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 David T. Gould on February 8, 2012 at 7:18pm
-
@Thomas, interesting that F&I Mag did not ask about TrueCar's F&I future product plans. Or did I miss that?
-
Comment by Thomas A. Kelly on February 8, 2012 at 5:07pm
-
David, you did a good job of diagramming the article. I think your dissection/comments should be kept to the front for a period so that the dealer body can clearly understand how far Painter/TC has NOT come. Another day, same old s**t
-
-
I think F&I Mag. needs to take some responsibility in that soft ball game article.....Another forum for Painter to spew his propaganda in my opinion. Anyone who is not armed with enough information to ask the right questions and demand responsible answers either has had their heads in the sand or somehow has a vested interest is aiding the TC deception. Not that I had any particular interest in the rag prior to this article, but for me at this point, it is clear that they have no interest in being fair and balanced in their "reporting".
-
Comment by James A. Ziegler on February 8, 2012 at 4:32pm
-
Edmunds and Carfax- Episode II - Return of the Jedi
-
-
@ Thomas... I have calmed down now. Your link (http://www.fi-magazine.com/Article/Story/2012/02/Under-Fire/Page/2....) really fired me off this morning. I tend to keep my cards in close, but I am glad you (and hopefully a few others) picked up a thing or two from that outburst. (@Keith, below is more of an example of my emotion getting ahead of myself)
@ Jim... Thank you for your efforts and recognition of all of those here that have contributed towards the start of The Data War. (I will stick with one war to keep it simple!)
-
Comment by Keith Shetterly on February 8, 2012 at 4:28pm -
@ David, passion is its own excuse. Just keep going! :)
-
-
Shetterly, Kelly, Gould, and more than 150 others... thank you for keeping this blog alive and relevant... Alpha Dawg
-
-
Keep ranting David...I learn more each time you post....(take tomorrow off too please), keep the fire roaring....Thank You!
-
-
-
-
RANT done. Transferred enough comments from story in case it disappears like so many others. http://www.fi-magazine.com/Article/Story/2012/02/Under-Fire/Page/2....
I am grateful to @Thomas for keeping us up to date on very latest nonsense coming from TrueCar (even if it did just blow the past two hours)
Good Selling All!
DTG
Data War is here... Lock'm Down. Individual parts of dealership / consumer data (fields) can be restricted(removed) from dms polling / outside access. Lock those fields down to put an end to your exposure in the Data War
© 2024 Created by DealerELITE.
Powered by
You need to be a member of DealerELITE.net to add comments!
Join DealerELITE.net