Chances are, since you’re reading this, you’re not very likely to visit a new car dealership, believing you can buy any new (or used) car for only $99 per month. Sadly, lots and lots of people aren’t as savvy as you and do believe it.
Since I’m largely “preaching to the choir” because most readers of my blog and column are educated consumers, why do I write about this? It’s because most of the large volume dealers do resort to this, almost obscene, form of bait and switch advertising. They wouldn’t be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV, digital, radio, and billboards telling their readers and listeners they can buy this car for $99/mo. if it didn’t work.
The targets of this unethical, immoral, deceptive, and illegal advertising are the “victims” of our society. They’re the elderly, very young (buying their first car), the English language impaired, uneducated, and, yes, the just plain gullible. Some areas of our county have large populations of first- and second-generation immigrants; other parts have large elderly populations. South Florida has both. I get lots of emails and phone calls from elderly widows, baby-boomers and pre-boomers. Wives usually survive their husbands and they lived most of their lives during a time when the husband bought the cars in the family. I hear from many widows that are having to buy a car for the first time in their lives. Sadly, they’re easy marks for car dealers’ bait-and-switch ads.
So, my purpose in writing this article is not to inform you but asking you to help me inform others. Let it be knowns to your friends, family and neighbors that you’re available to advise them on buying their next car; or suggest that they read my blog, www.EarlOnCars.com, listen to my radio show Saturday mornings at www.StreamEarlOnCars.com, buy my book, Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer on Amazon (100% of proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue,www.BDRR.org). Or read this column in Florida Weekly or Hometown News.
Or, click on SIGN UP NOW! on my blog page and join “Earl’s Vigilantes”. If I accept you as a qualified advisor on “how not to get ripped off by a car dealer”, I’ll send you a “cool hat”, free, with the Vigilante logo, and list your contact information on my blog so that people in your geographic area can contact you for help. Online skills are important for our vigilantes to have, because buying a car online today, is the very smartest way. Virtually all “victims” of $99/mo. ads visit the car dealerships where it’s easy for them to be tricked.
Thanks very much for considering applying as one of Earl’s Vigilantes. When you’re approved, I look forward to working with you to save as many victims of car dealers’ bait-and-switch advertising as possible.
Since I’m largely “preaching to the choir” because most readers of my blog and column are educated consumers, why do I write about this? It’s because most of the large volume dealers do resort to this, almost obscene, form of bait and switch advertising. They wouldn’t be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV, digital, radio, and billboards telling their readers and listeners they can buy this car for $99/mo. if it didn’t work.
The targets of this unethical, immoral, deceptive, and illegal advertising are the “victims” of our society. They’re the elderly, very young (buying their first car), the English language impaired, uneducated, and, yes, the just plain gullible. Some areas of our county have large populations of first- and second-generation immigrants; other parts have large elderly populations. South Florida has both. I get lots of emails and phone calls from elderly widows, baby-boomers and pre-boomers. Wives usually survive their husbands and they lived most of their lives during a time when the husband bought the cars in the family. I hear from many widows that are having to buy a car for the first time in their lives. Sadly, they’re easy marks for car dealers’ bait-and-switch ads.
So, my purpose in writing this article is not to inform you but asking you to help me inform others. Let it be knowns to your friends, family and neighbors that you’re available to advise them on buying their next car; or suggest that they read my blog, www.EarlOnCars.com, listen to my radio show Saturday mornings at www.StreamEarlOnCars.com, buy my book, Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer on Amazon (100% of proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue,www.BDRR.org). Or read this column in Florida Weekly or Hometown News.
Or, click on SIGN UP NOW! on my blog page and join “Earl’s Vigilantes”. If I accept you as a qualified advisor on “how not to get ripped off by a car dealer”, I’ll send you a “cool hat”, free, with the Vigilante logo, and list your contact information on my blog so that people in your geographic area can contact you for help. Online skills are important for our vigilantes to have, because buying a car online today, is the very smartest way. Virtually all “victims” of $99/mo. ads visit the car dealerships where it’s easy for them to be tricked.
Thanks very much for considering applying as one of Earl’s Vigilantes. When you’re approved, I look forward to working with you to save as many victims of car dealers’ bait-and-switch advertising as possible.
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