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The Informed Consumer

How Not To Buy a Car

Buying a Car? • Fraud Rampant, Report Finds • How Not To Buy a Car • Five "Musts" --- • A Salesman Responds

By Stephanie Moore

For several long, miserable weeks a year or two ago, just before finding "legitimate" employment, I sold cars. I thought (naively) I could endure it because (like a law school grad who plans to do public defending) I would:

• Treat people the way I want to be treated when looking for a car.
• Change the usual miserable buying experience to a pleasurable one.
• Keep my integrity and ethics firmly in place.
• Make some money while I looked for a "real job."
• At the very least, learn some "insider tricks."

Well, within 2 days I knew I'd made a huge mistake. The new car manager was a pleasant man, not too pushy and interested in my success - even though he threw me to the sharks with no training. The used car manager was "old school," and used tactics that were dishonest and downright illegal.

People coming onto the lot were called "Ups." Meaning, they were "up" for a sale - or your turn to sell was "up." If you let them walk off the lot, you were interrogated by both managers as to why. When I replied, "They were just looking," I was yelled at. I did manage to sell two cars, but got beaten to death on them - by both managers.

I gave my notice, letting the manager know this just wasn't for me. When asked why I didn't stick it out, as my manager really liked my way with the clients, I told him, "I just can't DO THIS to people." He never asked what I meant I think he already knew.

The good news was, that in the process, I did learn some tricks of the trade. I want to share them with you - so that you can have a fairly good buying experience. I qualify that because I truly think that buying a car is about the most miserable experience people can have, unfortunately. Why we still have to haggle over the price of a car is beyond my understanding - we don't haggle for groceries!

However, I did use the tricks I learned the next time I bought a car, and I got the car of my dreams for a great price!

Next: Thou Shalt Not ...

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