My original query to Mr. Goldman, Internet Sales’ Manager of Flammer Ford, Spring Hill, FL: “What does buying a car on Memorial Day Weekend have to do with soldiers laying down their lives for our American freedom?”
Response from Mr. Goldman:
>I know the meaning about Memorial Day, and like all dealerships and businesses out there, we open and hold a sale -- and actually increased the active-duty discount another $500. The meaning is not lost, believe me, with 21 years in the Marines and a son on active duty.
(Art Goldman-Mgr.-Flammer Ford, Spring Hill, FL).
My 3-page response to Mr. Goldman and Flammer Ford (faxed to Flammer Ford in Spring Hill, FL)
Kudos and congrats to you and your son. I, too, have a son in the military, Wm. S. Kearns, CWO-3, serving in his 11th year, presently stationed at Ft. Riley, KS, awaiting his 4th deployment to Iraq/Afghanistan.
Yes, Sir. There was an additional discount of $500, but that was not Flammer Ford. That was Ford Motor Co., which spent approximately another half-million-dollars (which all Ford customers will pay for in the long run) to advertise on every channel in every city in every state across the nation.
You are correct: Every dealership does it as well as almost every ATBW (American Taliban Business World) entity – using the façade-excuse of a major holiday (Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Labor Day, Memorial Day, etc.) to offer “special sales” for the occasion. It’s an odious practice that few Americans, I suspect, pay any attention to because of the gimmicks, superficialities, and duplicities that are advertised in such sales.
The corporate-maniacal-capitalistic ATBW will plant every possible financial I.E.D. behind the customers’ backs to, sooner or later, financially blow such unsuspecting customers to bits while the vendors, especially the mega-conglomerates with their million-dollar-salaried-CEO’s and managerial cronies, investors, etc., continue to giggle all the way to the bank. The almighty dollar is the deity, not the customer.
The ATBW’s motto remains: “If it’s immoral or unethical, we don’t care – as long as it’s not illegal.” (“If we “accidentally” err illegally, our mega-thousand-dollar-salaried attorneys will take care of it.”)
If Flammer Ford (and the multitude of other advertising dealerships) were 100% sincere, what we consumers should be reading would be something comparable to: “Flammer Ford Memorial-Day-Weekend Sale” -- For all Veterans and Active Military Personnel:”
1-All cars in stock, new or used, will be sold at Flammer Ford’s wholesale prices, with invoices shown.
2-There will be no “tricks, add-on’s, catch-on’s, ‘gotcha’ clauses in the sale or any of its documents. All print will remain in normal-size font. (All microscopic, picayune print will be prohibited.)
3-All applicable taxes, tags, titles, and the odious, unappreciative, “administration fees” will be paid for by Flammer Ford.
4-There will be no “stabbing in the back” by Flammer Ford running any absurd “credit-check” via the American Taliban Triumvirate, aka the 3 major credit bureaus (whereby all/any customer info can be submitted by any individual or company behind the consumer’s back, with no notification at any time to the consumer and no explanatory letters of any negative report, if found out by the consumer, can be accepted by the Triumvirate, and whereby only the past 5-7 years will be taken into account by the Triumvirate, not the past 3-4 decades of paying infinite doctor bills, utility bills, never having a car repo’d, a home foreclosure etc. The Taliban Triumvirate continues to specialize in holding only negative reports on the consumer, and will continue to offer, only at the request of the consumer, one free report per year, which does not give the score itself since that is not cost-effective for the Triumvirate. Actual scores must be paid for by the consumer.)
4-Flammer Ford will offer at no extra charge a full, bumper-to-bumper warranty for 5 years on any new or used (no, it’s not “pre-owned”) vehicle sold. This will include, tires, complete A/C system, and all major and minor components such as a broken door handle, defective horn, broken windshield blade, burned-out tail light, cracked radio knob, etc. We sold the car, promising the customer of its total worth and value. We will back it up. No questions asked.
5-If service is needed for any purchased vehicle, Flammer Ford will appoint one of its personnel to pick up the car at the customer’s home, give the customer a loan car for the duration of the repair, and will return the repaired vehicle to the customer’s home – all at no charge to the customer. This will be a lifetime warranty, given to the customer in writing, for the life of the vehicle.
6-When a customer of any purchased vehicle calls Flammer Ford’s original sales’ person for a complaint, that sales’ person will not “brush the customer off” onto the Service Department. It is incumbent upon such sales’ personnel to follow-up on their sales and be concerned about getting the repairs effected for the customer.
7-Additionally, each sales’ person will stay in constant contact with all their customers, at least on a bi-weekly basis, to see that the customer remains content with the sale for a minimum of 18 months from the date of purchase.
8-Flammer Ford will arrange to drive any interested vehicle to any potentially interested customer’s home within a 50-mile radius of the potential customer’s home to have the vehicle inspected and driven by the potential customer. If any negotiations follow, it will be strictly prohibited that Flammer Ford’s sales’ person will employ, even to a minimum degree, any venomous “high-pressure” or “brain-bashing” tortures against the potential customer. If Flammer Ford’s sales’ person hears from the customer, “Give me a few days to think about it,” that will be the customer’s implied message for the sales’ person to leave the premises until the customer contacts the sales’ person within the stated time. If Flammer Ford’s administrative personnel hears from the potential customer that the sales’ person refused to leave the customer’s premises without further haggling, hassling, bickering, arguing, playing “the numbers game,” etc., that sales’ person, upon his/her immediate return to Flammer Ford, will be ushered to one of its hydraulic lifts in one of its Service Department bays, tied to the lift, and thoroughly scourged in view of all other Flammer Ford’s personnel, lest they entertain any comparable practice against any future potential customer at any time. The same procedure is applicable whether the customer is on the premises of Flammer Ford or in his/her own abode.
9-Flammer Ford does not adhere to duplicity practices. There will be no difference in the posted price of its vehicles (both new and used) on the lot and then an altered (reduced or not) “Internet” price. Yes, because Flammer Ford believes in Transparency out of total respect and appreciation of our customers, we will have the prices on all our used vehicles too – not just the new ones.
10-Flammer Ford abhors “Lemon Law” practices. If the repair of any vehicle (new or used) is not effected correctly the first time, a vehicle of a comparable price will be offered to the customer. Period.
Ensuing, expected objection to such an ad by Flammer Ford: “Can’t do it. We’d go bankrupt in a week.”
Answer: No, you wouldn’t. For every potential customer you might lose, you’d gain 100. Veterans, non-veterans, active-military and non-active military personnel would be breaking down your front door to get in – if nothing else out of a sky-rocketing respect and admiration of Flammer Ford, blatantly and unabashedly “Putting its money where its mouth is.”
Wm. J. Kearns
Floral City, FL
May 30, 2012
No detailed, written critique-rebuttal-defensive response from anyone at Flammer Ford reflecting the ATBW fact: “When truthful facts are slammed on our tables, we make haste to hide under such tables.”
