Most of us like to joke around at the expense of car salesmen, but this poor guy lost his life as a result of going on a test drive with a customer who was allegedly high on drugs. My sincere condolences go out to the salesman’s family.
There are some really decent car sales persons (there are women in this field). To me, one essential quality is to listen to a customer and asssss the customer’s needs. Our son sold hardware at Sears while completing his education. He particularly liked helping women at Christmas season who were shopping for their significant other. The owner of the local Ford agency observed our son and offered him a job on the spot. Our son turned him down, but his sales,experience working with people helped him become a,successful teacher.
“There are some really decent car sales persons (there are women in this field).”
Absolutely!
I bought three cars from the same saleswoman, and my repeat business was because of her…decency…honesty…and lack of any type of sales pressure. She was also funny and had an interesting background as a result of racing sports cars, back in the '60s.
During the course of my last purchase from her, I realized that her quoted price was just too good to be true, based on all of the comparison pricing that I had done. Typically, she would undercut anyone else’s best price by $200-300, but the price that she put on the sales invoice was about $2,000 too low, so I phoned her after I had returned home and crunched the numbers more thoroughly.
Yes, I like a bargain as much as the next guy, but my moral code doesn’t include taking advantage of somebody’s mistake. When she went over the details more carefully, she finally realized that she had failed to charge me for the optional six-cylinder engine! I think that if my order had gone through, and if I had taken delivery a few months later of a car that was far too cheap, she would likely have lost her job, and I didn’t want that to happen.
As it turned out, she had to retire a year or so later, as dementia had set in. I had noticed that she seemed to be unable to fully focus on the business at hand when I was buying the car from her, so I guess that her mistake on my invoice may have been an early manifestation of that dementia.
Now that she is retired, I am beginning to dread my next car purchase (in 4 years or so), as I am unlikely find another salesperson with her decency.
The part that sickens me the most is that both the killer (I’ll call him what he is) and the guy that sold him the drugs probably have long records. When will we get serious about stopping this crap? When will we get serious about taking drug dealers and other real criminals off the streets forever??
@VDCdriver, can you contact your favorite car salesperon? If so, maybe she knows other straight up Subarus salespeople.
^
It has been ~3 years since she was forced to retire, and according to some other people at the dealership, she is not conscious of very much nowadays.
Very sad…