tdelarm

About a year ago, I believe I forwarded you a published news article regarding you being sued by a gentleman for not returning his deposit and you kindly emailed back…

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">”Thanks…we are forwarding the article and your name to our attorneys”… </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Gee…I never heard back from you again…I guess it’s because your attorneys already knew you were being sued? Did you ever give that poor guy back his deposit?

I highly doubt you are the angel you purpose to be. According to past Internet buzz, newspaper reports and BBB reports…I personally would not consider doing business with you nor would I encourage any Rennlist member or EBAY member to conduct business with you and when necessary, will warn others of your reputation. That’s the price you pay for operating the way you do.

Also, I wouldn’t be so quick as to blow off a “few” poor BBB reports as not everyone is as dumb as your occasional customer that happens to wonder in. The internet is a powerful tool and will eventually eat into your business.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">“You are right about one thing. We do have a few Better Business Bureau complaints. We receive about 100 emails per day, 200 phone calls per day and sell 100 cars per month. As hard as we try, you just can't please everybody. Any of you in business will know and understand this” </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Is that your best attempt at explaining unethical business practices? If you ran a clean shop you’d simply have no negative reports as many other businesses are able to do.

I highly doubt you will be received with open arms within the Rennlist crowd however, if you insist on advertising yourself as a used car dealership inside the Rennlist forums that you become a member as it’s against administration policy I believe to advertise your company and not be a PAID MEMBER! John D…please correct me if I’m wrong. However, your reputation within the boards is that of an unethical used cars salesman and it would be money unwisely spent on your part.

Based on this BBB report, do you honestly believe anyone within the Rennlist group would buy from you?

<a href="http://www.stlouis.bbb.org/report.html?compid=R10119309&national=Y" target="_blank">Schmitt Better Business Bureau Report</a>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">SCHMITT DANIEL CLASSIC CAR GALLERY

3455 N LINDBERGH
ST ANN, MO 63074
DANIEL SCHMITT OWNER
BBB Customer Experience Record
According to information provided by the firm, Daniel Schmitt is the owner. The company sells used vehicles and classic cars. On August 15, 2001 the BBB issued a news warning on this company regarding complaints received by this bureau. Complainants contacting the BBB have primarily alleged improper sales tactics and selling defective vehicles.

This company has responded to any complaint brought to its attention. When assessing complaint information, please consider the company's size, volume of transactions, and understand that the nature of complaints and a firm's response to them is often more important than their numbers. The BBB does not endorse any product, service or company. The following data concerns complaints processed by the BBB since the firm's BBB file was opened or during its three-year reporting period:

Complaint Record
The Bureau has received 36 complaints against this company during its three year reporting period. 9 complaints have been closed as resolved. 27 complaints have been closed as disputed.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Look…bottom line is, you are a used car dealership that has a bad reputation based on information that has been published in newspapers, posted within the Internet and, personal accounts by those that have experience dealing with you personally…that’s that which speaks tons more then YOUR OPINION. You will say or do whatever it takes to make a sale and based on your prior practices, nothing you can say will make any difference with the majority here within Rennlist.

What say you now Mr. Schmitt?

GTR 993

I think the people on this board are taking this a little to far. The feedback on their site is positive from buyers off of Ebay auctions I don't understand why people don't see that. We in turn or some of us listened to a person that is a member but has posted a total of 10 or so times.

It is rare that I have had a good expeirience with any car dealer but your basis is soley on one person saying one thing but has posted here and the dealer which is trying to explain. Car****" what are we 5 years old? Like I said before I have purchased a car from them and it was easy and it was a good vehicle that showed little wear and checked out not to mention I was told the brakes were about 50% when inspected and they replaced them all, changed the front mats because I thought they were a little worn. I negotiated $1800 off of their asking price.

To each his own I guess from my standpoint if they had a car I wanted I would buy it. Unless something has changed in the last few years. Based on the BBB report? Take any car dealer and run a report I think you will find similar situations. Just like someone said Premier wasn't a good dealer with a bad reputation I have also talked to people that have bought 2 and 3 cars from them. Just MY opinion based on my exp.

carsschmitt.com

Those people on Ebay that left feedback were either "buy it now" customers or people that met our reserve. Those are actual sales. I find it amazing that this has become a bashing for us. With no "benefit of the doubt" whatsover. You know this kind of hurts our feelings that people are so quick to judge, when we have done nothing wrong. I know I am fighting a losing battle with you guys. I just don't understand. By the way, the local "authorized porsche dealer" that would be doing some of your inspections has 23 Better Business Bureau complaints and they are obviously a great dealer.

DC from Cape Cod

Amazed your are being criticized?

Hurt feelings?

Quick to judge?

Done nothing wrong?

You don't understand?

23 Complaints and you think they are a great dealer?

Sounds like I am the one that doesn't understand.

Mark

jlovgren(0) Sep-11-01 14:34:41 PST (private) S
Praise : Very positive experience for a nervous first time car buyer on ebay.
Follow-up by jlovgren - Car arrived: 800 extra miles, no gas, low oil, filthy, missing & broken parts.
Response by carsschmitt.com - 800 miles transport co.'s responsibility, car as described, over 100K mile unit
rabbitt-abbitt(2) Sep-07-01 11:15:49 PST (private) S
Praise : We were verry pleased with the service we got with Andrew Crawford !!!!!
Follow-up by rabbitt-abbitt - Returning home with car, found car to be in need of major repairs. Buyer beware.
Response by carsschmitt.com - 148,000 miles sold "as is" wholesale unit, customer inspected before purchase.
glennhwarren@aol.com(0) Aug-21-01 07:26:25 PST (private) S
Praise : Dealing with Carsschmitt.com has been a pleasure. They have bent over backwards
Follow-up by glennhwarren@aol.com - My opinion now,before and after the sale,lies,deception,and broken promises
gmcpheter(16) Sep-28-02 14:21:37 PST 1862379181 S
Complaint : After a "Buy it Now" Bid, was called by dealer to say the car was already sold.

carsschmitt.com

Feedback from 2 years ago. Thank you.

Mike in Chi

Mark--
Nice slam dunk.

Schmitt for brains
You should have shut up after your first post.

DJF1

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by GTR 993:
<strong>I think the people on this board are taking this a little to far. The feedback on their site is positive from buyers off of Ebay auctions I don't understand why people don't see that. We in turn or some of us listened to a person that is a member but has posted a total of 10 or so times.

It is rare that I have had a good expeirience with any car dealer but your basis is soley on one person saying one thing but has posted here and the dealer which is trying to explain. Car****" what are we 5 years old? Like I said before I have purchased a car from them and it was easy and it was a good vehicle that showed little wear and checked out not to mention I was told the brakes were about 50% when inspected and they replaced them all, changed the front mats because I thought they were a little worn. I negotiated $1800 off of their asking price.

To each his own I guess from my standpoint if they had a car I wanted I would buy it. Unless something has changed in the last few years. Based on the BBB report? Take any car dealer and run a report I think you will find similar situations. Just like someone said Premier wasn't a good dealer with a bad reputation I have also talked to people that have bought 2 and 3 cars from them. Just MY opinion based on my exp.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Maybe you should use the search button and see multiple threads for this dealership. This is not a new issue here. While it is great that you had a good experience and I'm really happy for you, the fact remains that there have been reports in the past about the shady "low grade used car salesman" tactics of this dealership.

Mr. Schmidt and any Mr Schmidt for that matter should learn from this experience and instead of boasting about his sales and feedback, should really offer many more good experiences to people like you who were pleased with the sales experience to change the perception on Rennlist.

Mr Schmidt should know that he has lost at least a sale from me when the negative feedback he has received here over the past two years, turned me off his dealership and auctions when I was looking for my second 993 4 months ago.

BTW this reminds me of old threads with some other vendor by the name of Joe F

I would venture to adopt my home state's motto and change it a bit...
"Don't Mess with Rennlist".

Mark

Hey schmitty....try explaining THIS away...NO he said/she said...no 2 different sides...just FACTUAL report form the St. Louis Newspaper.

If it walks like a duck....

From the St. Louis Riverfront Times
(I HATE 'used car tactics'...I APPRECIATE sales professionals with some idea of customer service!)
(NOTE TO R'LISTERS- This is LONG&gt;&gt;&gt

Fine Print
Unhappy customers say a dealer's arbitration clause turned into a license to steal
BY D.J. WILSON
DJ.Wilson@riverfronttimes.com


By Jennifer Silverberg

It took Andrew Jones two years to get most of his deposit back from car dealer Daniel Schmitt.



A magnifying glass comes in handy at a used-car lot -- it's good for examining the fine print in those contracts. If a buyer is at Daniel Schmitt & Co. Classic Car Gallery, the magnifying glass should hover over paragraph number eight, the one stating that the "exclusive remedy" of any dispute about the contract "shall be arbitration pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act."
Sounds benign enough -- arbitration is supposed to cut down on legal costs. So what's wrong with paragraph eight? Nothing, if you're the dealer, with an attorney on retainer. But if you're the consumer, you don't stand on even ground with the dealer, and chances are that you'll come up short. Andrew Jones knows this, and he has company.

Jones was thinking about buying a used 320SL Mercedes Benz from the dealer on North Lindbergh Boulevard, but he wanted to have the car inspected first. The sales crew at Schmitt & Co. told Jones he could take the car off the lot, but he had to leave a $1,000 check as a deposit. Jones took the Mercedes to a mechanic for a once-over, returned the car to Schmitt and went back to the mechanic to get the diagnosis: The car had an oil leak and had been in at least one collision. Jones didn't want the car, but by the time he went to the dealer late that Friday, it was closed.

The trouble came -- you guessed it -- when he tried to get his check back on Monday morning. Jones says he was told he wouldn't be getting his deposit back. Later that week, he says he spoke with Daniel Schmitt by phone. "I told him I wanted to come out and discuss this, that I didn't think that was fair. He told me, with a lot of profane language, that if I showed up at his place he'd call the police on me."

That was back in July 1999. Jones tried to settle the matter in small-claims court but was bumped from that option by a motion filed by Schmitt's lawyer. "They pointed to the arbitration clause, saying it was the wrong venue to try the case and that it went beyond the six-month expiration date," says Jones. "So the judge had to rule in his favor."

Not only did the arbitration clause, when cited, prevent the judge from hearing the case, it also had a six-month window for the filing of any complaint. Jones had been unaware of any of these limitations. He only thought that because he didn't buy the car, he would get his deposit returned. When that didn't happen, a legal remedy seemed logical.

"One of Schmitt's statements to me was, 'Sue me. Take me to court. Get your lawyer and sue me.' My lawyer wrote him a letter, and he brushed him off as well," Jones says. "I did not know anything about the arbitration. I didn't look at that small writing, didn't look at it all."

Repeated efforts by Short Cuts to get Schmitt's side of the story were unsuccessful. And it turns out Jones was not alone in his plight.

Sheryl Logue of Alexandria, Va., put $500 down on a Lexus RX300 she never bought and has spent the last four months trying to get the money back from Schmitt & Co. Darren Bradburn of Wichita, Kan., has been trying for nine months to get a $1,000 deposit returned for a Porsche he never bought. Sharon Jenkins of Florissant has been fighting for two years to get back a $2,000 deposit her younger brother put down on a '95 Chrysler LeBaron convertible. She says Schmitt also has threatened her with calling the police if she comes back.

Over the last three years, there have been 30 complaints lodged about Daniel Schmitt Classic Car Gallery with the Better Business Bureau of Eastern Missouri and Southern Illinois. Nine complaints have been classified as "resolved," and 21 complaints have been closed after being classified as "disputed." Kenneth Murdock, the BBB's consumer-relations director, says the complaints center on "improper sales tactics, difficulty in obtaining back deposits paid and selling defective vehicles."

"We have communicated with the company that we are concerned about that complaint pattern," Murdock says. "We're concerned about the number of complaints."

When it comes to contracts, what works on a contract between Microsoft and IBM doesn't necessarily work between a car buyer and a dealer. Robert Swearingen, a lawyer for the United Auto Workers, was assisting a union member about a deposit dispute when he ran across merchants using the arbitration clause in sales contracts. Because the UAW member was entitled to legal representation by virtue of his union membership, Swearingen represented him knowing his compensation didn't rely on the outcome of the arbitration.

"This isn't two parties just getting together to decide together in an informed manner that they want to avoid the cost of litigation," Swearingen says. "What it is, it's one party saying, 'I'm going to stick this in here so I can basically steal small amounts of money from you and you won't be able to afford to come and get it or do anything about it.'"

The use of arbitration clauses in consumer contracts has risen in the last few years. Paul Bland, of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, says it started when a banking lawyer saw a way to avoid expensive suits filed by customers who thought they had been screwed by the terms of loans and other financing. "A clever banking lawyer came up with this as a way of getting out from under the consumer lawsuits," says Bland. "The strategy has been successful and it's spread."

The arbitration process is set up to limit legal fees, but in doing so it provides a disincentive for a lawyer to represent a client for small amounts of money. There is no provision for punitive damages, and sometimes, if the arbitrator rules against the complaint, the person pursuing arbitration has to pay the cost of arbitration.

"Most lawyers, in consumer cases, will drop the case rather than pursue it into arbitration because it's generally understood that arbitrators are extremely favorable to defendants," Bland says.

"The arbitration clauses are generally a rigged deal against consumers. The companies are self-deregulating themselves with them. They're repealing all the laws that govern themselves. They're immunizing themselves from any responsibility no matter what they do."

There have been efforts in Congress to limit how arbitration clauses are used in consumer contracts, but so far nothing has been resolved. Swearingen thinks it will take something federal to fix this. "If consumers went in and said to Daniel Schmitt, 'I want to x out paragraph eight,' he'd say, 'Go take a hike.' Just like if you went in to apply for a loan or financing and you saw an arbitration clause and tried to bargain with them, you're just not in a position to bargain with equal footing," Swearingen says. "The idea of freedom of contract between a consumer and a corporation is a fiction. There is no freedom on both sides to negotiate this contract. You either take it or leave it."

When Sheryl Logue got the vehicle identification number from the Lexus and ran it through Carfax.com, she found out the car had been through several wrecks and more than a couple of auto auctions. "They basically did not return phone calls. They knew our voices. You know, we have jobs and children to take care of, so we couldn't continue to keep calling and fighting it. I put a statement into my Visa so my bank is fighting his bank," Logue says. "Who's going to go and sue for $500? They know that. Who's going to take off work, flying there and fighting it. That's why they make the deposit small, so people aren't going to fight it."

But recently, after much ado, the used-car dealer appears to have felt the heat. Last week, after four months of hassles, Logue received a call from Daniel Schmitt Car Gallery with a settlement offer. "I almost dropped the phone," she says.

Jones, in the second go-round in small-claims court on July 20, was offered a deal, two years after losing his deposit. His new legal tactic was to state that the car's failure to pass an inspection should have neutralized the arbitration clause. For whatever reason, Jones says Schmitt's lawyer offered him $700 to drop his complaint. "Their attorney pulled me to the side and thought we should try to settle," says Jones. "It had been going on for so long, I just said, 'Heck, I didn't want to go in front of the judge and take a chance."

Jones settled for $900, but he hasn't changed his mind about Daniel Schmitt and his used-car lot.

"He held my money that long and played those games with me," says Jones. "He's a big jerk, a real jerk."

GTR 993

Like I said my expierience was good and I will post what my honest opinion is. We can do that right?

tdelarm

GTR 993,

I've noticed in prior posts that you have "more or less" stuck of for Schmitt...feelings probably based on your "one positive deal" you've had with them and that's your right to do so. Freedom of the press I say but that always works both ways.

In no way would one positive experience in my opinion outweigh all the negative press they have received and, a BBB report is nothing to sneeze at and as for the EBAY feedback...that can be so skewed to take on any tone desired.

Personally I believe one negative experience with a car dealership is enough to warrant a warning to other perspective buyers to proceed with caution and I’m speaking from personal experience. Case in point, the dealership I purchased my 928 from was actually recommended by fellow Rennlisters although none of them had any personal experience dealing with him, information passed down through the grapevine if you will. In the end, I ended up purchasing a car that was not in the condition that had been advertised and or agreed to and if fact, was simply lied to in some areas regarding it’s condition.

I would not recommend my dealership nor based on the information that is available regarding Schmitt, would I understand why anyone would go that route either. They’re simply to many dealerships to choose from but then again, this is just my opinion. However, you can’t deny the information that has been reported by the BBB concerning Schmitt and that’s good enough for me. After all, that is why they exist right?

Also keep in mind, if you live only 40 miles away, it would make sense to cater to you more.

It simply perplexes my why people insist on being abused.

STLPCA

carsschmitt.com
"A good name, like good will, is got by many actions and lost by one." (Lord Jeffrey)

I'm surprised you haven't figured out you're wasting time & bandwidth trying to convince readers to ignore a poor reputation "earned" from a long history of past misdeeds which are now, thanks to the internet, getting widely disseminated. If your employer sincerely wants (& cares) to begin to rebuild, it will take time & a proven, concerted commitment to change how his business is conducted.

Covering John B's reasonable expenses for his drive to your store would be a nice start to show good faith & it's pretty cheap advertising.

BTW, although there may be 13,300 registered Rennlisters, there are manyfold more who lurk & read, but don't register. I'd also venture a guess that we are generally "decision shapers" regarding cars among our friends & family.

Having opened w/a quote, I'll close w/one from George W:
"Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company." (George Washington - who did you think?)

acastell

Mark, your first shot accross the bow was good.

Your second shot is down right impressive...a direct hit!

Hey GTR993, I would keep your praise to yourself! It is not a good idea to attach youself to a sinking ship!!

I will make sure that I influence AT LEAST two people 'not' to buy from this dealership! I am surrounded by Porsche nuts, who like me, revolve their inventory frequently. No future consideration granted to Schmiddy...

GTR 993

I will speak my mind without you or anyone else telling me to KEEP anything to myself. I also am an enthusiast that has been a member for awhile here not as long as some but LONGER than others.

DJF1

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by GTR 993:
<strong>Like I said my expierience was good and I will post what my honest opinion is. We can do that right?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Of course! And this is really great!!! Like I said I'm really glad you are not one of the unfortunate Rennlisters that had these unpleasant experiences with that dealership.

<img border="0" alt="[cheers]" title="" src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" />