Somebody (possibly an LWer?) proposed showing up to the car dealership without any cash or credit cards, just a check made out for the agreed-upon amount; the dealer now has no choice but to either take the money or forget about the whole deal.
While I don’t remember this specific example anywhere on LessWrong, I actually did this last February. I vaguely recall some of the inspiration being discussions of strategy on LW, specifically the one about removing your car’s steering wheel in order to win at the game of “Chicken”.
(The rest of the inspiration was that I didn’t trust the dealer not to screw with something once I got there, and a strong lack of desire to get into any sort of argument about it.)
The salesperson called me back with an acceptable number, and I bought the car. Essentially it was an ultimatum game and I accepted the offer. I think that the salesperson was afraid of losing the sale, and acted accordingly.
I cannot tell you if I actually got an especially good deal, but I would guess I got a better deal than I would have otherwise, because I’d have been far less likely to walk out on an offer once I’d gone to the trouble of starting paperwork at the dealership—and they knew it.
[Edited to add: I do not think this would have worked as a cold approach; in this situation, I’d actually visited the dealership twice and test driven different cars with the salesperson, so he had a sunk cost involved. He also knew I was annoyed by games and on one of my visits I walked out when the manager started quoting higher prices than what the salesperson had told me, and which were in fact higher than the nationally advertised price for the car! So, I would guess sunk cost + hungry salesperson (and he did seem hungry for the sale) + established propensity for walking out = much better odds of this working than in any other scenario. Based on my interaction with the price-gouging manager, I am certain he would have rejected my approach out-of-hand if I had been contacting the dealership “cold”. Either that, or he’d have simply told me whatever I wanted to hear in order to get me in the door so that pressure could be applied.]
Given the situation, I wonder if you would have had any success saying ok to the number the salesperson called back with and then returning with nothing but a check for less than that amount. How much lower could you have gotten away with?
While I don’t remember this specific example anywhere on LessWrong, I actually did this last February. I vaguely recall some of the inspiration being discussions of strategy on LW, specifically the one about removing your car’s steering wheel in order to win at the game of “Chicken”.
(The rest of the inspiration was that I didn’t trust the dealer not to screw with something once I got there, and a strong lack of desire to get into any sort of argument about it.)
How’d they react? Did it work?
The salesperson called me back with an acceptable number, and I bought the car. Essentially it was an ultimatum game and I accepted the offer. I think that the salesperson was afraid of losing the sale, and acted accordingly.
I cannot tell you if I actually got an especially good deal, but I would guess I got a better deal than I would have otherwise, because I’d have been far less likely to walk out on an offer once I’d gone to the trouble of starting paperwork at the dealership—and they knew it.
[Edited to add: I do not think this would have worked as a cold approach; in this situation, I’d actually visited the dealership twice and test driven different cars with the salesperson, so he had a sunk cost involved. He also knew I was annoyed by games and on one of my visits I walked out when the manager started quoting higher prices than what the salesperson had told me, and which were in fact higher than the nationally advertised price for the car! So, I would guess sunk cost + hungry salesperson (and he did seem hungry for the sale) + established propensity for walking out = much better odds of this working than in any other scenario. Based on my interaction with the price-gouging manager, I am certain he would have rejected my approach out-of-hand if I had been contacting the dealership “cold”. Either that, or he’d have simply told me whatever I wanted to hear in order to get me in the door so that pressure could be applied.]
Given the situation, I wonder if you would have had any success saying ok to the number the salesperson called back with and then returning with nothing but a check for less than that amount. How much lower could you have gotten away with?
I’d like to see a Tales from a Rationalist Car Dealership story come out of this...
Did it actually work at you expected?
I’m not sure I had any expectations per se: my primary goal was to not get screwed around with, and it worked beautifully for that.
I remember it on LW: http://lesswrong.com/lw/c4h/rationality_quotes_may_2012/6j75
Since I did this in February 2011, that can’t be the post I’m referring to. [Edited to add: It may be the one Yvain is referencing, though.]
Is this the post you were thinking of?
EDIT: Never mind. I’m pretty sure Gwern got the right one.
How did it go?