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 January 10, 2012 at 10:12am
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Believe me David, we've already got the word to them. I have been working diligently behind the scenes to be sure The TRUE Truecar story is out there in places that matter. Watch what news is coming from San Antonio?
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Comment by David T. Gould on January 10, 2012 at 10:03am
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Would a burst of tweets and / or facebook updates from those that can't be in NYC get any attention inside the 14th Annual Needham Growth Conference?
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Occupy True Car - 1/10/12 TrueCar, Inc. Presents at Needham & Company, LLC's 14th Annual Needham Growth Conference, Jan-10-2012 11:40 AM. Venue: The Palace Hotel New York, New York, New York, United States.
Any Word?
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Thomas, I advise NOT to disclose any more about that case on these blogs. We know what's coming BUT don't show your hand here.
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Just got a report that Kinkos/Fed-EX is hiring new employees in Santa Monica to keep up with all of the resumes they're having to print.
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The second shoe is about to drop as The Federal Trade Commission gets Involved... fasten your chin straps, here comes phase two
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on January 9, 2012 at 9:00pm -
It's a moment or two of sad satisfaction for me, personally, to see this. Our industry needs modernization; most of us are on these boards trying to provide that very thing! What the car business didn't need, and still doesn't need, is yet another back-slapping, swagger-talking vendor telling us how to do it their way and pay, how we're stupid for resisting their plans, how we owe them money and respect but they take money and give no respect to dealers who are their customers.
Wherever this may lead, I have three things to say: 1) Many thank you's to the many people here and in dealer associations and legal advisors who understood how faulted the TrueCar sales model is for dealers and consumers; 2) I hope we modernize in ways to facilitate success for dealers and for consumers, and I will continue to work for that end; 3) and it is especially satisfying to me, personally, to see the condescending TrueCar "smartier-than-thou" squad find out they ARE a broker in their current model. Just as I, and so many others, have said, all while we swam upstream against their snide anti-dealer giggling remarks about having day jobs, legal experts, and the "best interests" (cough) of consumers at heart.
From me to you, TrueCar, and to all those minions with lots of day jobs: You're a broker. And Jim, I, Thomas, Rob, Eric, David, Matt, Jerry, Stan, and others get to say it transparently.Told you so.
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Comment by Thomas A. Kelly on January 9, 2012 at 8:13pm
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Comment by Michael Paulson on January 9, 2012 at 8:02pm
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Oh Noooooooooooo! Not Mr. Ziegler! He's mean to me!
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Painter must be feeling like Mr. Bill about now.
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