How to get the removal of fake fees and add-ons out of your car deal in the current car market. Today we're talking about must-have strategies for savvy car buyers. I'm Kevin Hunter, the Homer guy here today with amazing Elizabeth, the Homer gal. We are seeing more and more good car deals out there, but we are also alarmed by the number of car buyers we hear from who are allowing themselves to be pushed around by greedy dealers in their local market. At the end of today's show, we will also hit on carmacts and carvana. Besides our video updates, we also are offering a three times weekly blog post for those of you who like to read for yourself. They are available on our website, theHomerGuy.com. So why did we elect to peel back the onion and show this to you today? You guys should know that Liz has been feverishly responding to car buyers' emails and texts. Ever since we announced our free car buyer's assistance and free black book values to our viewers, she is super fast and efficient at it. I have also personally jumped in to respond or even call several of you car buyers myself. But both of us are noticing a troubling trend that far too many of you are missing the point of how powerful the FTC regs are because you are doubting them with the word proposed in the description. And you're letting dealers and their finance offices push you around when it comes to gain playing with pricing, extra charges for paying cash, and added fees and products. You're missing the fact that these regs are simply clarification of existing laws on the books. The word proposed means nothing. Explain the problem that you're seeing Liz. Far too many car buyers are making a huge mistake when they start communicating with or deciding to visit a car dealer in person. The key word here is control. Once you step on a car dealer's lot, having the FTC regs download in your hand cannot be overstated. Why? They give you confidence and encouragement to control your car deal. But don't just print them off and take them with you without reading them first. It's quite important that you're familiar with the specific language in them. If you don't do this, the moment you give the controls of your car deals with the salesman and start following their lead, you lost. They are training and role playing daily on controlling the customer you. And many of you are just too timid or chicken to take the wheel back the moment you start following. If you feel awkward and uncomfortable and quite frankly, it's supposed to. It's quite funny for me to sit here listening to Liz say this because it's so true. And all of your interactions with other people, I can testify that you are typically the sweetheart in the room. When you get inside of a dealership, the old mama bearer comes out. You can't be weak at a dealer and win friends. For example, I spoke directly with a car buyer the other day while she was in the midst of writing an email to a dealer who had been totally yanking her chain. And it was very obvious to me that she was hesitant to mention the FTC in her email. Yet she had already talked to them. The FTC had already confirmed she had a valid complaint. How much more confirmation do you need than that? Yeah, come on people. Just do it. It's your money we're talking about here. So defend it. Some of you are stuck on the word proposed in the FTC regs and you assume that's a stop sign. You're wrong. Every dealer out there knows of other dealers who have been sued big time for violating the language that's in those regs. They hold internal meetings on the dangers of getting on the wrong side of the law. The dealers do. We think many of you are misjudging how much meat there is on the bone in those documents and how impactful they are right now. So let's go through the sections that are a must read and must use in a face to face communication at the dealership. If you guys use them face to face, we suggest you focus on finance as your target place to pull them out in a one on one standoff with the finance officer. Basically, you're going to corner them and that finance officer will have no choice but the back down. That's right. The office is your best bet because most salesmen are too ignorant of the law to understand the gravity of an FTC complaint. The finance officer, however, totally gets it. Besides likely getting fired, they get to be the fall guy in a situation like this, but here she could be potentially going to jail for breaking the law. We've seen it happen. Trust us. They don't want their past misdeeds being exposed in an investigation and that's guaranteed to happen. Now let's dig in. Reveated outline on page four under section two, deception and unfairness in a motor vehicle marketplace paragraph B reads, another key consumer protection concern is a sale of add-on products and services in a deceptive or unfair manner. Commonly offered add-ons include extended warranty, service and maintenance plans, payment programs, guaranteed automobile or asset protection, gap insurance, emergency road service, vignetching, and other theft protection devices and undercoding. Who doesn't get bombarded with this stuff in finance and told that they must buy it? Then the first sentence of the next paragraph reads, individual add-ons can cost consumers thousands of dollars and can significantly increase the overall cost to the consumer in the transaction. That's financial harm to the consumer, a big concern to the FTC and to the courts. Indeed it is. And then when things bogged down in the dealership and you feel like you've been there forever, read this portion. The protracted and paperwork heavy vehicle buying process can make it difficult for consumers to spot add-on charges. And that happens all the time. And then there's also this. If consumers are financing the vehicle, they then undergo a separate financing process which can include waiting through a thick stack of dense paperwork filled with fine print. Just tell the finance officer, no thanks. I'm not signing all that stuff. I'm only here to sign a car contract. Right. You're not out of line because the car contract is the only thing that you need to sign in finance. Got a dealer who says things were added to your vehicle that are not optional but required. In the sixth paragraph and we highlighted it for you, it reads, according to FTC enforcement actions, dealers also have represented that add-ons are required when in fact they are not. Those are the key words, friends. When in fact they are not. They can't legally make you obligated to buy that stuff. Now we are aware of dealers telling cash buyers or people with their own financing that they must pay a higher price for using their own means to pay for the car. That is totally illegal as explained on page 11 in section 463.4a where it clearly states this would require a motor vehicle dealer to disclose the true offering price of a vehicle in advertisements that reference specific vehicles or price or financing term. The offering price of a vehicle means the full cash price for which a dealer will sell or finance the motor vehicle to any consumer, excluding only required government charges. Because it did not say as long as you use dealer financing or any additional fees the dealer wants to charge offering price is the full cash price, not including tax title and licensing fees which are lawfully collected by your state. The thing you have to be aware of is that sure it's a pain in the butt to be a hard-nosed buyer and using the FTC regs can even make you feel a little uncomfortable but using those documents really work. The satisfaction you get afterwards is totally worth it, like viewer Anthony Z reports. I used the FTC thing at a Mazda dealership here on Long Island and they took the 995 feet off. Thanks Elizabeth. Kevin you responded by saying boom that's what we're talking about. A thousand dollars saved. There's another thing, viewers like Robert Blaney are making false assumptions that the finance manager would probably kick you out of the dealership if you called them out on all their BS. Totally false. When there's an FTC complaint threat on the table the dealer is caught with their hand in the cookie jar and they want to deescalate the situation and try to avoid huge damages from happening. If the FTC comes in and you my friends are in control of making that happen it's guaranteed the dealer will get their books audited. No dealer in existence wants that to happen. Like an FTC officer told one of our viewers dealers are constantly walking with one foot landing in illegal activity. They will never want us coming there to ask questions. It's hilarious and toilet paper on the other side. Right from the horse's mouth friends granted the FTC as a small agency with limited resources but they don't mince words when it comes to dealers. They can't get everywhere but you know how the big bus happened. They happen as a result of consumer complaints. That's you. We promise some updates on two used car companies we've been tracking carmax and carvana. Both appeared to have one foot in bankruptcy with the other foot on a banana peel. We've all seen tons of the sky is falling reports on these companies. Here's the latest greatest news on both of them and just the facts. After car max bottomed out at 55 68 on October 21st they're making a bit of a combat hitting 69 60 as of this report. Meanwhile carvana saw a low of 383 just a short time ago on December 7th. They are floundering right now at 938 as of this report. I think if there's potential for one of these two to go down carvana is the most likely one to hit the skids. If you'd like to show us some love for producing quality car market updates and accurate car buying advice videos like this one. The links for making a tip appearing on the screen will be easy to find in the description box down below. Paypal, cash up and Venmo. There's also the super thanks button down below the video. Our tips system was suggested to us by our viewing audience. Genders people ask for a way to donate to our mission. But if a tip is an option for you, hey that's no problem at all. Just show us some love by subscribing and recommending our videos to your friends and family. I also want to remind our viewers that will provide black book values for a vehicle you're shopping for or for a vehicle you'd like to trade in. You can text us at 701-4413399 or email us at KevinTheHomeworkGuide at gmail.com. And from the email you'll get an immediate out-of-response with a roadmap to a successful car deal. If you're out walking the car lots right now, make sure you see Kevin's playlist, THG's SavvyCarBuyers Homework Cram session. And if you happen to be on Facebook, drop by and give us a like and a follow and don't forget to visit our website too. TheHomeworkGuide.com. It's loaded with free resources for car buyers. We gotta go.