How brazenly and shamelessly they fool used car buyers today
I do not like to change cars, part with my own, proven and well-groomed, and look for a new one among many others. Ride in the evenings all over Moscow and instead of a beautiful car from photos on auto.ru see tired and rusting iron horses. But the time comes and you have to do it. As a result, the correspondent of the AvtoVzglyad portal was convinced from his own experience how buyers of used cars are being fooled today.
We had a LADA Kalina and the family simply no longer fit in it, and given the very small trunk, the situation became critical. I put it up for sale and the first buyer who responded just tore it off with his hands.
I was left without a car and with the problem of choice. I traveled according to the ads: everything is as always, dealers offer a car, which, according to them, they have owned for 5-7 years. But when you arrive for an inspection, it turns out that they don’t know or say anything about the car. At the same time, it can be seen with the naked eye: the car has been repainted, and it is registered anywhere, but not in Moscow ...
So I decided to take a ride through the salons, see what they offer, especially the prices on the sites are very attractive, often below the market. What can be said? Remember American movies where used car salesmen are the most negative characters? False, repulsive, rude. Congratulations to all of us, they came off the screen into life...
I went to a very widely advertised resource on the Internet. Great site. It has everything on it - and at great prices. Good photos and you can see that all the cars are in excellent condition, there are rare models that are not so easy to find, like the Citroen Picasso. As a result, one gets the impression that this is a huge center, having arrived where you will get the opportunity to compare and choose any car.
I called, found out about the options of interest, everything is fast and cool on the phone, everything is in stock, everything is in good condition, the prices are correct. According to reviews on the Internet and on the site itself, it’s just a wonderful center. But this is if you search for queries through Yandex or Google, but the reviews on GIS are completely different ...
But we decided to come and see. In real life, it turned out to be not a dealership in the usual sense, but a small pavilion densely crowded with 25-30 cars with a price of a million. Several cars stand in front of the pavilion in dust and sadness.
Three managers did not even bother to look up from their chairs when we appeared, they simply preferred not to notice, they answered questions arrogantly and briefly, none of the cars we chose were available - either sold or “under repair”. The only car listed on the website of the office was a Jeep Cherokee. But on the page on the Internet it cost 560 ₽, it was fresh and cheerful, but we were rolled out the amount of 000 for a sad creature on the street, with a cracked windshield and flat tires.
Then we called several dealers and found out an interesting trend: if the operator does not come up and calls back later, then he does not know which company he is calling from, while either trying to find out where you called, or simply hangs up if you ask him - from which company he calls back.
Oh well, I'm on my way to the next dealer with excellent performance on the classifieds site. Great prices and service offered, but what really? We were met by a manager who was strikingly different from those we had seen before: sociable, contact. He took us to the warehouse, where we could see the cars of interest. The cars were available, but the price seemed too high to us. We checked the Internet - and for sure: all the prices given to us turned out to be 60-000 rubles higher than the market ones. I wonder how the buyer feels when he issues a car and then sees that it cost a hundred thousand less?
But we did not stop and, having selected several cars, we called and inquired about the price. At the other end of the wire, we were confirmed that there were cars and the prices were correct. In short, let's go again. So what? But nothing: it turned out that these prices are relevant only when buying on credit, and only when applying for a loan from the dealer himself. The manager, not embarrassed, said so: “the car is on the site for 320, with a loan it will turn out to be 600.” Here is the arithmetic. At the same time, some cars are not sold for cash at any price; apparently, they are waiting for their owners, who cannot count...
What do we end up with? A completely perverted car market on the Internet, where companies compete for the “great price” or “best offer” badge, deceiving, in fact, both buyers and the sites themselves. Dealers are not able to compete honestly with private sellers and tritely lie about their offers, impose additional services and loans, which are not even loans, but those very “microcredits” at crazy interest rates, sell insurance and other banking products. How, with such initial data, to believe that you will buy a quality product is incomprehensible, and even it’s ridiculous to remember about guarantees.
