 Keith Shetterly on February 16, 2012 at 9:50pm

I was wondering if anyone knows someone named Ferreira?  Just asking.

Comment by James A. Ziegler on February 16, 2012 at 8:54pm

David, relax and calm down, we have incredible surprises coming soon for TrueCar...AND all of the Customer Data Vampires.It takes time but we're on it. They have no idea of how bad they're losing. 

We are now pursuing legislative relief and some people in powerful positions are listening and cooperating. 

Comment by James A. Ziegler on February 16, 2012 at 8:49pm

Larry, you are on point. TrueCar diversions are designed to take us off-point. 

Love to talk to Michael Timmons...He is the kind of guy I really wished worked somewhere else... BUT... he is the fixer for TrueCar. 

Obviously, he's already seduced some into thinking TrueCar is this benign and harmless company being picked on by the mean Car Dealers... when they are really Data Aggregators wishing to steal and devour customer personal information for God Knows what reasons. 

I really like Michael Timmons, BUT, I know who he is and I know why he's here. We all have our jobs to do. 

In the end, TrueCar is as vicious and evil as ever in my mind and opinion. 

They are doing damage to our business and endangering our customers identity security by demanding their information. 

Scott Painter is a liability to all who invested in him and his flawed ego-maniac visions... and Steven Dietz of GRP Partners  www.GRPPartners.com is someone who investors should run away from in droves because of his perceived poor judgement and lack of ability to call the train wreck they've experienced. This guy is Beavis without the benefit of his more intelligent partner. 

Of course, all of this is my spin, opinion, and perception of the people and events in motion here... I admit I could be wrong. 

Comment by Keith Shetterly on February 16, 2012 at 8:07pm

@ Larry:  Thanks for the clarification.  I agree.

What I'd like is to get an effort together with the folks on this blog and elsewhere to get this data under control and evaluated for exactly that--if the data is out there, no matter what, the dealers should seek the first, best crack at it directly to enable sales.  You've got me thinking, again, about that issue.

I'll email you some thoughts.

Thanks!

Keith

Comment by Larry Bruce on February 16, 2012 at 8:04pm

@Keith: I agree that's why I say the dealer needs to be comfortable with who they are dealing with. I have to be honest, I would be suspect too based on past misgivings and may not do it, but that is a decision for each dealer to make for their own store not for me to make for them. 

At the end of the day until the data isn't available and you have to make room for the possibility that it may always be out there. The dealers should leverage it to convert more leads and sell more cars, in many ways they already are in apps like VAuto etc. So why not in the marketing world? If its gonna be out there anyway you might just as well take advantage. 

Thoughts? 

Comment by George O'Sullivan on February 16, 2012 at 8:02pm

@Michael in your answer to Larry's question #2  you say a couple of things that make me pause.  First, you say "TrueCar's third-party service providers extract DMS sales data to accurately match sales to the customers that originally submitted their information by using our service." Does your third party service take notice when the customers were already in the DMS, prior to recieving the lead from TrueCar?  So that they can be credited? 

All of my third party lead providers just expect me to tell them, when I recieved a lead from another provider, ocassionally they ask for verification, and I provide it. 

Do you need the access to the DMS because you do not trust the dealers you are in business with? It strikes me that the primary "above board" reason you need access is to make sure you can get credit for as many sales as possible (i.e. you do not trust the dealers you do business with).  So if you do not trust the dealers you do business with, why do you expect the dealers you do not do business with to trust you?

This simple logic is one of the primary reasons that TrueCar has recieved as much flak as they do. You walk into a dealership and say we have a great program that will allow you to sell cars, let's go into business together.  Then you say by the way I need access to your computer system, so I can download all your data, because I don't trust you to be honest with me.  But Don't worry about your data I promise not to misuse it. 

You also say "We also analyze anonymous sales data (stripped of personal and confidential information) to determine which market areas (by zip code) our dealers are most effective at selling to, thereby distributing higher quality leads." This means you are not just taking the PII to match up sales data.  It is also means that you have determined that if the data does not include PII it is okay to use.  It also verifies what Scott Painter says in the December 6, 2011 video, that the Dealer DMS sales data IS used for the TrueCar pricing model.  (Scott states this very clearly at 0:27 of the video)

http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/video/scott-painter-found...

 

And by the way your next answer contradicts what you said above:

If for matching are you ok taking just the PII data (Name, Address, City, State, Zip, Phone, Email) that is the only data necessary for matching.

Yes, we have asked our providers to only submit the fields above that you mentioned (plus co-buyer).

 

@Michael I am not trying to be a disrespectful in any way, and I apologize if it comes off that way. And to be very honest with you, no matter what your answer is, I will never do business with TrueCar.  The reason for that is this Scott Painter, Steven Dietz, Charles Kim and the ZAG salesperson that came in here years ago.

Comment by Keith Shetterly on February 16, 2012 at 7:50pm

@ Larry:  It would take a lot more than that to get me to "not see any reason not to".  If these answers are readily available, where were they before?  The investment group leader is anti-dealer.  The CEO is anti-dealer.  They've only been muted for sales purposes.

When TrueCar comes, as a company, admits this mistake and apologizes to dealers and promises never to be that way again, that would be a step to me saying cautiously "I see no reason not to."

I don't recommend any anti-dealer vendors and never will.

Thanks,

Keith

Comment by Jay Prassel on February 16, 2012 at 6:33pm

@Michael, Thanks for the professional and prompt responses. For what it's worth, these are the same answers that your provided to me when we met at NADA.

I also asked what Vehicle Data is pulled and you may want to share that information here too.

Comment by Larry Bruce on February 16, 2012 at 6:29pm

Michael I can tell there is no better Social Media for talking to car people than Dealer Elite and ADM.  

That said, 

If I am understanding you correctly then you don't need this data for anything other than to match sales data therefore if a dealer is on subscription you don't need access to the DMS, right? 

Does the dealer have a choice? Can they go on the subscription plan if they don't want you in the DMS? 

Finally dealers if TrueCar is willing to sign your data sharing agreement and is willing to have their polling company sign and your are comfortable doing business with them. I see no reason not to. 

Comment by James A. Ziegler on February 16, 2012 at 6:27pm

I've been told thatTrueCar representative and TrueCar attorney appeared at a NJ Car Trustee meeting yesterday (New Jersey Dealer Association).  Apparently it did not go well for them. With 40 dealers in attendance, they were asked to raise their hand if they ever did business with Zag/Truecar and everyone raised their hand.  Then they were asked if they are currently doing business with them today and only 2 raised their hand. 

TrueCar is on the ropes and counter-attacking hard trying to rally consumers against Car Dealers. 

Michael says that TrueCar needs to Data to analyze anonymous sale data? That's not our problem. Why should we care if TrueCar wants to analyze data to lower our profits? 

We want TrueCar OUT of our customers personal information. They are not taking anonymous data, it is all personally identifiable and we have to TRUST Truecar not to do bad things with our customers' information? These people have not earned Trust from anybody.

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