Tis The Season

Tis the season to be jolly, or so the saying goes.  There are more important stories than this one for sure but,  I feel compelled to share this short story about the salesman from hell, while also discussing the importance of integrity in all individuals. This isn’t really news, but its purpose is legendary; it focuses on our expectations of a car salesman along with other people as well.

The long and short of the story is this:  This is my third Mercedes-Benz, all bought in MO,  two of which were bought at one dealership in Ellisville, MO.  All things considered Mercedes-Benz financial is very good, my service rep is also a commendable individual, but the sales man I just dealt with in November is someone I would consider as a person who literally has no scruples. The General Manager is also a person not to high on the list of people with moral or ethical charecter for a number of reasons as well, but I won’t into all that here.

The long and short of it is this: I called to trade in my 450 GL for a Black 2010 ML.  I ended up leaving with a 2009 ML, which by the way I can’t stand, because 1. it is a piece of S —. I already bought it once so far – one of the things on this CPO vehicle was the back seatbelt doesn’t work Guess what? It still doesn’t work. ; 2. I took the car based on an outright lie by my salesman, which it didn’t even occur to me until I drove it off the lot. ( which by the way occurred around 4:30 pm and I called him the next morning beginning at 7:30am).

In a nutshell my salesman quoted me a payment on the 2009, thereby convincing me to buy the 2009 over the 2010.  What he quoted was not even remotely close to what I am paying, nor what we discussed. Clearly, his own gain was all that mattered in this deal.  Furthermore, my contacting the General Mgr., also proved to be a waste of time.  But what is really disheartening, is that I WAS as a regular customer of Mercedes-Benz, and one would think they would show some appreciation, rather than being condescending, rude, and outright liars.  My request to the GM, which occurred less than 12 hrs after my driving off their lot, was treated with very little regard and I was simply dismissed .  That request consisted of the following: give me my GL, the 2010 I called about, or make this car payment the amount  I was quoted. Since I have a 2.9 interest rate that speaks volumes about my credit history with MBF.

Most of us work hard and make a lot of sacrifices throughout our lives to obtain the things we want in live. A car, any car, is a large purchase a lot of money. I think most of us somehow believe we have this fiduciary relationship with the salesman. When ask them to honor our requests we just assume they have integrity to do so. Sadly, my salesman found clearly lacks integrity based on both his words to me and his actions. But all this really made me think about integrity and how it is really falling short in our society. So many people worship the value of the almighty dollar over that of relationships, regardless of the type of relationship. Seemingly, the anger that occurs, as the result of a faulty deal, the lies, or just the blatant disrespect seems to be happening all to often and with little regard for the victim.

As a result of my experience I decided to do a random survey at a nearby Mall over Christmas to see how many people have had negative experience with a car salesman. Sadly, after talking to 50-100 people over half  reported they did have a bad experience at one time or another, but after one time they never returned. What was interesting is that many of the people believed there was a direct correlation between car saleman and bad attitudes. Perhaps the level of pressure to sell, in a failing economy, is a contributing factor. I don’t know. What I do is that I have been buying cars, new cars, for along time and never once have I been treated with such little regard.

For me, integrity is everything, without it you have nothing. If you lie about little things, you probably lie about bigger things as well.  Honesty, integrity is something I have drilled into my son’s, and  I hope they drill it into their children, and so on.  Ask yourself this one question;  Is it so surprising that a society whose morals and values have digressed as  they have would end up with a failing economy, socialist president, and the continued dismantling of our constitution? Is that so surprising? After all, they are the people we vote into office, they are the people we trust, and it all begins with a simple thing you don’t think twice about like buying a car.