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TrueCar now masking customer email addresses

Okay - I'm gonna get :devil: (flamed) for this but oh well - when has that ever stopped me before. :lmao:

I think it's a good idea -- HEAR ME OUT

1.) The Prospects REAL e-mails are in your truecar portal.

2.) They do this to avoid our e-mail getting put in the SPAM folder in a customers email box.

3.) They do it to continue with the source branding - which is part of the good stuff about TrueCar.

Why would they want to do anything to hurt us? We're paying for their service - if they REALLY wanted to hide the customer's e-mail addresses from us, why would they put them in plain view in the portal?


Well said I get why they would offer. Customers I'm sure feel safer masking email but I havnt noticed anyone point out that the Phone number provided is 99% accurate and almost always provided upfront with the "masked" email.

I havnt had any issues overcoming this in the last few months closing is still 20% +/-2

:)
 
I don't want to hijack this thread but Jeff's post about Nationwide reminded me of another TrueCar gripe.

I don't know how many of you are affiliated with Ford stores or familiar with x-plan pricing. X-plan is a set price by Ford on a given vehicle. There are many ways to qualify for x-plan pricing but most commonly this is offered through many large employers. Time Warner, Verizon, GE, etc.

Well TrueCar has now established a buying service with many of these x-plan provider. Many of our customers are confused by this. When our sales staff asks a customer to generate an x-plan pin number, the customer's employer website often inadvertently submit a TrueCar lead. So TrueCar collects $299 (plus tax!) for...what exactly?
 
At the end of the day, is it better to have a masked email that responds or an fake email that bounces? As much as TrueCar is frustrating, they send us people that can buy? They probably aren't going away anytime soon, so, as long as they are productive, I'm working to find a way to maximize their effectiveness. Interestingly, there are some TC lead sources that don't produce. But, I don't have to pay for them either.
 
I am getting ready to enroll with TrueCar next week. I had read all of the horror stories about the law suits and the way that they "withhold" information from dealers, and on and on and on.

Through the process of gathering information and making my decision to move forward with TrueCar, I really found a completely different understanding of what this company does.

For me, the first thing that I had to understand is that these customers are theirs. They are not mine. This is not a "lead provider", or a listing site. These people are in business to sell cars, period. They don't care if they sell their customer my car or your car. Their loyalty is to their customer, not to me. I just happen to have the vehicle that I am willing to allow them to sell to their customer for a predetermined price.

They are doing whatever needs to be done in order to put themselves in the best possible position to get their customer to purchase a vehicle.

Bottom line from where I am sitting......if you don't like their methods then why in the hell would you do business with them? For the love of God, stand for SOMETHING!