Is a "processing fee" legitimate or a rip-off?
Registered User
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 152
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From: Columbia, SC
Edited for spelling...
Hey...
As you may or may not know, I'm in Honda car Sales in South Carolina. We have a $179 "Procurement Fee". I myself call this a
Fee since it ends up costing me money instead of making me any money. 
The closest competitor has NO Fee, so that is the 1st thing that comes out of their mouth when they are trying to get a customer to buy from them. 
with what some has suggested; WORK ON THE OUT-THE-DOOR Price, do NOT just concentrate on the sale price of the particular car. What I really hate
is all this generalizations about "all" dealrs and "all" salepersons are out to get you. This year has been pretty bad for the car business here in SC. Pretty much everyone in the dealership I work at have taken a pay-cut this year compared to prior years, some as much as $20,000 less pay. 
I only made it to the high 30's this year and the highest paid, most experienced salesperson here, who has been here for over 9 years, only made it to the high 50's where she has made it into the 6 figures a few years back. Honda Car sales is NOTHING like some domestic Car Sales. "Profit" on Hondas compared to other makes are laughable 99% of the time I sell any Accord or Civic I get a flat fee of $125. How many cars you think I have to sell to make a living with that "profit"? Pretty much nothing sells for sticker any more. Sometimes I wonder if some of the people I sell to would be willing to pay ME to get their product or would provide me with their services at their cost. For most of them the answer would be a resounding "HELL NO". They always think there is some kind of "SECRET" money pot the dealer and the salesperson dips their hands in to "rip off" people. 
I hate to charge that fee and it is true it is already in the "Buyers Order". You can always "negotiate" that out but if you are buying the car for what the dealer paid for it and then you want to take the fee out, you are asking the dealer to "loose" that much money (fee amount). Why would I loose money to sell you a car???
There is no need for that at all unless is a distressed unit or a left over unit. Some people really crack me up. Recentlly a customer walked into the lot and told me he wanted the best price on a Civic VP (Value Pack) There is ONLY about $1,100 profit on that car from the beginig, INCLUDING the holdback. I told him a would give him $1,000 off and he said that was not enough since he KNEW we would get a check back from HONDA in the amount of $2,000 for every car we sold.
Where in the HELL people come up with that????????? 
I told him that was not correct and he just left pissed off cause I was trying to rip him a new one on a $14k Civic with $100 in "profit". Sometime I just don't get people. A car sale needs to be FAIR. I don't expect you to pay sticker for a Civic, Accord even CR-V's, Odysseys and Pilots. But don't expect to pay what we paid for them, there is NOT a conspiracy to take heads off everytime a customer walks into a Car Dealer. The bottom line is that if we sell all the cars for invoice of below, we wouldn't last long at all. How can you expect to have a REAL Sales Professional that will be there to sell you and you family cars for the next 5-10 years if he/she can't make a living. That's why we get a bad name; all this "new' people that start comming into the business and end up leaving after a while cause they couldn't make it and the "old" dogs that can't be taught new tricks. Ruins it for all of us that are making this a carreer. Customer Service is key. If you can't pay your bill, how can you be a pleasant, happy person???
It can't be all take, take, take... you have to give a little also.
I'm done griping...
Regards...
BA...
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 642
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From: STOCKTON
Anytime you voluntairly enter a field of endeavor where customer X buys your product for $33,000 on Tuesday, and customer Y buys your same identical product for $30,995 on Wednesday, you got a a lot of splainin to do.
