There’s no version of anyone at that dealership from senior management on down admitting to under the table money coming to any employee. The implications at the corporate level should that be proven would be detrimental.
To be fair, I hear you, and it might annoy me for a minute, but it didn’t cost you any additional money than you otherwise already agreed to pay. The second part of the fee should’ve been labeled differently, but the outcome didn’t change.
I take everything I said back. I just read through Seth’s page. He clearly states where this comes from. I consistently said: it’s unethical if it’s not disclosed. It is disclosed. I.e. Seth has a $300 fee built in the deal. Instead of collecting from the dealer and waiting months to get paid, he just removes it from the deal and collects it. He makes this clear on his page.
That section was added on November 16th, 2024. This doesn’t mean that OP is a lying fraud or Seth is a lying fraud. But for the record it’s not original.
I don’t even know why I’m on this thread other than the meme material. Also, TH are lame for 30 minutes time blocks.,
Take it back again lol
That part was the last edit, probably done after this complaint.
Even if that were true, would you agree that the below scenario would be problematic? If so, that’s good enough for me.
He added that little clause after being contacted by site founders last month.
But think about this for a minute. It makes zero sense. If the dealer is paying you $300, why are those funds coming from the customer with no paper trail? With the Venmo description of “pre-payment toward the one-pay amount?” Have you done business in this way before? How many dealerships refuse to pay agreed-upon broker fees beyond Net 30 or Net 45? And why would the dealership deny it unequivocally to me, especially when they have no reason to hide this arrangement? Dealerships love bragging about how much of a deal loses them; what’s $300 more?
I put it in place so that folks going back and forth can cool off. We still haven’t heard from the broker in question. OP has made his point and provided screenshots of communication with the broker.
There is no need for folks to provide their own interpretation of the facts being presented here.
Aside from all the other noise, and although it could have been worded more succinctly, didn’t the $300 in question in the end go forward technically as listed? Specifically as an “Upfront Payment on a 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5 SEL” that was part of an actually delivered as promised unit for $15.12 less than you contracted for?
So the broker apparently is now acknowledging that he receives payments from dealers. If this was not disclosed previously, this would appear to be in violation of the requirement in California that such payments be disclosed.
Sure, but what does this have to do with the broker allegedly pocketing $300 more for himself directly from the buyer than he/she “should” have? The dealer paying the broker for the deal in any amount is a separate issue from this, is it not?
Except none of it went towards upfront payment on the Ioniq and there is no “remaining amount.” $1,269.06 is the contracted one-pay.
Yes, except it’s not true. I would believe it had he not tried two other explanations prior to giving me that one and it were not flatly refuted by dealership management. See the OP.
I have to say, @CoastalMotorGroup, out of all the takes in this thread, I might be the most puzzled by yours. I fully understand the perspective of “You paid what was advertised, so get over it.” But you claim that the lack of transparency is a problem, yet ultimately you don’t have an issue with it. So if that’s the case, why should anyone in SoCal even bother with your shop? You’ve already admitted that you “can’t touch” Omega’s deal despite the shady tactics. So if there’s no misrepresentation or fraud and his pricing is better, shouldn’t all of us be referring over to them? 
Do you really have this much free time to make this big of a scene over $300 when your overall cost never changed?
And do you really think a dealer is going to admit to getting side money?
On a particular unit, he has deeper pricing than I do, definitely go ahead and go to his shop if pricing is all you care about. I also NOT ONCE said I didn’t have a problem of lack of transparency. That’s why I said; we are EXTRA transparent. Maybe that’s why we still get the business even when people are cheaper than us by $200 on a particular car I am not condoning his business practice, I’m laughing at the thread and how he worded “cap cost reduction” to be a “broker fee”. Also, I only said, “I take back what I say” because I thought he was always being transparent about his “cap cost reduction”.
To summarize: shady to word “extra broker fee” as cap cost reduction. I stand by being overly transparent and I think his new addition to his post is still VERY muddy but meets the bare minimum required on this site and therefore doesn’t need an entire thread like this.
My business practices are very clear and outlined: we put our broker fee in every single post, not just in our bio and not just in the first post of our thread. I am not by ANY means justifying the muddy way he has things worded, just saying the new addition to his bio (which I did not know was new until pointed out) in a way satisfies the bare minimum. Would I do business that way? No.
You referred to real estate deals a couple of times but I think this is very different. A real estate agent doesn’t give you a better price than what the home owner is advertising.
In this case, the broker gave you a deal that you couldn’t procure yourself and saved you money.
You went ahead with the broker’s deal and ended up paying less than the initial agreement which you would have paid more if you went to the dealer yourself directly. You want to get an additional $300 back because the broker wasn’t transparent / honest about the breakdown of your deal. I think it is a little too much.
What I can’t believe is that every time I look away, there are like 20 more posts. It’s popping off like a sub-machine gun. Is there really that much to say on the topic?
Well it’s an interesting topic, and I appreciate everyone’s opinion even if I don’t agree with it. More interesting than the 75th “Deal Check” thread of the day.
If the broker wants to slid money to the dealer employees, why can’t he advertise $1099 broker fee and pay the dealer employees from that?
It’s interesting in the sense that something shady happened, but it left you slightly better off. At some point though it starts to sound like the lady at the supermarket checkout holding up the line because she is mad that they changed the box on her favorite cereal, even though the price is now $.15 cents less.
The problem is the OP assumed the $300 was some sort of deposit to hold the car. The OP did not specifically ask why he was being asked to pay the extra $300. The deal with Hyundai was for $12xx. The OP agreed to $15xx. End of story. You should have asked before agreeing to a great deal.
Everyone is saying the total out of pocket remains the same for @adomspam’s referral either way, but the way the deal is written can have an impact on the leasee. If the car is totaled, the leasee would get back a larger pro-rated amount with the original agreed upon numbers.
Yeah, it’s really all about transparency or lack thereof. Curiously enough, I happened to look at Omega’s Hyundai thread back in October and commented about just that. Can I claim being part-time clairvoyant?