To be a successful car salesman, you need to have a persistent drive, passion, and possess the ability to sweet-talk even an old grandma into buying a car she wasn’t even planning for in the first place. Since car salesmen are mostly paid by commission, success is directly proportional to the number of sales you make. And that probably means doing everything in your power to close any deal that comes your way. In some cases, even if the salesmen knows you can’t afford the car they will still push you into the sale. This can cause consumers to apply for a car title loan as soon as they leave the lot!
So, apart from listening at all the mumbo jumbo on various ‘excellent’ car features, what does this actually mean for car buyers?
If a seller is ready to do anything to make sale, he’ll probably employ a few dirty tricks especially when he’s dealing with a vehicle that’s proving to be too hard to sell. Although many of them occasionally dupe clients into raw deals, there are still a couple of honest souls out there. It would therefore, be unfair to stereotype all car salesmen as potential tricksters. The only way to discern between an honest and a dishonest individual is learning the rules of the trade, and consequently comprehending some of the dirty tricks they commonly use:
Lapdog Trick
The lapdog trick is one of the oldest tricks in the book, where a car salesman tries to compel a buyer to run back to him after shopping around other dealerships. When a customer drops the all too common line, “thank you, but let me see what else I can see around”, the salesman encourages him to go ahead with one final guarantee- that he’s ready to match the lowest price the customer gets. That way, the customer is subconsciously compelled to go back and ultimately close the deal at the dealership after getting a good price.
Lowballing
This trick is meant to exhaust and wear down the buyer, forcing him to eventually close the deal. The salesman basically hits the buyer with an extremely low price quote, which mostly falls under the average market rate. Just as is common among buyers, the customer will still proceed to other dealerships, comparing the original offer with the rest. Ultimately, when the customer is so exhausted, he’ll return to the original dealership to take advantage of the seemingly low offer. However, instead of proceeding with the sale, the salesman ‘confirms the price with the boss’ who’ll obviously decline to sell it for such a low price. In the long run, the buyer pays more than the original offer.
My Relative Drives One Too
What’s more assuring of a car’s quality than a salesman who ‘admits’ that his wife/mother/son drives one? If a trickster salesman senses doubt over the quality of a car, chances are that he’ll come up with an intriguing story of how the same car model has excellently served a member of his family. He’ll even probably claim that he actually helped the family member pick the car. After buying the car, don’t be too surprised if it breaks down a mile away from the dealership. After all, all a dishonest vehicle salesman cares about is your money.