Archive for July, 2006
Brief Comment Shutdown
posted by Daniel Solove
We’ve been experiencing a barrage of comments from a spammer today, so we temporarily shut off comments. Unfortunately, Movable Type doesn’t have an easy way of shutting off comments to older posts, so the only efficient way to stop the torrent of spam is to shut off comments globally. We’ll reopen comments by tomorrow morning.
July 31, 2006 at 5:20 pm
Posted in: Administrative Announcements
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Welcome to the Blogosphere: Voiceless
posted by Daniel Solove
Andrew Chin (law, North Carolina) has just started a new blog called Voiceless. According to Andrew’s description of the blog, it is an “examination of the legal and technological structures that keep almost all of us voiceless.” Welcome to the blogosphere!
July 30, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Posted in: Blogging
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Alleged Air Marshal Quotas: Do Nothing Wrong; End Up on a List
posted by Deven Desai
According to a report by a Denver news station, air marshals are under a quota to create one Surveillance Detection Report, or SDR a month.
The article quotes air marshals as saying that they may add someone to a watch list even though there was nothing to report just to meet the quota. If true, this article seems to support Dan’s points about information gathering and relates to his Nothing to Hide post . The idea that one could be added to lists for suspected terrorist activity simply to show some illusory level of effectiveness points to why some restraint on information gathering practices must be in place. In some cases this function may be performed by insiders who try to raise objections. That ideal, however, does not seem to work in this case. One air marshal apparently lost his job when he objected to the policy.
According to the article, some choice language from two July 2004 memos about the subject include “Each federal air marshal is now expected to generate at least one SDR per month” and “There may come an occasion when you just don’t see anything out of the ordinary for a month at a time, but I’m sure that if you are looking for it, you’ll see something.”
HT: Slashdot
July 28, 2006 at 5:24 pm
Posted in: Privacy (Law Enforcement)
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Froomkin’s Law Review Copyright Wiki
posted by Daniel Solove
One of the things I always attempt to do with my scholarly work is to ensure that I keep the copyright in my name. This gives me the maximum freedom in how I choose to use and distribute my work in the future. Law reviews have a welter of different policies with regard to copyright that sometimes vary from year to year and from author to author. After negotiating, I have been able to secure copyright in my work with most journals, with just a few exceptions. Having knowledge about a journal’s past copyright practices can be very helpful. I know of at least one author who was told by a law review that it was against their policy to give him copyright. This was false, since the law review had given me copyright in my piece in the very same issue. Once he told them about the discrepancy, the journal editors quickly changed their position and gave him copyright.
To help bring more clarity to the confusing and contradictory world of law review copyright experiences, Michael Froomkin has developed a wiki to track the copyright policies of various law reviews. He describes the project as follows:
The purpose of this website is for legal academics and others to share our copyright experiences with law journals and other legal publishers. As academics, we have an interest in ensuring the widest dissemination of our work. Historically, Law Journals have tended to use standard-form copyright agreements that reqire a copyright assignment, and have tended to impose unreasonable restrictions on our rights to share and re-use our own work.
This is starting to change. Increasingly, law journals, are adopting reasonable policies, or at least are open to negotiation. Due to the transitory nature of student-run law journal staffs, some staffs are actually unaware of their own past practices.
On the pages linked from here, legal writers describe their copyright experiences and law journals describe their policies. The information is as good or bad as what you contribute to it.
Hat tip: Paul Caron
July 28, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Posted in: Intellectual Property, Law School (Law Reviews)
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Closing Public Access to Social Networks: Should Web Sites or Parts of Them Have Ratings?
posted by Deven Desai
CNET reports that the House just passed (by a 415 to 15 vote) the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) (text of the bill here)
The bill seeks to reduce, if not eliminate, the ability of sexual predators to use social networking sites to prey on teens at least when the teen user is at a school or library that receives federal funding which according to the article is at least two-thirds of libraries in the United States. The goal is laudable but the bill, which leaves the definition of social networking to the FCC (nice dodge there), mandates the FCC shall consider whether the site: “(i) is offered by a commercial entity; (ii) permits registered users to create an on-line profile that includes detailed personal information; (iii) permits registered users to create an on-line journal and share such a journal with other users; (iv) elicits highly-personalized information from users; and (v) enables communication among users.”
As the article note the language is so broad that not only MySpace but Amazon, Slashdot, and even the conservative Redstate.com would be subject to the law. Indeed, blogs, parts of Yahoo!, and more would no longer be available to students or those who do not have computers at home. Of note to this readership, a Pew report found that 38% of 12-17 year olds read blogs and 19% create them. To me encouraging young people to write and read more is a goal we should keep in mind as well as protecting them from online nuts.
Another Pew report on teen Internet usage found 87% of teens are online. 81% play games but 76% read news. The report points out that of the 13% who are not online, they are “clearly defined by lower levels of income and limited access to technology. They are also disproportionately likely to be African-American.” Yet despite the possibility that the bill will take away access to lower income groups, note that in general 78% access the Internet at school and 54% at a library.
What does this move say about access to information by teens? It seems crazy to try and have schools or libraries police teens’ activities and the definitions are so broad that healthy activities are curtailed. Maybe some sort of rating system would make sense. I am not sure that it would, but as a quick thought it seems better than shutting off access to a growing, key part of American social and in some cases mental growth (in a sense I think Zittrain’s Generative Internet has some some insights here in that it addresses the tensions between openness and security on the Internet). I could be missing something here and I would love feedback on ways to protect youth users without cutting them off from the Web in public places. My instincts are that parents should be sitting down with kids and continually teaching them about the online equivalent of “Don’t Talk to Strangers.”
July 27, 2006 at 9:04 pm
Posted in: Politics, Technology
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A Second Law Review Submission Guide
posted by Dave Hoffman
Tony Sebok (Brooklyn Law) has graciously permitted me to post a law review submissions guide he compiled. Together with a similar guide created by Scott Moss (in XLS format) faculty can have a pretty clear sense of what many of the top journals are up to this cycle. Maybe our new motto should be: “the Law, the Universe, and some Public Goods.”
That said, there would be clearly an enormous public benefit were this process to be wikified. Although my preference would be for ExpressO to manage a centralized information clearinghouse, perhaps that type of command and control thinking is obsolete. So how about it. Do any of our readers know how to make a wiki for law review submission related information?
UPDATE: I’ve created a law review information wiki. (I feel like such a proud papa.) It is currently a stub, with links to the files we’ve posted here, and a skelatal outline. Our readers are encouraged to go onto the page and make it better.
July 27, 2006 at 12:00 pm
Posted in: Law School (Law Reviews)
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Online Blacklisting of Medical Malpractice Plaintiffs
posted by Daniel Solove
In a disturbing development, websites are emerging to create blacklists of individuals who file medical malpractice claims. According to an article at Law.com:
In 2004, a group of Texas physicians launched DoctorsKnowUs.com. The site listed the names of plaintiffs, attorneys and expert witnesses in medical malpractice cases. That site did not make any distinction between cases that ended in plaintiff verdicts and those that ended in defense verdicts or settlements.
According to the New York Times, a North Texas man had trouble finding a physician for his 18-year old son after his name was posted on the site. He had filed a medical malpractice suit after his wife died from a missed brain tumor, and had won an undisclosed settlement.
DoctorsKnowUs.com was shut down four days after the Times article was published.
A new website to blacklist medical malpractice plaintiffs has emerged, called LitiPages.com. According to the Law.com article:
In the latest effort to enable doctors to shun patients who sue, an offshore company has launched an Internet site that lists the names of plaintiffs who have filed medical malpractice cases in Florida and their attorneys.
The site, LitiPages.com, encourages doctors to consider avoiding patients who are listed in the database, and it strongly encourages plaintiffs who have lost their cases at trial to turn around and sue their plaintiffs attorney. . . .
Unlike the Texas site, LitiPages.com plans to list only plaintiffs who filed cases that ended in a defense verdict, a settlement, or a plaintiff verdict on only one count while other counts were dismissed.
The overwhelming majority of med-mal cases that go to trial result in defense verdicts. A large percentage of claims never go to trial, and many of those result in settlements. Some experts say that it’s not possible to say that cases are “frivolous” just because they don’t result in a plaintiff verdict.
The article also discusses an interesting study about medical malpractice lawsuits:
July 26, 2006 at 4:44 pm
Posted in: Privacy (Gossip & Shaming), Privacy (Medical), Tort Law
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Chart of Law Review Submission Policies
posted by Daniel Solove
Scott Moss, a law professor at Marquette and a reader of this blog, emailed me a very useful chart he created of law review submission policies at the top 37 law school’s law reviews. He has graciously allowed me to post it here. According to Scott, he stopped at 37 journals for no other reason than it was getting tedious and boring. The chart has information about article length, spacing, anonymity, mail vs. ExpressO, dates by which journals will begin reviewing this fall, and more. Thanks, Scott!
July 26, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Posted in: Law School (Law Reviews)
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Welcome to the Blogosphere: Credit Slips
posted by Dave Hoffman
A warm welcome to the Credit Slips blog, featuring some great folks: Melissa Jacoby, Bob Lawless, Angie Littwin, Katie Porter, John Potto, Debb Thorne, and Elizabeth Warren. Melissa has a very nice post up already on the relationship between the bankruptcy reform act, filing, and behavioral law and economics. There is also a neat policies post by Bob Lawless, including the following frank disclaimer:
We do not provide legal advice, and nothing on this site should be construed as legal advice. We are not all even lawyers. Those of us who are lawyers can get in trouble for giving advice outside the states where we are licensed. Being in debt can be very stressful, and we understand the desire to reach out for help. Please do not contact us for advice because we cannot help you.
Ditto for us, if we haven’t said it already. (Sadly, as I have previously written, I doubt that disclaimers like these, ubiquitous in the blawgosphere, would be dispositive in a court proceeding.)
July 26, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Posted in: Blogging
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Solum on the Need for Opinions
posted by Dave Hoffman
Larry Solum recently posted a kind response to my post on the need for judicial reasoning. Here is a taste of his analysis:
An obligation to offer justification has obvious accuracy-enhancing effects: it forces the decision maker to engage in an internal process of deliberation about explicit reasons for an action and to consider whether the reasons to be offered are “reasonable” and whether they are likely to be sustained in the event of appeal. Balancing approaches, which consider the costs of procedural rules as well as their accuracy benefits, point us in the direction of the costs associated with requiring justifications on too many occasions and of the costs of requiring justificatory effort that is disproportionate to the benefits to be obtained. Requiring reasons facilitates a right of meaningful participation as well: when a judge gives reasons, then the parties affected by the action can respond–offering counter reasons, objecting to their legal basis, and so forth. Moreover, the offering of reasons provides “legitimacy” for the decision.
Very helpful. Clearly, the procedural justice literature has much to say on whether it is illegitimate for judges to rule without explanation. It seems to me that much of Larry’s discussion would seem to foreclose the legitimacy of what our commentators have suggested as the backstop for expressed opinions: back-pocket explanations, i.e., reasons produced by litigant demands.
But I still think that much of our thinking on the problem of “why and when reasons” is driven by biases built into our legal-DNA by the law school experience. I’ll ramble a bit more on this problem below the jump.
July 26, 2006 at 2:47 pm
Posted in: Empirical Analysis of Law, Law School (Scholarship), Law and Humanities, Legal Ethics, Sociology of Law
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Law Review Article Submission Resources (Fall 2006)
posted by Daniel Solove
The fall law review submission window opens in mid-to-late August, so I thought I’d reprise an earlier post with some useful resources for submitting articles.
Article Submission Length Restrictions
Emory Law School’s Library has a very useful chart of article length restrictions at the top 35 law reviews.
The general consensus is that many top law reviews have an article length limit of 35,000 words and a preference for no more than 25,000 words. Virginia Law Review has the strictest policy, with a limit (not just a preference) of under 25,000 words. All the rest have either no upper limit or a 35,000 to 40,000 word limit. As for preferences, the range is between 25,000 to 35,000 words, with most at 25,000.
Law Review Contact Information
1. Emory Law School’s Library maintains contact information, including email addresses, for the top 25 law reviews.
2. JURIST has links to countless law review websites.
3. LexisNexis Directory of Law Reviews
Electronic Submissions
1. ExpressO provides for electronic submission to over 450 law reviews. However, a number of the top 25 law reviews still require either paper submissions or electronic submissions via their own website. For those law reviews not allowing an ExpressO electronic submission, ExpressO will print out the article and send it to these journals in hard copy. It costs extra for these submissions.
July 26, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Posted in: Law School (Law Reviews)
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Is ExpressO Winning the War Against Chaos?
posted by Dave Hoffman
Over the last few article submission cycles, law professors have become accustomed to submitting articles through ExpressO. But it’s become clear that a battle has erupted between the centralizing forces of ExpressO and the top law reviews, which increasingly want authors to submit electronically through their individual webpages. This fight threatens to ruin the utility of ExpressO, and not incidentally make the process almost as inconvenient as it was when authors sent out dozens (or scores) of mail-merged letters.
A colleague points out that ExpressO is offering a new service for journals: LawKit. LawKit is a database management system that allows the reviews to manage the submission and editing process. But the most promising part of the system, it seems to me, is that it may have been designed to bring defecting law reviews back into the fold. According to the website, reviews can get articles onto LawKit in one of three ways:
1. through a web submission form accessible from your law review’s web site; 2. through ExpressO; or 3. an editor can upload a paper on the author’s behalf.Regardless of the method used, the submitted articles all end up in the same place (the pending submissions queue in the Submission Management screens).
That is, if a review decides to use adopt the LawKit management system, it gets hooked back into the ExpressO submission service. It may be that it is LawKit that has encouraged a top journals like Georgetown, which had moved away from Expresso, to change its mind.
I endorse ExpressO and I wish it success in centralizing this process. There is no good reason for 100 different journals to require authors to submit on 100 different web pages. Of course, down the road, I hope that ExpressO plans to add more functionality for authors. For example, wouldn’t it be useful if the system could track when journals start making offers, what percentages of their books are full, etc.? Blogs can’t do everything, after all. It would also be useful were the entire process of submission to be open (but name-blind) so that we could get better data on the purported letterhead bias and the unravelling law review market theory.
July 26, 2006 at 11:52 am
Posted in: Law School (Law Reviews)
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Public Access to State Waters
posted by Eduardo Penalver
An interesting article today in the New York Times describes a dispute in Montana between owners of land abutting a waterway and members of the public who want to use the water for fishing. The technical legal question is itself an interesting one: whether the water is a natural waterway or a man-made ditch. According to Montana law, if it is a “natural, perennially flowing stream,” the public must have access, so the owners are arguing that this particular body of water is, in effect, an irrigation ditch. Owners have taken to stretching wire fences across the river/ditch to prevent sports fishermen from accessing the water as it flows past private land. The wrinkle appears to be that the water was (beyond dispute) at one time a natural waterway, but that it has been dramatically altered by human activity, including the addition of a series of gates to control water flow. Nevertheless, according to one (Republican) state senator, “[m]y family has been here for a hundred years, and no one except these rich out-of-state landowners thought of it as anything but part of the BItterroot [River].” So one interesting question is whether a natural waterway ceases to be natural once a certain amount of human activity has taken place. And, if so, how much human activity is sufficient to accomplish this transformation?
Perhaps more broadly, the case may present another example of an interesting (and increasingly frequent) pattern in which the wealthy purchase property that is burdened by traditional public access requirements and then fight to prevent the public from exercising those rights, raising privacy concerns to justify their stance.
July 26, 2006 at 10:53 am
Posted in: Uncategorized
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Teaching Criminal Law
posted by Daniel Solove
There are some great discussions over at PrawfsBlawg about teaching criminal law. Russell Covey wonders why so many professors bother to teach the Model Penal Code (MPC):
Well, guys, I’m here to say that the MPC-era is as yesterday as tie-dye and the VW van. Peel off those bumper stickers and put away the MPC. What do our casebooks have to say about, say, drug crimes? Usually very little, even though 21% of state prisoners and 55% of all federal prisoners were convicted of drug crimes.
Likewise, Doug Berman argues that it is time to stop “obsessing” over the MPC.
For those unfamiliar with criminal law courses, they often consist of teaching two things — the common law of crimes and the MPC. The MPC is a complete criminal statutory code developed around the middle of the twentieth century by a group of judges, academics, lawyers, and others to be a selection of the best approaches in the various states. Many states have based some of their criminal statutes on the MPC. The common law is for the most part no longer in use. States have replaced the common law of crimes with statutes. Nevertheless, most criminal law courses still focus significantly on the common law.
I teach my criminal law class as a statutory course since most of criminal law involves working with statutes. I therefore spend a lot of time teaching students how to interpret and apply statutes. These skills are also useful for students who don’t go on to work in the criminal law field (most students won’t practice criminal law). And these skills are absolutely essential for those practicing criminal law.
The problem isn’t with the MPC; it is the fact that most casebooks and courses are still obsessed with the common law. True, the common law is on the Bar Exam, but this is one of the (many) unfortunate stupidities of the Bar Exam. The common law definitions of crimes have been replaced by statutes, and many of the traditional common law elements no longer exist in the majority of states. As I’ve said before, if you practice the criminal law on the Bar Exam, you’ll be disbarred.
Although the MPC is a bit dated, its great strength is its mens rea provisions, which are a big advance from the common law’s cacaphony of mens rea (mental state) terms (there are hundreds of mens rea terms in the common law which the MPC simplifies to four). So although not perfect and in need of a rewrite, the MPC is still useful as a basis for a criminal statutory code. Since hardly any casebooks have a statutory focus, the MPC is the most handy thing for professors to turn to when teaching the statutory side of criminal law.
So while the MPC has its problems, it isn’t the problem. Instead, blame the excessive focus on the common law.
Kim Ferzan at PrawfsBlawg also weighs in, not to bash the MPC, but to point out that “if you spend all your time on the building blocks of crimes (e.g., the general part), you never get to the crimes that folks are actually prosecuted for.”
I’m not sure we serve students well by running through the definitions of a litany of different crimes. It’s easy for students to memorize elements of various crimes, but the hard part is internalizing the key concepts. Once students learn the basics of criminal law (actus reus, mens rea, causation, and statutory interpretation), they can apply them to nearly any criminal statute under the sun.
July 25, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Posted in: Criminal Law, Law School (Teaching)
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He’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice
posted by Deven Desai
A friend just sent me an article from Wired News about a new license plate tracking technology. Right now police are the main users of the technology. An infrared beam reads license plates and then the information is checked against a database of choice to see whether the registered owner has outstanding warrants, tickets, or even perhaps overdue library books. I guess one will have to be a bit more careful about borrowing a car.
As slashdot notes this excerpt shows where the company that makes the technology wants to go with it:
[Andy] Bucholz, who designed some of the first mobile license plate reading, or LPR, equipment, gave a presentation at the 2006 National Institute of Justice conference here last week laying out a vision of the future in which LPR does everything from helping insurance companies find missing cars to letting retail chains chart customer migrations. It could also let a nosy citizen with enough cash find out if the mayor is having an affair, he says.
I can just hear the pitch: Find out the correlations between where one shops, eats, drinks, or relaxes so you can hound the gym-goer with coupons for Whole Foods! Paparazzi? Reporter? Whoever you are track those sleazy, politicians! Follow those crazy [choose conservative, liberal, or your own label].
To be fair there seem to be some valuable applications of the technology. According to the article, the typical system costs around $25,000. New Haven bought one and “In the first 12 hours after New Haven, Connecticut, deployed a G2 Tactics LPR to crack down on parking violations, the city towed or booted 119 cars, resulting in a $40,000 windfall, according to Bucholz.” Now that’s ROI.
July 25, 2006 at 3:46 pm
Posted in: Uncategorized
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From the Work-Life Balance Front
posted by Bruce Boyden
Right around the same time venerable law-blogger Denise Howell announced she had been fired by Reed Smith, evidently for reasons related to her part-time status, this interesting article (sub. req.) appeared in the New York Law Journal:
Faced with sharp criticism from the state and county women’s bar groups, Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice yesterday defended her decision to let go a dozen part-time women prosecutors unless they agree to work full-time….
All of the part-timers are mothers, although the D.A.’s office has said that some have older children….
Responding to the criticism, D.A. Rice “said two of the top three executive positions in her office are held by women, compared to none under her predecessor…. She also said seven of the 14 management positions in her office are held by women, compared to just two under Mr. Dillon.” On the issue of the part-time program:
“We’re dealing with life and death,” said Ms. Rice, who said full-time attorneys are better able to form the relationships with witnesses that are key to many trials.
“You can’t have part-time litigators,” said Ms. Rice, adding that some of her part-time lawyers have been allowed to leave trials at 2 p.m. while the judge and the defense are still in the courtroom.
Over the weekend the New York Times ran a follow-up article that gives more of Rice’s side of the story, and a letter from a reader appeared last week that basically says, “Having a child is a choice, so tough noogies.”
July 25, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Posted in: Law Practice
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Specter Looking to Sue President Bush Over Signing Statements
posted by Deven Desai
Apparently Arlen Specter “plans to introduce legislation this week that would give the U.S. Congress the right to bring a lawsuit against Bush’s ’signing statements.’” The move comes on the same day that the ABA’s taskforce on the matter issued its report and recommendation. To date President Bush has used the device more than 750 times. For a recent discussion of the matter and some links to Richard Esptein’s defense of the device go to this page on the ACSblog.
From the ABA’s press release:
Presidential signing statements that assert President Bush’s authority to disregard or decline to enforce laws adopted by Congress undermine the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers, according to a report released today by a blue-ribbon American Bar Association task force.
The task force is bipartisan. The list of members is: Neal Sonnett, William S. Sessions, Patricia M. Wald, Mickey Edwards, Bruce Fein, Harold Hongju Koh, Charles Ogletree, Stephen A. Saltzburg, Kathleen M. Sullivan, Mark Agrast, Tom Susman, and adviser Alan Rothstein. Their bios may be found here.
July 25, 2006 at 12:24 am
Posted in: Constitutional Law
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Weird Statues
posted by Daniel Solove
No, that’s not a typo in the title. . . . This is a post about weird statues, not statutes (although there are plenty of weird statutes too). I don’t have much to say about the law today, but I found this website with pictures of unusual statues from around the world to be irresistible.
Hat tip: BoingBoing
July 24, 2006 at 7:18 pm
Posted in: Architecture, Weird
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Florida Travel Ban Update
posted by Eduardo Penalver
Here’s a memo that just went out from the University of Florida the other day, implementing the State’s new prohibition on academic travel to terrorist states:
July 21, 2006
MEMORANDUM
TO:
Deans, Directors, and Department Heads
FROM:
Michael V. McKee, University Controller
SUBJECT:
Travel to Terrorist States
Senate bill 2434 relating to travel to terrorist states was
approved and signed into law by the Governor effective
July 1, 2006 and contains the following restriction:
Florida Statute 1011.90 (6) – Prohibits the use of state or
non-state funds made available to state universities to
implement, organize, direct, coordinate, or administer
activities related to or involving travel to a terrorist state.
Travel to a terrorist state shall not be allowed under any
circumstances.
The bill defines “terrorist state” as any state, country, or
nation designated by the United States Department of State as
a state sponsor of terrorism. Currently, the State Department
assigns that designation to five countries:
Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
Prior to the passage of this bill, travel to these countries
was allowed, but only from non-state funding sources.
No official business-related travel to the above countries
from any funding source will now be allowed by the University.
If you have any questions, you may contact Randy Staples,
Ted Griswold or Brett Wallen at 392-1245.
============================================================
NOTE: This and other DDD Memos are maintained on the WWW at:
http://www.admin.ufl.edu/DDD/
(ALL ATTACHMENTS TO ORIGINAL MEMOS ARE POSTED HERE)
============================================================
July 24, 2006 at 2:53 pm
Posted in: Uncategorized
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Tin Men
posted by Bruce Boyden
As a follow-up to my post about an apparently sleazy car sales tactic a few days ago, I thought I’d point you to a fascinating undercover look at the world of car sales from Edmunds.com. The reporter spent 3 months as a new car salesman, part of it at a high-pressure showroom dedicated to a Japanese brand, and the other at a “no-haggle” dealership for an American brand. In general, the article reminds me of the movie Boiler Room, as well as my own brief career in high-pressure sales (don’t ask). The traditional car lot is a shark pit of deceptive maneuvers aimed at separating marks from their money. The “no-haggle” lot seems much better, but it also seems like it’s not doing a lot of business.
There’s evidence the Internet is changing the whole business:
I was already beginning to see the impact of the Internet because of something that happened during my first few days there. [The reporter talked to a man waiting in the maintenance area, who tells him he got an "awesome deal" on one of the dealership's new SUVs -- $300 below invoice.] I asked how he did it. He said he checked prices on the Internet. He then called the fleet manager and made the deal over the phone.
I had a schizophrenic reaction to this. Part of me admired the fact that he had outfoxed the dealer. But the car salesman side of me was angry that I never “got a shot at him.” It seemed like just a matter of time before people who, in the past, walked onto our car lot, would be on the Internet making deals.
The salesmen are only vaguely aware of this developing trend. I was standing on the curb next to George and we saw one of these high-demand SUVs ready for delivery.
“Another damn Internet sale,” George said. “Why don’t they turn that car over to us? We’d get a grand over sticker. Instead they’re selling it at invoice. Does that make sense?” As the days passed I noticed more and more cars marked “carsdirect.com.” And as I approached people on the car lot they often informed me that they were here to see the fleet manager. More Internet customers.
This indicates that wealthier, computer-savvy customers may be circumventing the sleazy sales tactics, leaving the sharks to prey only on poorer, less-informed customers. It could develop into yet another element of the “poor tax.”
HT: Consumerist
July 22, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Posted in: Consumer Protection Law, Technology
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