Squeaky Wheel

The finance guy from the car dealer called me the other day - he had heard that I wasn't excited about getting screwed regarding the Lojack (perhaps because of an e-mail I sent to the salesmen he worked with :) and wanted to call to explain himself.

In my e-mail, I spelled out a bunch of things that I wasn't happy about, including:

1. He suggested that some insurance companies give discounts - mine didn't. But the the thing is, he knew who my insurance company was, said he used the same one, and - he also had Lojack installed on his new car - I would have thought he would know that his/my insurance company doesn't give discounts
2. He had misled me about Lojack's recovery rate - he said it was 98%, Lojack says it's 90% - who should I believe?
3. He said if my car is stolen and not recovered in 1 or 2 days I'd be refunded the cost of the Lojack - Lojack says they'll only refund a portion of what I paid.

To characterize his explanations as humorous would be an understatement. His wife, he said, pays all of their bills, so he didn't know they weren't getting a discount for the Lojack. He mentioned that on one bill he had seen there was "some sort of discount" but in thinking about it, that might have been a multiple vehicle discount and not for the Lojack unit.

The recovery rate explanation, he said, was just a simple math misunderstanding. What he meant to say was that 98% of all Lojack recoveries happen in the first day. It's true that only 90% of all vehicles are recovered, but 98% of the recoveries are recovered in the first day.

Right, ok, he must have me confused with a complete idiot. The fact that 98% are recovered on the first day is completely irrelevant - nothing changes the fact that only 90% of vehicles are ever actually recovered.

You're a finance guy, do the math. How about if we use your approach when I pay for the car? Assume it costs $30K. I'll pay you only 90% of that ($27K), but I'm going to give you 98% ($26,460) the first day, and then the other $540 later - how's that sound?

He also pled ignorance on the refund amount as well, blamed it on the Lojack representative in fact. He felt guilty about the whole ordeal and is sending me a check for the difference between what I paid for the Lojack and what Lojack will reimburse me for. Though that probably wasn't so much guilt though, it was more concern for how he will get rated when Toyota surveys me about the buying experience.

Let's see - he misrepresents information (most people would just call that "lying"), and then sends me a couple hundred dollars as a bribe. Yeah, let me just think about that for a bit..