September 11, 2009 original publish date
March 17, 2011 updated broken link
February 17, 2020 copyright update
“Government Motors” (GM) Money Back Guarantee. No Questions Asked?
original article written by Net Advisor™
WASHINGTON DC. General Motors (GM) dubbed has been dubbed Government Motors after the U.S. government forced takeover and massive bailout is currently offering a “money back guarantee.”
Those who purchase a GM car before November 30, 2009 and decide they don’t like it, can get a full refund within 60 days – no questions asked. General Details.
I have a question:
Does this include interest payments on the bank loan?
NO QUESTIONS ASKED?
Wait…. did they say, “No questions asked?”
How many people believe this one?
1. Buy a GM car (assuming one qualified or could even get a bank loan).
2. Put up to 4,000 miles on the car. No, you can’t take that cross country trip from CA to FL and back, sorry – that’s about 6,000 miles.
3. Drive the vehicle back to the dealer but not before 31 days and not after 60 days.
4. Be sure tat all the car payments are current. How many is that, one or two?
5. Tell the dealer. “uhhh, I don’t want the car or truck…I want my money back.”
GM Dealer (hypothetical conversation):
“Sure…. Mr, Mrs, Ms, or Miss Smith, we could not wait to tell the sales person that will have to deduct his current salary by reversing last month’s commission on the returned car. And the 1-2% kick back we get from the factory, we really don’t need that either, nor do we need the profit on the car. In fact, demand so high, we couldn’t wait for you to return it. Used cars have such a high resale value, especially the American ones!”
You know the dealer and 5 other people including the chain smoking sales guy will do everything they can to get you to, “just try it out for another week,” and you will never return it because of the guilt factor.
This is really a sale ploy.
Have you ever seen those infomercials with the “money back guarantee?” Of course you have. The product sells for typically $19.99 plus S&H (shipping and handling) or S&P (shipping and processing) which you never get shipping, handling or processing back. As it turns out many times those handling and processing charges can cost 50% or more of the product cost. Hint, this is where they make their money. Advertisers know that people are willing to try anything for $20 and thus returns are very, very low. With a money back guarantee, people think there is no risk, we’ll not exactly.
GM is playing on the same statistical numbers. It might be a way to get people to try out a GM car again. GM doesn’t need gimmicks. All GM has to do is build high quality cars that people want to buy at affordable prices. Toyota and Honda managed to do this. They didn’t go bankrupt or require a bailout, and neither did Ford. Yet, GM is going to spend $2 billion of likely tax payer bailout money to get tax payers to buy GM cars.
“GM said it plans to continue its campaign through 2010. The company has been spending about $2 billion a year on advertising.”
— Sources: NY Daily News, CBS News
I don’t know how many cars GM has sold since this campaign. However it would seem to be more competitive if GM just reduced the price of their cars by the $2 billion they will spend on advertising for this promotion, and that savings to buyers might generate sales.
GM is majority controlled by the US Government and was subject to $50 Billion in tax payer bailouts and that number is expected to rise.
short link: https://www.netadvisor.org/?p=5948
image copyright/ TM by GM
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