“Remoted” – Day 445 (Friday)

Car shopping has resumed after a break. Ugh. It failed with Honda in April because I don’t like any of the body styles, but I kept looking at cars in traffic and online and decided Jeep Renegade and Ford Bronco have body styles I like. There was 0% financing through May 31 on Jeep, but I learned of this just a few days before the offer ended and I wasn’t ready, because I haven’t yet seen one in real life or driven one. The other day the financing was 3.3% which is still not bad, but higher than 0%. I'm not in a rush, and can probably wait until the next major holiday specials.

Alerts were set up at a couple dealerships so I’ll be notified when a blue one is available. It has unleashed the flood gates of salesperson hell. I am now getting multiple daily texts, emails and phone calls. I don’t just mean “multiple” as in messages from multiple dealers, it’s closer to multiple messages from multiple dealers daily.

After answering one phone call this week that was a scam call from “Federal Officer Sarah Schulz” saying my “work needs to be put aside” and instructing me to “press one to speak to the Federal Officer” I’m back to screening all calls with an unfamiliar number. Sorry car sales folks. Blame the scammer posing as Sarah Schulz, who is actually a real person in Michigan and whose website has info about the scam calls using her name.

One dealer email teased with “a new offer,” and I fell for it and visited the dealer website, which is hideous – all red screaming banners and red text and red buttons screaming at me and overlay boxes in the way. It felt like 1993 – headache inducing, hard to navigate, amateurish graphics. Not a good impression at all.

A chat box offered help and I typed in, “What are the current specials for Renegade?” There was an instant response which did not answer the question but immediately tried to move the chat over to a phone call. Nope. Don’t offer to help me on chat if you aren’t going to chat. If I wanted a phone call, I would have called. A few minutes later another email from the same dealer arrived, with an embedded video and the message “I made a video for you.” They are pulling out all the stops and utilizing every message delivery service, but it’s starting to feel a little stalkerish.

A conversation with a friend about the now defunct Saturn has me really missing their pricing philosophy. No messing around, no negotiating, no nonsense. I'm going to need a negotiator to go with me when it's time to buy.