Bought my first car using a web site in 1997. You'd make a price request and the Internet sales guy would contact you. Checked a couple of online sales sites a few weeks ago for my girlfriend. I had my number on the request form (not that I ever answer unrecognized calls) and found that my infrequently used voice mail box was completely full. Literally a dozen sales reps from several different dealers called me. My assumption was other sales people bitched about one person getting all the sales so now they just throw it out to everyone and everyone makes a call. Plus lots of texts, but that's slightly less annoying.
She found a car that she was interested in and while driving to the dealer I got a message that car was no longer available. It was available and sitting out front ready to drive. Whether it went off the list when she made the appointment or it was just salesman A attempting to hijack Salesman B is a question. Turned a fairly benign experience into another dealership hellscape. Literally took me fifteen minutes to clean out all the voice mails. A guess that was a good thing because I was able to erase a couple of Indian sounding IRS agents threatening me with jail if I didn't send them Apple gift cards at the same time.
She found a car that she was interested in and while driving to the dealer I got a message that car was no longer available. It was available and sitting out front ready to drive. Whether it went off the list when she made the appointment or it was just salesman A attempting to hijack Salesman B is a question. Turned a fairly benign experience into another dealership hellscape. Literally took me fifteen minutes to clean out all the voice mails. A guess that was a good thing because I was able to erase a couple of Indian sounding IRS agents threatening me with jail if I didn't send them Apple gift cards at the same time.
