Dealership Scams
The New Car Sale Price Trick
This isn't included as one of the 'official' scams, but it's worth covering here along with some common phrases. (For the Top Ten Dealership Scams, check the menu on the left side of the page.)
Buying a new car is just like buying anything else on the market, only more stressful. Stressful because salesmen are trained not to take "no" for an answer, and many word games and phrases come into play to help them to get you to close the deal.
Think about it - when any sales people use carefully written strategies, you can be easily led to think that you are getting a good deal, when in actuality you could be getting a bad deal. This is their job; they perfect their craft all day from 9:00 to 5:00.
Advertisers and marketers are there to mess with your head so that they can make you buy things. Some of the best words and phrases that make a consumer buy products are amazingly well worded and have been tested and tweaked to perfection.
You've surely noticed how retail stores will offer a 50% off deal on a piece of merchandise, but in truth the price of the item has been increased in the first place. This same marketing strategy applies to selling cars (although without the 50% off deal, of course.) If a company marks up the price by 55%, and sells it for 50% off of that price, you are actually paying 5% more for the item than it originally cost. You've been "kersnookered", to use a southern saying...
This is a very common way for car dealerships to work.
They may offer a $3000 cash back deal on your trade-in while the other fees and interest rates will be higher than normal. But they're hoping that this $3000 cash back offer will temporarily blind you long enough for you to sign the papers. So while a dealership may make the numbers sound great, they will try to get you with the other fees. Let them "try" whatever they want; your job is to not be fooled...
Because you can come armed....having done your homework with a printout of the actual dealer cost for the vehicle and, perhaps, your credit report. Read on, because you'll want more than just the "dealer cost."
Dealerships have many ways to ripoff a buyer, but let’s look at the top 10 scams that dealerships will pull on you before we cover the others. As a matter of fact, these "other" scams (that we'll cover soon) are nearly as commonplace as these next 10...
(Click on the next menu item down, "Your Buyer's Folder..."
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