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 December 28, 2011 at 9:49am
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If they could only gag Scott Painter, muzzle him, silence him, whatever... do you think they'd be putting out less fires? On first blush you'd get the impression he's very intelligent, and then he says something. How could a major company CEO say this many document-able contradictions on video on the Internet? Is somebody having a brain cramp?
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Comment by Randy Fry on December 28, 2011 at 9:44am
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that must mean that TrueCar and Zag are only brokers on second tuesday and thursday of the week,,, NOW lol
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 28, 2011 at 8:55am -
Hmmm. Back in 2007, Painter described Zag (which became TrueCar) as a broker.
"We spoke quite a while ago about Zag, before you launched--tell us a little bit about where Zag is now?
Scott Painter: The strategy for what we're building, really, is quite simple. <snip> In many ways, you can think of it as an all those auto information sites out there, coupled with an auto buying/brokerage/sales situation, coupled with actual dealers that fulfill."
http://www.socaltech.com/update_with_zag_s_scott_painter/s-0009760....
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Comment by Stick Bogart on December 27, 2011 at 9:09pm
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Go get the Automotive News cover page is BIG says Group 1 Automotive Jumps ship
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Comment by Stick Bogart on December 27, 2011 at 9:08pm
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front cover page of Automotive news is BIG
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Comment by David T. Gould on December 27, 2011 at 4:42pm
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Thanks Jim, I defer to you and your resources for the correct authorities to bring these issues to light. Thanks again for your efforts on behalf of consumers, the automotive industry and just plain being here to stand up for what is right. Good Selling, dtg
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Well written David, I would really like to see the FTC step in here and do a deep discovery examination and investigation.
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That video makes it clear Mr Painter knows his exit strategy when (if) the time comes for TrueCar.BANKRUPTCY. Investors beware. Note: TrueCar is separating the in "member network"group" vs. other leads to dealers. Additionally, now disclosing; Regional Ad Fees, Dealer Offset from invoice, Dealer Cash, Customer Incentives, Program Incentives, Options, "TrueCar Member Network Quoted Price" and Invoice... For the record, I have no problem with transparent pricing. My beef is with TrueCar running from any accountability to dealers as an advertising, brokerage, or the like, as well as, how the customer's information is obtained and distributed with no accountability. My opinion is that TrueCar is going to leave dealers high and dry after exposing them to legal liabilities that they had no idea they were involved with AND that TrueCar is taking advantage of people being technically challenged with their just accepting that this information was obtained legally and accounted for (computer programming) properly. The auto industry has too many anomalies that MUST BE ACCOUNTED FOR AND DISCLOSED TO THE CONSUMER. I don't accept that Mr Painter and his staff are babes in the woods to these issues. He has too much time in this business and has heard plainly from multiple states and reputable automotive professionals that his business plan is flawed, yet, continues full speed ahead to his big pay day IPO. In my opinion, maybe an SEC ( www.sec.gov/ ) review should be considered prior to the IPO if he and his company are plainly aware that they could be (are) breaking state laws, subjecting dealers to untold legal obligations, questionably obtaining private consumer's information / distributing it without their authorization andYET THEY STILL CONTINUE TO SELL THEIR IPO WARES TO WALL STREET!
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Who in the world would be stupid enough to invest in TrueCar with all of this upheaval and uncertainty surrounding their business model. I don't believe GRP Partners is going to find enough people with money that are that stupid.
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