Tuesday, July 25, 2006

car salesmen

I know they aren't all lying bastards. My brother-in-law is one and he's not a lying bastard. So why is it some of them have to be? Is it just to live up to the stereotype? Even the little shit that doesn't matter to anyone seems an opportunity to lie.

When we were getting our credit application together a week ago when we started this whole car buying process, I figured the guy had to get my credit score. I have some idea what it is, because I know we have pretty good credit, but I don't know the number. It's not something I need to know, but I was curious, so after we got approved and all that, I asked.

"So, what exactly is our credit score?"

"I can't tell you that, by law."

Is that the car dealer equivalent of "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you?"

C'mon dude, you can't really expect me to believe you can't tell me my credit score. That's a load of crap. I didn't pursue it because it's not something I absolutely have to know, but I didn't believe him. What I did believe was it was just one piece of information that, in my case, might somehow be favorable in the whole price negotiating process, and he wasn't about to hand me any advantage. Not ten minutes later, I heard another salesman yell a number across the showroom that seemed, from the number in question and the context in which he used it, suspiciously like a credit score, but I don't know for sure.

Last night, we finally got my vehicle. (Final stop on the color wheel, by the way...white.) So the wife asks, out of curiosity, "So, how far did you have to go to get this one?"

Same guy, "Oh, I'm not allowed to tell you that."

So we're sitting in the showroom with the sticker from the car in hand....the one with all the standard and optional equipment, the estimated MPG and price, bored stiff waiting for some finance guy to get our paperwork together. I've succumbed to reading everything on that sticker because there's not much else to do, and it's right there, in the bottom corner. The car came from some Toyota dealer in Athens, Georgia. You lying sack of shit. Can't tell us, my ass. What was the point of that?

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