Now an attempt to bury the situation?
Just apologize…present a plan of action…and implement it!
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How do you explain “life happening” only when needing to respond to existing customer seeking refund, and magically “life NOT happening” while posting new deals, scouting new customers.
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Greed, is what it’s usually called.
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The biggest red flag had to be the fact that she drives a Volvo whilst claiming to be a BMW specialist lol, couldn’t catch me dead in a Volvo if I was moving the nicest M models that BMW has to offer. 
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Until it is posted to reddit I imagine - I was scammed on leasehackr.
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1 review in the last month. 3 today. Hmmm. Someone is paying for or coercing for positive reviews to bury the situation, if not that’s a huge coinkydink. I sell a lot of cars and only get maybe 1-2 reviews a week. Most people don’t bother to write them unless they’re either super pleased or super disgusted, that goes for all reviews like restaurants etc.
I’ll admit when I was first starting out I offered a $25 discount for reviews, never said it had to be positive. This was also before new terms here banned such behavior. I looked at it as incentivizing people to take the time to write one.
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I think the LH platform could leverage reviews just a bit more, perhaps by establishing a ratings system. This would ENCOURAGE folks that feel discouraged leaving a bad review, simply because it breaks down the elements into specific segments, highlighting strengths and weaknesses, useful for both parties, in assessing how a deal went, without over-emphasizing how a particular segment went that was imperfect. It is also encouraging for members since it streamlines feedback, without the need to write a novel (unless a novel is required, of course). I would propose a simple rating system with brief segments that best describe the deal and it’s results. I think an overall ‘score’ is less important than the score of individual segments, since the segment score yields the most informative feedback. Something like:
Broker Ratings
O Initial Communication: Vehicle details/pricing clearly presented, timelines and process explained, fees/deposits and refundability process explained
O Initial Transaction: Forms explained and sent promptly, timely fees and deposits handled appropriately.
O Interactions: Dealer contacts, order timeline and fulfillment progress as described. Broker endeavors to resolve issues that arise, and works out viable alternatives. Dealer/Broker on the same page.
O Delivery: Vehicle meets client specifications, delivered at prior agreed pricing, Broker/dealer assist with physical delivery details and new vehicle orientation as needed. Leave transaction with all questions resolved and a positive experience.
Maybe 1-5 score, with a comment section beneath. I can see members benefiting from such a feedback process, as well as brokers. Any traction for something like this?
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And how would you let only verified customers submit this? There is no way to tell them from a competitor, though I like the ratings idea.
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You’re aware that electronic payments platforms issue 1099s, right?
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Careful not to generalize. There’s a lot of us on here that run this professionally, have a process, invest in software, provide paperwork, and provide a high level of service to our customers (and have hundreds of reviews to back that up) etc.
Let’s not let one amateur (who probably shouldn’t have even been on here in the first place - for a number of reasons) negatively influence your perception of other brokers.
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Nothing personal but this really got to me.
Leaving this thread open has caused so much swirl and has the potential to negatively affect those of us who run a squeaky clean business with customer interests and satisfaction above all else.
What more can really be said here until Michael and Victoria reply?
I’ve been typing replies/deleting them over and over but nothing really stung me until now. Many of us (I want to say all but cant make that guarantee) run legitimate businesses and have worked with/made friends with so many great members here. “Brokers” are not a single entity. Everyone operates differently and should be vetted and treated as such.
@temp1001 again nothing personal - but that comment definitely hurts when a lot of us put everything we have into this business and do it the right way.
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This is a bit of a stretch for a red flag. She’s not a BMW employee so has no obligation to spend any money driving any particular car.
Hell, I’ve seen true BMW dealer salespeople that don’t even drive a BMW.
What about Brokers that carry multiple brands? Are they somehow suspect because they push BMW, Audi and Mercedes, but don’t personally own one of each?
There’s some questionable stuff going on here, and enough similar stories to show a pattern, but let’s not start manufacturing more garbage for the dumpster fire either just to pile on.
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I paid a former broker on this site something like $800 and was happy with my net savings / quality of the service from both the broker + dealership. I actually just moved to the DMV area and was looking at this broker for getting my parents a car, but seeing these reviews and the allegations around extremely unethical behavior on kickbacks is downright disgusting. I’m glad this has all surfaced so I can avoid this broker and dealership like the plague.
I hope that if anyone has actual evidence on the relationship between the dealer and broker here they escalate it appropriately, it degrades the brand itself to some extent for me knowing there is tacit approval of this kind of sales behavior.
I will also add that I did relatively little diligence when picking my initial broker, thinking that folks on the site self select based on the fees and implies a level of professionalism / quality, but clearly is a red flag to do more diligence the next go around. I hope the site admins consider and investigate how corrupt the alleged sales relationship with the dealer is in addition to the sloppy and unprofessional behavior on the part of the broker who seems to be in business partially because of a personal connection vs building real relationships with dealers like other brokers here work hard for (which has seemingly caused real issues on the buying experience).
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My Mercedes salesman drives a Porsche lol
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@michael I think a star rating system used by all major sites like Yelp, Amazon, Google would be the answer here. It would allow users to see overall rating and filter the 1* to read the bad reviews. This would remove the shady practice of burying bad reviews.
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We have ran into issues previously where marketplace type features like that are very difficult/not possible to implement with the system that this site is ran on, which is designed more for messaging. Incorporating it would require significant changes.
I don’t know if that’s the case in this specific situation, but it has been a hurdle with other features.
It sounds like a lot of work to address a problem that, so far as we (or at least I) know, is isolated to one broker. It’s a pattern with one person, not the way the site works as a whole.
What’s going on right now isn’t evidence that the system is broken, it’s evidence that the broker is broken.
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Thank you all for the passionate input and constructive criticism and suggestions to make this a better place. We are surprised and humbled to see so many members submitting their different perspectives and experiences. We think by now we have gathered a well-rounded collection of comments which are centered around several themes. We will need to take some time to deliberate before we get back to the community. We will close this thread for the time-being.
Thank you!
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