Pacifica Rebates - Smacks of Ill Repute

Mr. Richard Benner Jr. boasted:

Pacifica issues demand a new thread, so here it comes!

WTF is a "retiree voucher?" Are we talking the same ethics of ill repute
as "student discount" or "first time buyer discount" or what can be pulled
out next from the shit pot?

THE PRICE OF AN ITEM MUST BE THE SAME FOR EVERYBODY, NO EXCEPTIONS. Any
other pricing scheme cheats the public because the one who pays more is
subsidizing the one who pays less. Or put more simply for the idiotic
imbeciles who run D-C sales, THE PRICE OF A LOAF OF BREAD IS THE SAME FOR
EVERYBODY. Any deviation from this cardinal principle of fair business
practice needs to be hit with a MONUMENTAL class action lawsuit. Different
prices for different folks don't fly in a supermarket, so how does Chrysler
think they can get away with it at their dealerships?

Don't those fools realize how they ALIENATE previous buyers with special
dispensation to the favored? Once an old fart buyer finds out their punk
kid neighbor gets $5000 off on the flimsy excuse he's a young wanker, he is
going to be pissed good. And he won't forget it and won't stop bitching
about it on this played-out newsgroup. Dozens of people will read his
messages, including me! Discounts like these can only breed ill will and
will ruin future business now and forever.

Aren't there any schyster lawyers out there buying these overpriced road
slugs? Where's Algonquin J. Calhoun when we need him? Dig out your sales
contract. Did you pay more for your Pacifica station wagon than the old
fart who just bought one identical to yours? The criteria is the official
pricing structure - Wheeling and dealing, that is, price negotiation only
complicates the issue and provides the dealers with a smokescreen to ward
off claims of unfair business practice. What counts is the official
pricing in terms of sticker and posted "discounts." Analyze these
factory-sanctioned offers and then get your legal ass in motion. The rest
of us are depending on you guys.

 

Why rip on Chrysler, every OEM Foreign & Domestic gives discounts to
employee's, retiree's, students, etc. For that matter, how about a
Senior Coffee at Mc'ds. What's up with that, why should I pay $0.99 for
coffee when the "old fart" as you put it, pays $0.25. How about
telephone & heating discounts for those who make less than $20,000/year?
What's going on there? How about that $0.25 beer for students on
Thursday nights at your local bar when I have to pull out $2.50 for the
same beer. How about that Weekend sale at the local sporting goods
store, what if I work weekends, that's not fair I have to pay full
price. Why are thier always couches in womens bathrooms and never a
counch in a mens bathroom. The answer: that's just the way it is, and
bellyaching and lawsuits will never change it.

Ken

 

"Nomen Nescio" blathered:

Why don't you just blow it out your A**????

 

It's been common business practice for companies to give discounts to
employees, retirees, etc. for decades. Most retail stores give anywhere
between 10% to 30% discounts on merchandise to their employees. MCI gives
free long distance (up to $25), or they used to. Banks give loan rate
reductions to employees, etc. The list goes on and on and on. Doesn't your
employer give discounts?

 

Not true. Companies don't sell to employees at a loss, generally. What is
going on here is
the company is making no profit from the one who pays less, and is making a
profit from the
one who pays more. Thus the one who pays more is not subsidizing the one
who pays less.

Why do companies sell at a discount to employees? Simple - it's good
business practice to
have your employees use your products, that's why. If everyone who worked
at Chrysler
drove a Chrysler, then if there's a problem with the product, the guy who
caused the problem
is going to have the problem happen to him. That's pretty powerful
incentive to not cause problems
in the first place, and to quickly fix the ones that you do cause.

Ted

 

Thank You for your concern Nomen Nescio (aka Student Mechanic). I am
happy that I got you to sit down and type out another book. At least
I have noticed that you are either learning to spell better or you
have learned to use the spell checker. When Student Mechanic was
writing, your spelling and grammar was terrible.
OLD RETIRED FART from Chrysler.

 

It's called capitalism, fixing prices across the board in the whole country
goes against everything the americans believe in. It's too socialist...

Mike

 

Interestingly, completely free price bargaining was prohibited in Germany
till quite recently. By this I mean, e.g. someone walking into a car
dealership and asking for a price much lower than, say, 2% off sticker
price. The dealer could not give the discount even if he wanted to. This
law also prohibited special offers like Two for the price of One, something
that many of us have taken for granted for years.

The purpose was to prevent unfair competition and stemmed from the thirties,
but it was finally recognised that it was inappropriate in the present
environment and the law was abolished.

An interesting 'side note', I thought.

DAS

 

Hate to break it to ya, but car prices in the US are usually pretty
negotiable. Even some of the Saturn dealers will haggle. Besides, no
matter who the seller is, there are always ways to negotiate, such as
by offering generous trade-in allowances, even if the new car is sold
at list price. I don't think there's a practical way to enforce list
prices, even if anyone wanted to, because there are so many
workarounds.

The gist of your post/troll/whatever seems to be that you heard of
somebody who got a sweet deal, and that makes you terribly unhappy.
Maybe instead of resenting somebody's good deal, you should accept
that idea and be happy for the buyer who got the sweet deal.

It's the dealer's responsibility to make deals that work for the
customer and the dealer. And apparently the dealer was able to do
that.

(snip)

 

So it was against the law for retailers to set prices other than the
manufacturers suggested retail price (MSRP)? Or did this just apply
to cars?

I've been to Germany about 2 dozen times in the past 10 years, and in
general really like the country. But for better or worse, it's not a
consumer-oriented society (ie it's not open for (retail) business as
much as US or Canada). But then again our own history here in Ontario
for Sunday shopping is somewhat spotty. Lots of times when I had time
to do some shopping (in Germany) - the stores were closed...

 

I think it was more a case of not being able substantially to undercut the
published price. This applied to all goods.

There were other consequences that were not obviously noticeable when coming
from other economic environments, such as the absence of mid-season sales.
Sales were a set-piece affair in winter and summer within defined dates.

You are absolutely right about the retail store opening hours in Germany as
well. They have recently been liberalised. The restrictions were in place
to protect the workers, as they were in the UK, which was even more
restrictive in terms of daily and Sunday hours.

Many years ago a proposal before the UK parliament to derestrict completely
the shop hours was thrown out at the last minute as various lobby groups
suddenly realised what was happening. Some time later the subject was
picked up again, only this time the government was a bit cleverer and put
three proposals before parliament: leave as is (silly, as the law was being
flouted routinely and there was little appetite to enforce something so
clearly out of date), derestrict fully (likely to be rejected again) and
something in-between. Needless to say the 'something in-between' was passed
into law. A key feature was that no worker could be forced to work on
Sundays if he/she did not wish to.

Note on Ontario: you're right about the spottiness about the attitude to
consumers. It seems I must go to a government-controlled shop to buy my
booze and I am not allowed to open the bottle before getting it off the
street, whether I am driving or not....

DAS

 

I've never heard that. What has been in the news is that it's against the law
in the EU (and has been for some time) for a German VW dealer to refuse to
sell a car to an Italian customer, when the VW might be priced lower in
Germany. VW has been fined much money in recent years for doing this very
thing.

 

Sunday shopping was opposed mainly by church-goers who (I suspect) did
not have the discipline to follow their beliefs and NOT shop on Sunday
if the stores were open. So they'd rather have them closed by law to
avoid temptation. We've had wide-open Sunday shopping now for about
10 to 15 years now. Our store hours on Sunday at this point are
probably the same as week-day store hours in Germany.

The only people here that complain about this are under-aged kids who
can't buy booze at the corner conveinence store like they can
elsewhere. Also, in the US, I think you'd find some or most booze
outlets and their surroundings to be scary places to patronize...

Truth is that our LCBO and beer stores are located at or in major
shopping centers and they're pretty conveinent to get to. Note that
the LCBO is the world's largest single purchaser of liquor and spirits
and can negotiate the best prices for the quantity they buy.

I don't know of any state or province or city in the US or Canada
where open liquor or beer in public is legal. New Orleans french
quarter being one exception.

 

The poster states he's "a Chrysler employee," so maybe the "retiree
voucher" has something to do with that. IOW, IMHO getting a better
deal is probably one of the job benefits of working for Chrysler.

BTW, deals for auto discounts via employers aren't that rare, even for
employers that don't make cars. For example, some friends work for a
large UK-based company with offices in my part of the US. My friends
tell me that because their company (at least locally; don't know about
internationally) buys only Fords, employees (see comment in previous
parentheses) can buy Ford and brands of (at least partially)
Ford-owned makes, such as Land Rover, Mazda, Lincoln, Volvo, etc. at a
discount.

Maybe the price is (in effect) the same, because employees pay for it
by working for their employers and/or their employers pay the
difference.

See above. They're not giving away the cars.

I'm not sure "Dozens of people" in "this played-out newsgroup" will
really have any effect on Chrysler's sales, which by the way are up,
due to "aided by heavy consumer incentives," according to:

http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/2999719p-2746590c.html

Actually, the incentives seem to be working, according to the above
story.

IMHO, the real danger of incentives and discounts is that they buy
sales, at the expense of lowered prices and (possibly) profits. Then
automakers can compensate by raising sticker prices, anticipating the
discounts that will in effect bring the prices lower, but also
confusing the consumer.

But given that Saturn sales don't seem to be big, maybe the market is
telling us that consumers would rather have incentives and discounts
than fixed prices. BTW, Saturn uses fixed prices to insure higher
profit margins. I'll add that not all Saturn dealers follow the
fixed-price plan.

That wouldn't be included in the contract.

Apparently, most people prefer the incentives, discounts, and
negotiating.

If it's so important to you, you've bought a Pacifica and can make
some argument that you've somehow been cheated, and you can find an
attorney who can find some legal basis somehow somewhere for a suit,
then go for it.

 

In Ontario actually, the Sunday Shopping Laws are very complex. The
holiday shopping laws even more so. In Ontario the law says you
cannot force somebody to work on Sunday. If they work on Sunday, you
have to offer another day off in the week if they want it. The
Professions are exempt from this. As for hours, they can be regulated
by the local municipality, but where I live they are not.
Also in Ontario we have what are called statutory holidays when store
should be closed. Note I said should because, if a local municipality
declares themselves (or part of themselves) a tourist zone, stores can
be open on a holiday. I believe Windsor does this, since the malls
there were open on Thanksgiving. The Professions of course are exempt
from this too. Professionals in Ontario basically have no rights.
This is how they can force a doctor, engineer, etc. to work on
Christmas morning.

Actually a lot of people think the service at the Beer Store and
Liquor stores are not good enough. Especially when you can't get beer
after 9pm. In today's world, that just isn't good enough. This is a
24/7 world, and people work many types of shifts. Also the service in
the government liquor store, or the private patronage foreign owned
monopoly beer store is not up to par. There are not enough outlets,
and the prices are too high. The price structure encourages smuggling
and home brewing.

I believe if anything the major big grocery stores should be able to
sell beer. They would be too afriad of license loss to sell to kids,
they already sell cigarettes and lottery so they can read ID's, and
they are "established" enough to be responsible. This is how it is
done in the rest of the world. Even Utah, Sweden, Norway, sell beer
in grocery stores. Of could in Ontario we have to get over the nanny
state loser mentality.

In Nevada you can drink in public if you are at least 1000 feet away
from a licensed liquor outlet. This means no drinking in the parking
lot, but you can drink in the park, beach, etc.

Also many states allow beach, park, only drinking.

 

I don't live in North America...


DAS
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No reason why you would. I only found out because the abolition of the law
was in the news (and I am in Germany more than once a year). I was vaguely
aware of the lack of deep discounts but only realised that "buy one, get one
free" hadn't existed until afterwards.

DAS
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law
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MoPar Man wrote:

Whether illegal or not I can't say, but carrying drink from one hotel/casino
to another in Las Vegas didn't seem to raise any eyebrows (except my Ontario
born friends)!

 

Wow, it doesn't take much to stir you guys up. Yes, I am a
Chrysler Retire and the retiree's got a $1000 voucher toward the
purchase of a new Chrysler product in the new contract. Chrysler and
all the car companies and many other companies realize that it is
GREAT advertisement for an employee to be seen using and owning the
product that they help build. Would you rather not sell ANY then to
sell many at a slightly reduced price.

 

OK by me. Congrats!

(snip)