I spent most of my day at a car dealership trying to purchase a car I've had my eye on for awhile. This was after I tried to do the same thing the day before and after I called to make sure it was there and showed up for a test drive, was told it wasn't and instead spent an hour and a half talking about financing before even seeing the fucking thing in person. Today, I got a fifteen minute test drive before being carted into an office and spending two and a half hours dealing with the sleaziest group of bastards God has even given the right to breathe oxygen- car salesmen. They knew nothing about this car they were selling, nor its market value and didn't even know what a Hyundai (my trade-in) even was. They spent 45 minutes attempting price scare tactics by threatening to raise the price if I didn't sign today, only to lower the price 20 minutes later when I threatened to walk, all while telling me how I was 'robbing' them and how far under "True Market Value" and "Blue Book" pricing they were (and balked and shut up when I asked them about Black Book pricing). In a two hour timespan, they turned a sure sale into me politely telling them to stick the car up their ass because I could go down the street and get it cheaper and not deal with dimwitted shitpussies because they couldn't stop attempting to sell. FOCUS: Share your stories of sales gone wrong- be it car sales, electronics, cell phones, hookers, whatever. What did you do as a result? Storm around home kicking your dog, or actually do something constructive? ALT-FOCUS: Share any tips or tricks you have for dealing with sales people.
Why the fuck would you even submit yourself to that in the first place? There are ALWAYS options... why didn't you take advantage of them?
I got treated like crap at the first place I went looking for my last vehicle purchase. I left within 5 minutes, and before I left I talked to the lot manager and told him matter-of-factly that the sales guy has made me go out of my way to NOT buy from them. He brushed it off with a "sure, as if you were really going to buy now." I drove on to the next dealership, found another truck I wanted, traded in my vehicle, and 2 hours later I was driving off the lot in my new truck. I made a point of stopping off at the first dealership, pointing to the $50k turbo-diesel I just bought, and said "yep, that's what I just bought". The look on his face said it all. The kicker was, 3 days later the original sales guy called to see if I was still interested, I laughed, told him I'd already bought it, and hung up on him.
When I attempted to buy a Mazda 3 two years ago from Erin Mills Mazda, they asked for a $500 deposit to retain the vehicle. Yeah, bad move. I know. On my financing being rejected, I tried to get my deposit back as I obviously could not purchase the car - especially as they said I'd get the deposit back. I got taken in a back room and told "Well you owned the car and now we need to take it back*. Now we need to sell that car as used". I laughed a bit and demanded my money back. He ran it through my credit card (allegedly), but i checked my transaction history and nothing had happened. I'd call and visit for the next two weeks when the sales rep (who claimed he wasn't an employee - he was "the bank") was conspicuously absent, with the other employees unwilling and unsympathetic to my cause obviously. Called my credit card company, and dumbly stated it was a deposit instead of just a false charge, which led to them being unable to do dick all for me. I mishandled the situation pretty badly, but still am pretty frustrated by being dicked over in that regard. I ran a bit of a smear with the local mazda community, so I know I've cost them some money in that regard, but still what a pain. * just to avoid any ambiguity, I never owned the car. It sat in the showroom the entire time. Also he lied about the transmission but that's less an issue.
I hate most car salespeople. I give them the opportunity for me to be nice, but once they fuck it up it stays fucked up. Years ago, when I was looking to buy a new car, I took my dad along with me. He's been a salesman for years and started out selling tractors and farm equipment. Add that to being a general hard bastard, and he can pull off some deals that are almost mystical. Unfortunately, he has no idea on taste. I'd planned out the dealerships I wanted to hit, but he insisted that we go and look at Hyundais. Since I was young and didn't have much money, this meant looking at the base model, four cylinder shit boxes. I was not interested, but had to humour him. At the dealership, I was pretending to go through the motions with the guy. Dad had snagged a senior salesman, because he refuses to talk to "young punks", and brought him over. I'm not paying particular attention and asking general questions to make it look like I'm interested. As this was around the time that variable valve timing first came out I asked him if the car had it. But, I went mentally blank at that moment and could only come out with, "So, does this model have that new variable... speed.. thing in the engine?" He laughed dismissively and said something like, "Sure, it's called an accelerator." I looked at dad, looked at the guy, and said I'd be waiting in the car. It's not like there was any chance of me even wanting to go for a test drive. Then, last year, my girlfriend at the time was trading in her car to buy a second hand she wanted. It happened to be at the dealership that I'd bought my car from several years back. I'd only recently had a run in with their service department where they'd fucked up the servicing yet again (I'd dropped it off in the morning. When I came to pick it up I was told they were still working on it and it would be ready soon. I asked how far along it was and what was left to do as I had to get to work. The guy came back and said they hadn't started. I told him to give me the keys and the service manager to jam it up his ass). Accordingly, I wasn't particularly disposed towards being nice to them. The sales guy was okay. The financing guy was a douchebag until I dropped a few comments that I knew what I was talking about and he smartened up. Then we saw the person I may hate more than the salesperson - the after sale care consultant. This is the woman they wheeled in to try and sell us an extended warranty, tint, rust proofing and so on. She started on tinting, which I knew we could get a half mile up the road for better quality and cheaper. So, I told her so. She said she could do a better price overall by packaging it with rust proofing. I asked her if the car currently has rust proofing, which it didn't. So, I told her there's no point in rust proofing a five year old car that's spent all that time in a coastal town. So, she started on the extended warranty. After she'd run through her spiel, I asked who did the warranty work. "Our service department." So, I told her how useless they were and considered the extended warranty to be valueless. She replied with, "But it's better now, we have a new service manager." "Please, I didn't tell you when it happened and it wasn't the first time. We're out of here." Fuck lying car yard people.
As a salesman I know how tough it can be to ease up and be low pressure. After all, it's how you get paid. A customer walks, you literally watch dollars that could have been yours disappear. It's a tough profession. I can appreciate when I pull into a dealership and a salesman comes bounding out the door. However when they ask, and I inform them that I'm just looking I expect them to back off. The ones that introduce themselves, hand me a card, and leave I'll deal with. The ones that hang around I refuse to. My worst experience ever was going to a local Toyota dealership during the "cash for clunkers" days. I had a POS plow truck I could trade in and was considering a brandy new loaded Tacoma. This dealership (Norm Wagner) is notorious for having a TON of sales people and this held true. I was still swinging my legs out of my car when the first one approached me. Stuck his hand out before my ass left my car seat. I said "just looking", collected his card, and made my way over to the trucks. 30 yds and two rows of cars or so later ANOTHER salesman approaches me. "Just looking", pocket his card, but he starts to follow me. Hasn't asked what I'm looking for, just squawking about every vehicle we pass. He leaves me for a young family looking at minivans. Make it to the trucks and yet another salesman is on me before I even peek in a window. This one won't leave. Wants to get keys for every truck I pause at. However, he knows NOTHING about the trucks. After failing to answer half a dozen questions in a row he informs me that he's a car guy but we can take any of these for a ride. I never ended up taking one out. Far too afraid of being trapped in an enclosed space with the car guy and deciding to jump a guardrail to make it stop.
I was in college and looking at buying a used car. The salesman was nice enough most of the time, but when it came to the financing part he would only tell me what my monthly payment would be. I asked him over and over what the interest rate was and how long I would be paying for it, but he only wanted to tell me that it would X dollars per month. I finally had enough and walked. I went back a few days later. He still wouldn't tell me the interest rate but did tell me that my payments would be for 72 months. I told him there was no way in hell I was going to finance a used car for 6 years, and then watched his eyes bug out when I pulled out a financial calculator. With a few keystrokes, I figured that he was charging me 14.5% interest (and I had and still have really good credit). I informed his manager what was going on and told him I would never buy a car from them. Went down the street and got a similar car for a lower price with a normal financing plan.
I've been going to the same guy my whole life for cars, he lets my pay sticker price and not penny more as long as I keep it on the DL.
One time, a car salesman really, really pissed off my wife. He directed his entire sales pitch to me, look at me when answering one of her questions, etc., generally conveyed an attitude of "Hush, woman. The men are are talking business." She cut him to ribbons, then excused herself to go speak with the sales manager. He looked at me with this smile and face that seemed to say, "Wow! You're married to that bitch?!" I thought about this for a moment, and then said to him, "You know what. She needs some time to cool off. Are you here tomorrow?" (It was a Friday afternoon) and he said, "Yeah, I'll be here all day tomorrow and we open at 9:00." I came back the next morning, promptly at 9:00, met with him, and proceeded to waste his entire day, test driving numerous vehicles (picking ones on the lot that he had to move 5-6 cars to bring around front), kicking dozens of tires, having him call around to see if he could get "X" vehicle in green. He even bought me lunch. Finally "decide on a vehicle" in the afternoon, and start the "negotiation" process, and around 4:30, I "changed my mind." Lot's of customers at the dealership that day, but none for him.
I've purchased a few cars over the years and can deal with all types of sales guys. I'm pretty good at telling the new guys from the seasoned veterans. I'm very direct and completely honest when speaking with them. My problems over the years have been with the service departments. Things like taking my truck in for an oil change, and finding out they did an entire list of "recommended" services, based on mileage or some other bullshit. And now they want to charge me for them. It's very rare for me to get visibly upset, but I was ready to kill someone that day. If you've got some free time, I found this to be an interesting read, even though it was written about 10 years ago.
I worked at a used car lot for a few months some years back and they will say/do anything to try and get the sale. Your story reminds me of a customer looking to buy a completely impractical lifted F250 (V10, 44" tires etc). He'd come by a few times a week to drool over this truck. Eventually brings his fiance down to look at the truck. She of course says no way in hell and to pick out a normal truck. The salesman stood to make a killing on this truck so he kept pushing the guy to get it. It all comes to a head when she's had enough, tells the guy that she's going home and if he comes home with that truck, she's packing her shit and is leaving. After she storms out, the sales guy looks at the dude and says "You're going to marry that? You don't buy this truck she is going to walk all over you for the rest of your life. You need to put your foot down NOW" I could go on and on about how dirty those guys were. They would call other finance guys that they've worked with and brag how bad they've buried people in their "new" car.