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 DealerELITE on January 7, 2012 at 4:01pm
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26,445 views: Jim,This blog will be remembered as the begining of the end of True Car. The power of a social media site!
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Comment by James A. Ziegler on January 7, 2012 at 2:48pm
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Love that article Thomas...especially the part of the L.A. Times Article that said ... led to years of messy litigation. Investors pressured him to step down in November 1999 as chief executive of CarsDirect, which laid off 90 people two months ago."
Well if I am not mistaken, one of those investors who marched Painter the door to the tune of a Three Stooges Kazoo Band with only 6% of near worthless stock at the time...was Roger Penske.
God bless him, I feel that there's a strong possibility of DeJa Vu here. Would anyone be surprised if the Stockholders didn't rip the buttons off of Painter's uniform and stand him up before a figurative corporate firing squad...again.
Painter's a disaster and, if I were a big investor, behind the scenes I 'd be clamoring "Off with his Head." AND Steven Dietz and company should be a little nervous about this monumental black eye on their company's legitimacy after raising funds for TrueCalamity.
With the big meeting with Needham LLC looming, will GRP Partners stand in the shadows? There is a lot of embarrassment to try to put a postiive spin on here with TrueCar ZAG. I'm sure USAA and AMEX are also a little embarrassed, and they should be...at least that's my feeling and opinion on this debacle.
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.
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Comment by Thomas A. Kelly on January 7, 2012 at 1:55pm
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Ziegler request:
1) TC’s CEO launching without first clearing the now growing legal mess with the states that surrounds him now. It lends credibility to the LA Times story where it says:
"But is Painter, 32, the right guy? His entrepreneurial record is spotty at best. Before the UC Berkeley dropout discovered e-commerce in 1998, he ran an unsuccessful dental seminar business. A used-car advertising business led to years of messy litigation. Investors pressured him to step down in November 1999 as chief executive of CarsDirect, which laid off 90 people two months ago."
As it stands now, dealers may have been put in peril because they are ultimately responsible to the states and the consumers. USAA cannot be sure at this time that they do not share any responsibility as I am guessing that as we speak they have a legal team all over this which would mean “they are not sure”.
2) TC having a difficult time presenting facts in a straightforward manner infers that they may not be trustworthy.
3) No room for USAA in the board room….too full of Painters ego.
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I'll ask the question again to keep the discussion fresh...
Ziegler request... keep it brief and do not be emotional or insulting.
If you were allowed to have a private meeting with top-decision-makers at USAA; what would be the top three reasons you would give them to persuade them to sever all affiliations with Scott Painter and TrueCar?
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Saturday Silliness
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Comment by bryan w shufelt on January 7, 2012 at 10:54am
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Ziegler request....I would ask the higher ups at USAA, if more info comes out on them using consumer info, it could really get big in the national news, and does USAA really want their name (which its members have very high trust factor in) being drug through the mudd on the TV networks. Even if they have not done anyting wrong do they want the headlines "breach of customer info and USAA in the same sentence"??
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Comment by Michael Paulson on January 7, 2012 at 9:47am
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@Ziegler request: USAA probably loves you and hates you at the same time. On one hand, you are unwinding a part of their services to their members. On the other hand, how often is it that they have warning on something like this BEFORE it blows up in their faces. You are allowing them to go a different direction...if they want to without causing a full scale disruption for their members. The question is whether they will act. In reality though...we ought to be pointing out an alternative. If I remember right, TrueCar bought the company that AAA used to use. If we want them to stop using TrueCar, what do we want them to use in its place? That is what I would ask if I were them.
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on January 7, 2012 at 9:45am -
@ Jim, I'd answer as I did on your Facebook: Duty. Honor. Country.
And then I'd ask them why they do business with THIS guy (from 2001 but still very, very applicable): http://articles.latimes.com/2001/jan/14/business/fi-12141
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I''LL ASK AGAIN...
Ziegler request... keep it brief and do not be emotional or insulting.
If you were allowed to have a private meeting with top-decision-makers at USAA; what would be the top three reasons you would give them to persuade them to sever all affiliations with Scott painter and TrueCar?
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Does anybody know if Scott Painter, himself is presenting at this? The event is closed to Private and Corporate Investors in the Palace Hotel, But we could organize and give out flyers in front of the building without a permit.
Could then notify the media and possibly get National Coverage.
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.
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