Sounds like lead arbitrage sources not doing a good job of covering their tracks. It is very possible that someone is getting paid to fill out lead forms, not saying that New Car America is doing it.

In the affiliate world there is such a thing as "incentive" promotion. If you have got leads where people were trying to get a free Razor phone in the past they were funneled through an incentive site.

@Gary - If the lead houses are only paying you $10 a lead I suggest you get with some of the affiliate networks. I am being paid $12.50 per lead through one and $14 through another and do not have to worry about returns or bad press, justified or not.

this is a pretty pointed attack with a total lack of evidence. i don't feel that a domain whois is much research.

you've outed this michael guy--are you encouraging each of your readers to contact him personally and ask a few questions?

gary has commented twice--he seems to be a guy willing to engage in dialog. someone brought up paul r, and i can't help but think about the dealerrefresh commenters agreeing that a simple phone call could have avoided a big stink just 2 or 3 weeks ago.

i digress. hey, here's a fact.

the dealerrefresh and newcaramerica websites were both started in late 2005. gary's first blog post wasn't until a few months after jeff's, but he was using his real name to sign each one just like his comments above. if he's scam, i don't know why.

no press is bad press, right?

Thanks for the heads up Jeff! Policing the scams that comes our way falls on us as the managers ALL THE TIME.

Owner: "What is this invoice for $999"

Internet Manager: "Let me look into it"

(intenet manager scrambling, wasting time to find if this is a legit claim or not)

Internet Manager 2 hours later: "Boss throw it away, its another bogus attempt to scam money from us"

Thanks again for the information Jeff,

Michael

Dear Readers,

The more I thought about it, the more inclined I am to speak to the veracity of this site and its claims.

Think about the math for this preposterous claim. Apparently Jeff Kershner hasn't. He states that his conversation "proved the provider (New Car America) was possibly paying people to fill out their leads request forms at $5.00 per form. New Car America apparently recruits employees with “work from home ads”."
Who in their right minds would pay someone $5.00 just to fill out a lead that may have already cost more in advertising fees than the less than $10.00 they likely would be paid to sell the lead. The margins are already pathetically small. Five dollars on top would mean the company was selling at a loss.

How do you "prove" something and then use the word "possibly"? You're proving a possibility? You can't prove a possibility. It wouldn't be a possibility if it could be proven. These words appear to smack of some kind of sabatoge launched against NCA.

Where are the "work from home" ads? Who else out there has ever filled out a lead from NCA and was written a check from us for $5.00? Who else out there am I paying to "work at home"? The answer is NO ONE. Jeff needed to find the facts before he attempted to destroy someone's business and reputation. There are laws against slander and libel. Show me an NCA check I wrote to someone?

The insult to my last name is childish and boring - I've heard it before as, I'm sure, has the family of the late Jim Moran, owners of the largest Toytoa dealership in the country.

The undignified language, unfounded and libelous accusations and the ludicrous and erroneous logic of this site speak for its innacuracy and invalidity.

Thank you, readers, for the opportunity to print a rebuttal. We will be watching closely for any other false and damaging claims made by this site.

Sincerely,

Gary Moran
CEO
New Car America

Jeff,

Do we need send our good friend Paul R. after these guys?

Eric

"Distance: Customer is approx. 19.6961722717323 mi. from you"

19.6961722717323 mi.

That's accurate to 10trillionth of a mile.

That's like accurate down to a specific white blood cell of that lead.

Dear Readers,

This claim is ABSOLUTELY FALSE. We never told anyone we would pay them for a lead. We have never paid or claimed we would pay anyone for a lead. We have no "work from home" programs and we do not pay anyone for anything like that. We are a small blog site. We feel that this was mistaken identity. And what kind of site is this to defame someone's character and business - check the language, tone and the ridiculous five dollar bill at the top.

Sincerely

Gary Moran
CEO
New Car America Inc.

Third party "lead mills" involved in scamming????? Shocking!!!!

Wow! Nice catch.

That is one of the reasons I stopped buying 3rd party leads, I would say stop buying them all together and put all that money into name branding, if you do that you will sell more vehicles at a higher gross profit. Go ahead try it, dont be scared.

Does anyone else find it funny that the guy's last name from Moran?

"The strong performance of AutoTrader.com for two consecutive years is founded on its most notable strengths -- the quality of leads and the amount of contact with the dealership -- both of which are especially important to dealers."

The quality of leads provided by AutoTrader are not statistically different from any other legitimate lead provider in my opinion. I measure quality on relevance of the data submitted and NOT the final outcome of the lead. As long as I have valid contact information from a lead, the rest of the equation is up to my process and people.

The amount of contact between AutoTrader and my dealership is minimal and absolutely worthless. My account "manager" has little bearing on my success with the platform. I certainly wouldn't include contact with AutoTrader as one of my bell-weathers on happiness with the product.

JD Powers is an antiquated beast we have to put up with, but I would caution everyone to think about your own situations before giving much weight to anything they have to say (unless, of course, they run your SSI/CSI programs).

For the record, I use both AutoTrader and cars.com and have success with both. I believe that my success is more about my pricing models and quality of my inventory listings than anything the two platforms provide (other than reach).

How did JD Power go about determining these findings?

Who did they actually survey?

Does anyone know?

I do put stock in JD Power studies. They administer all of our OEM CSI surveys and we live and die by those results. But I know who get those surveys.

How did JD Power go about determining these findings?

Who did they actually survey?

Does anyone know?

I do put stock in JD Power studies. They administer all of our OEM CSI surveys and we live and die by those results. But I know who get those surveys.

I don't put any stock in what the lower 99% of this industry thinks/says about vendors, and I don't think anyone on this board should either.

Cars.com overtakes Autotrader on the used side of the satisfaction game and Autotrader takes the new side. Anyone ever spoken to a customer who bought a vehicle strictly off of a JD Power reccomendation? Case closed, it's all PR. I can smell the ink drying as we speak on the new Autotrader lit & ads in the trade rags promoting their new car position w/this, same old song & dance if you ask me.

If autotrader is the best in new vehicle satisfaction and results, then I would hate to see the worst. Does anyone have any success with new vehicles via the internet except with their brand sites?

I agree with Alex!

Guess that $100M spent over 3 months was for new cars?

Nice post!

Well, that headline certainly got my attention. I can't help but think J.D. Power is now like the Olympics gymnastics judges...

I love starting the morning with humor!

Jeff,

We were forwarding the site but that broke down after switching to dealer.com. Should be fixed soon.

Will

The site redesign is looking good! Can't wait to see it in full effect.

Domain names with that much history and that "early on" (in web years) registration can really help you out with SE's. The longer a domain name has been active the better, and vwrep looks like it goes back to early 2001:

it might make a good microsite....ehhh?