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
-
Comment by James A. Ziegler on February 15, 2012 at 9:20pm
-
This blog has been a little slow recently...my fault. I have been busy working with others with access and clout to formulate legislative remedies to all of the abuses. Government moves more slowly than I would like but the result is more permanent.
-
Comment by David T. Gould on February 15, 2012 at 9:08pm
-
What reports? Reports of which fields to poll? Is this it? Has George O'Sullivan found the Holy Grail of automotive dealer data security? PLEASE ALL... SLOW DOWN AND INVESTIGATE THIS!
From below: "When we contracted the Data Pulling company, they claimed they just used standard reportsand only passed along the data that was required. When asked what they did with the rest of our data they said nothing, it is held for 30 days and then deleted."
-
-
I would prefer that George's comment not get pushed off the front of this post by the rehashing of known facts. Re-Posted:
Comment by George O'Sullivan 2 hours ago
Due directly to the conversations here and other sites. We recently ran security checks and found one of the very few companies that we allow access to our DMS, downloading info they had no need for. After cutting them off, and investigating we discovered that:
A. They had subcontracted out the data extraction to a third party.
B. Our contract was pretty specific about what information the company that we contracted with could extract.
C. The third party company that was extracting the data was pulling all the data they could.
When we contacted the company we were contracted with, they claim they are only getting the data we contracted with them for. (Probably true). When we contracted the Data Pulling company, they claimed they just used standard reports and only passed along the data that was required. When asked what they did with the rest of our data they said nothing, it is held for 30 days and then deleted. (Most likely not true).
Here was the key issue, we told the primary company what they could take, but we do not have a contract with the company that actually dialed into our database!!! This was our fault, the contract allowed for 3rd parties. The loophole is that since the third party company that dialed in passed along only the information that was contracted the contract was not violated. And as long as not of the Personal identifiable information isn't passed along to anyone they will not violate the agreement.
However, now a large chunk of our recent deal data sits on the server of a company that we do not have a contract with. Though they cannot use the PII everything else is there, and the loopholes are big enough to drive a truck through. They assured us they would never pass any data along without permission, that we should just trust them, they are a big company and do this for lots of dealers. I have never known a large company to take extra time to do something repeatedly, and take up resources without a payoff. But, they are learning the "Scott Painter" wink and nod.
-
Comment by Mike theCarGuy Correra on February 15, 2012 at 8:51pm -
@Chales your reference to Apple simply defies logic! Walk into an Apple store and demand to see the ‘TrueCost’ of that iPod you are looking at, then tell the guy that you want to pay LESS. Then acknowledge that they are going to compile your name, address, phone number, email etc for their own marketing and research use. Not a likely scenario is it. The TrueCar issue is not a bunch of car sales people whining about the demise of profits at the hands of ole Scott. Although creative, his continued use of the term transparency and consistent preaching that its necessary in modern car sales is a sham that allows him to work the ends against each other while TrueCar is the only beneficiary of the conflict he panders to. Scot has only re-enforced the already negative stereotype of car sales while making millions from the folks he says need to go away, TrueCar wants to be the ‘dealer’ by establishing prices internally that they determine are appropriate and then brokering the sales themselves. Then again, why allow the truth or those darn facts (like VIOLATING ACTUAL LAWS!) interrupt your need to be relevant in a discussion you truly know nothing about right??
-
Comment by Thomas A. Kelly on February 15, 2012 at 8:27pm
-
@ Charles Ellingson In my opinion your comments are not worthy of discussion. Go back to whatever "occupy" street corner you came from and spew there. I'll lend you a blanket.
-
-
This is part of the (second) letter sent to Painter by Virginia.
-
-
@Michael, Virginia sent notice some 18 months or so to Zag/TC expressing their concerns about their model. Their concerns were not addressed. Then Virginia took action. Those facts are not consistent with your statement:
"We certainly wanted to be compliant but only a handful of state regulators contacted TC to evaluate the model and to my knowledge no fines were issued to any TC dealers"
As far as Virginia is concerned, you certainly did not act as though you wanted to be compliant.
-
Comment by Keith Shetterly on February 15, 2012 at 7:55pm
-
@ Jim: The British are winning the War of Independence here at Concord, and so forth, because you are riding through the countryside telling everyone they are coming. Clearly, you should stop yelling "The British are Coming", dismount, and kill those lanterns--because you're only making the war go badly! If you keep it up, you'll tank the whole future of the colonies! I mean, look what happened to poor Crispus Attucks.
Sheesh. Thankfully, some patriots stood and fought.
Sound familiar?
-
Comment by Michael Timmons on February 15, 2012 at 7:43pm
-
@ David We certainly wanted to be compliant but only a handful of state regulators contacted TC to evaluate the model and to my knowledge no fines were issued to any TC dealers. I personally don't believe that a subscription model is in the best interest of dealers. I had breakfast with a friend of mine this morning who owns two GM dealerships in Orange County, Ca. and he would rather pay for a transaction than pay a subscription fee. This is the reaction that I am seeing from most dealers I have talked to. The pay for performance business model will also incentivize lead providers to distribute quality leads that convert.
-
-
hmmm... Michael. Not so much on the "We listened to what our dealers were having issue with and changed our business model in many areas to eliminate their exposure and adjusted our pricing model to better distribute quality leads and be less price driven." Was it the dealers that motivated TrueCar? OR State advertising laws that caught TC in a brokering position? If TC is listening to dealers in some states, why not listen to dealers from all states and change the $299 per sale fee?
© 2024 Created by DealerELITE.
Powered by
You need to be a member of DealerELITE.net to add comments!
Join DealerELITE.net