Hyundai of Cookeville: Worst Persons of the Week

Mythdoc · May 24, 2017

If you still own a 2011 Volkswagen Touareg we want to pay you top dollar for it. Enclosed you will find a signed full trade-in offer for your vehicle based on its current value. Depending on the mileage and condition, I may be able to offer you up to $500 more.

Amount of offer in envelope: $17,225
Amount of my buyback: $43,300
Now, please don't misunderstand, I am aware there is nothing illegal about this scheme. But it is wrong, in my opinion. If they sent a generic letter offering an incentive to VW diesel owners to buy a Hyundai there would be no problem, heck, it would be laudable. But has it now become acceptable — even laudable — for the savvy to take advantage of the ignorant? "A fool and his money are soon parted" goes the saying, but this attempt to part fools from their money is no different than grift.
I'll get off my soapbox now, haha.

DanB36 · May 24, 2017

The FTC might be interested in this...

flargabarg · May 24, 2017

They won't. It's a standard dealership marketing technique. A third party company looks through registration data and then sends out trade in offers to generate leads. Toss it and move on.

Mythdoc · May 24, 2017

flargabarg said:
Toss it and move on.

It's already tossed, but if all it warrants is a cynical shrug then that's a little bit of a shame. I'm older now, but trying to still feel joy and anger at appropriate times, haha.

flargabarg · May 24, 2017

Follow Hanlon's Razor here. They are not targeting TDI owners with a purposefully low offer here, as you imply. They are just looking up the book value and filling in the letter automatically. That number sounds really close to the trade offer I got on my 2011 last December, before the settlement was announced. If they were targeting TDI owners specifically I would agree, but I'm certain they are not.

k1xv · May 24, 2017

Now, now, now. There are a lot of people who think individuals should be permitted to make bad choices, fall flat on their face, and not be protected by anyone, particularly governmental authority, who "knows better for you"

IndigoBlueWagon · May 24, 2017

A car dealer lowballed a trade in value? Scandalous! I walk through my garage on my way into my house from the mailbox and most of what I've received goes into recycling before it comes inside. This saves me time and stress.

k1xv · May 24, 2017

Trading based on having "inside information" not available to the public at large is against the law when buying and selling securities. But in this case, its a car, and anyone with an affected diesel who doesn't yet know what is going on, despite a year of publicly available news stories and likely mailed notices, is beyond hope.

Unless the person being "duped" is a minor, or of diminished capacity, they are fair game.

Mythdoc · May 24, 2017

flargabarg said:
Follow Hanlon's Razor here. They are not targeting TDI owners with a purposefully low offer here, as you imply. They are just looking up the book value and filling in the letter automatically. That number sounds really close to the trade offer I got on my 2011 last December, before the settlement was announced. If they were targeting TDI owners specifically I would agree, but I'm certain they are not.

How are you certain? To me it seems much more likely they are. If you have a scientific or logical basis for your certainty I'm all ears.

Mythdoc · May 24, 2017

k1xv said:
Now, now, now. There are a lot of people who think individuals should be permitted to make bad choices, fall flat on their face, and not be protected by anyone, particularly governmental authority, who "knows better for you"

I'm not sure what you are replying to here. Maybe quote so it is clear. Also, I find it weird that you would make the case that individuals should be free to be cheated. Do you think that trying to get a $44k car for $17K is great if you can pull it off? Legal it certainly is...do you think it is ok?

Mythdoc · May 24, 2017

k1xv said:
Trading based on having "inside information" not available to the public at large is against the law when buying and selling securities. But in this case, its a car, and anyone with an affected diesel who doesn't yet know what is going on, despite a year of publicly available news stories and likely mailed notices, is beyond hope.

Unless the person being "duped" is a minor, or of diminished capacity, they are fair game.

Once again, in this hypothetical example, you seem to want to blame the victim. Is there any level of unfairness to a deal that you would consider wrong for the person taking advantage, or even in bad taste?

As to selling securities, yes, cheating clients by withholding inside information is against the law. Which is why, in another thread, I was surprised that carbitragers likened themselves to stock brokers. If any carbitragers are reading this thread, maybe you bought a 2011 Touareg for $17K, who knows, but you didn't break the law. A stock broker who did a similar thing would have broken the law.

Rico567 · May 24, 2017

Mythdoc said:
Once again, in this hypothetical example, you seem to want to blame the victim. Is there any level of unfairness to a deal that you would consider wrong for the person taking advantage, or even in bad taste?
<snip>A stock broker who did a similar thing would have broken the law.

And yet: what the stockbroker does in disclosing insider information IS illegal; what the car dealer was attempting was NOT. We live in a society of laws, not by the (I'm sure purely hypothetical) Car Salesman's Big Book O'Ethics. By all means, campaign to pass a law against it if you feel that strongly. But don't attempt to make a case that the two situations are parallel. As the old IRS joke goes, "The difference between avoidance and evasion is 10 years."

Mythdoc · May 24, 2017

Rico567 said:
And yet: what the stockbroker does in disclosing insider information IS illegal; what the car dealer was attempting was NOT. We live in a society of laws, not by the (I'm sure purely hypothetical) Car Salesman's Big Book O'Ethics. By all means, campaign to pass a law against it if you feel that strongly. But don't attempt to make a case that the two situations are parallel. As the old IRS joke goes, "The difference between avoidance and evasion is 10 years."

I think we are in complete agreement that the flyer broke no law. Where we disagree is that I don't think that what is legal or illegal corresponds with what is right and wrong action. By making a sarcastic comment about ethics, and by telling me to campaign to pass a law you seem to think it does. How ridiculous would our society become if we had to legislate against everything one shouldn't do, as opposed to what one cannot do under the law? So, again I ask: would you not feel a pang of shame if you were about to pay granny $17K on a car you knew you could turn around and sell for over $40k?

DanB36 · May 24, 2017

Any time a retailer buys something, he does so because he believes he can sell it for more than he's paying for it--otherwise he wouldn't buy it. At what margin of expected profit do you believe that's wrong?

Mythdoc · May 24, 2017

DanB36 said:
Any time a retailer buys something, he does so because he believes he can sell it for more than he's paying for it--otherwise he wouldn't buy it. At what margin of expected profit do you believe that's wrong?

Haha, nice try, Dan.

We have an actual proposal here, and we all know the underlying context, including what information is known and would have to be withheld from the seller for such a deal to be consummated. I am saying it is wrong. But to reply not to this case, but by asking me to speak abstractly about what constitutes an unfair deal is itself a kind of dodge. I'm not gonna go there, but I am gonna say that I think it is the responsibility of all persons to develop their powers of reasoning and their sense of ethics. Among good people there might be a range of opinions and differences in the details. But we can't be sitting here saying: "it's not illegal, therefore it must be right." That's ridiculous.

cyclopropene · May 24, 2017

Mythdoc said:
How are you certain? To me it seems much more likely they are. If you have a scientific or logical basis for your certainty I'm all ears.

Nobody here is certain, but the offer doesn't even say TDI and would be a reasonable trade-in value for a six-year-old base model VR6 gasser with, say 75k. I'd be more inclined to believe that whoever from marketing at Hyundai of Kookeville that sent these out is the one who is clueless about the TDI buyback value. I have in the past received similar letters for both my Golf and my wife's CRV...

Mythdoc · May 24, 2017

cyclopropene said:
Nobody here is certain, but the offer doesn't even say TDI and would be a reasonable trade-in value for a six-year-old base model VR6 gasser with, say 75k. I'd be more inclined to believe that whoever from marketing at Hyundai of Kookeville that sent these out is the one who is clueless about the TDI buyback value. I have in the past received similar letters for both my Golf and my wife's CRV...

Well, haha, what if granny sold them her car for $17K and they turned around and put it on their lot at $24? Now, THAT should be against the law, lol.

DanB36 · May 24, 2017

Mythdoc said:
Haha, nice try, Dan. We have an actual proposal here, and we all know the underlying context, including what information is known and would have to be withheld from the seller for such a deal to be consummated.

...but when you say "withheld from the seller," you're implicitly assuming that the (also assumed) intended resale to VW is something that should be disclosed to the owner/seller. Why do you assume this?

You are assuming, without evidence, that Hyundai of Cookeville is aware of the details of the 3-liter buyback. You are further assuming, also without evidence, that this mailing was targeted to TDI owners. (And I was joining in those assumptions in my first post on this thread, before I'd thought much about it.) And finally, you're assuming, still without evidence, that their plan is to buy the TDIs to sell them back to VW. And on the basis of those assumptions, none of which is supported by a shred of evidence, you're saying they're wrong for doing what every single dealer in the country does, every single day: offering to buy a car for less than they believe they can sell it for.

So, despite your deflection, I think my question is well stated: at what point, or under what circumstances, does buying something with the intent to resell it for a profit become morally objectionable? What, in your opinion, is the ethical rule? Or are you unable or unwilling to articulate one beyond "I know it when I see it"?

My general rule is that transactions that are freely entered into between a willing buyer and a willing seller are presumptively ethical. However, there are factors that swing the needle a bit. Active misrepresentation of material facts swings the needle (hard) toward "unethical". Active concealment of material facts does the same. Withholding information that a party has a duty to disclose does the same. There are probably others, but these are the big ones. I don't see any of these in play here.

turbobrick240 · May 24, 2017

Sounds like a lot of drama over junk mail.

Mythdoc · May 24, 2017

DanB36 said:
...but when you say "withheld from the seller," you're implicitly assuming that the (also assumed) intended resale to VW is something that should be disclosed to the owner/seller. Why do you assume this?
You are assuming, without evidence, that Hyundai of Cookeville is aware of the details of the 3-liter buyback. You are further assuming, also without evidence, that this mailing was targeted to TDI owners. (And I was joining in those assumptions in my first post on this thread, before I'd thought much about it.) And finally, you're assuming, still without evidence, that their plan is to buy the TDIs to sell them back to VW. And on the basis of those assumptions, none of which is supported by a shred of evidence, you're saying they're wrong for doing what every single dealer in the country does, every single day: offering to buy a car for less than they believe they can sell it for.
So, despite your deflection, I think my question is well stated: at what point, or under what circumstances, does buying something with the intent to resell it for a profit become morally objectionable? What, in your opinion, is the ethical rule? Or are you unable or unwilling to articulate one beyond "I know it when I see it"?
My general rule is that transactions that are freely entered into between a willing buyer and a willing seller are presumptively ethical. However, there are factors that swing the needle a bit. Active misrepresentation of material facts swings the needle (hard) toward "unethical". Active concealment of material facts does the same. Withholding information that a party has a duty to disclose does the same. There are probably others, but these are the big ones. I don't see any of these in play here.

I willingly grant that I was making the assumptions you state in paragraph 2. I didn't say I was certain, as flargabarg stated he was (certain) that the flyer was sent in utter ignorance of dieselgate. I still don't believe that likely, but if that is the case, the action was not wrong, just funny, in my opinion. But you can save yourself the rhetorical dudgeon; the assumption on which the thread is based is the same one you very readily made yourself in your first post.

There was no point in answering your other question along the lines of "what amount of profit marks the boundary between a fair and an unfair retail transaction," which was the question you earlier requested I answer. Should I have said "that number is 73.2%"? It was, frankly, not the proper question for the circumstance. I think the point all along was the notion of potential withholding of information used to gain an advantage.

However, your final paragraph, I find, gets to the heart of the matter, and is an excellent summary of my feelings as well. If I am right that this dealership is looking for TDI's, then while legal to do so in the manner they are using, it would be a circumstance of "active misrepresentation and/or concealment of material facts," and would in my opinion be unethical. Not the usual material facts, I grant you, but material nonetheless.

So, back to the top of what I quoted: yes, I absolutely believe that an intended resale to VW for a $27K profit over a $17K purchase, not disclosed to granny, would be unethical.

Dan, peace to you. This is the last I'll go on about this. You or anyone else can have the final word.

dropnosky · May 25, 2017

how many threads on this subject do we really need?

Ive gotten numerous mailings from the VW dealer that im dropping off my tdi offering me a third of what the settlement is.

its a form letter. Just how many times do we need to fuss about automatically filled out dealer junk mail?

If VW dealers arent updating their info on a case by case basis related to the TDI situation, why would any other manufacturer?

flargabarg · May 25, 2017

Yep! Honda dealer sent me one even before there were any values established in the settlement. It really is a standard lead generation technique.

tdismurf · May 28, 2017

I was receiving phone calls late last year from the dealership trying to buy my TDI. I never picked up knowing they would never match the Buyback. Seemed pretty low to me and would take advantage of those ignorant consumers who unfortunately probably aren't surfing tdiclub.com

peterdaniel · Jun 2, 2017

Mythdoc said:
How ridiculous would our society become if we had to legislate against everything one shouldn't do, as opposed to what one cannot do under the law? So, again I ask: would you not feel a pang of shame if you were about to pay granny $17K on a car you knew you could turn around and sell for over $40k?

and yet when I call Seramonte VW a bunch of morons for keeping all rebates and incentives and selling at MSRP on 2-year-old cars, I'm called a trouble maker and the thread was closed HAHAHAHA

Hyundai of Cookeville: Worst Persons of the Week

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