If people back out of reservations, are dealers free to sell their unused allocation to anyone ?

[splathead]

So this is where I'm stuck a bit. I have a late September reservation, my dealership is a small family-owned single-store franchise. I've not yet converted my reservation to an order. I'm well outside the dealer's allocation and will be a MY '22 build. The dealer has eight (8) MY'21 allocations and less than 30 reservations in total. I'm not in a rush to get my Bronco, so MY'22 build and delivery is fine with me; I expected nothing different TBH.

My issue is, however, the dealer requires a $500 non-refundable deposit upon ordering. When I inquired why the deposit is non-refundable, with my thought being I may not like the Bronco once I see and drive it, the salesman explained that Ford is driving the requirement.

By the time 2022 ordering comes around in December you would have had ample time to both see and drive. Dealers are getting both showroom Broncos and service loaners.

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[RockChalk7KC]

People will back out, no doubt. I've been doing all the ordering for my dealership, I can guarantee a few of the people I've ordered for will back out. From what I understand, at that point we're free to sell it to anyone. That's why Ford is giving a 20% buffer, life happens...

 

[ZackDanger]

Just to be clear, if a person cancels their order before it is built... that Bronco never gets built.

Aside from a scenario where a dealership lies and tells a person they cancelled it but didn’t... it’s not like these cancelled Broncos end up on the lot free to be sold.

Only Broncos that are built and *then* the buyer backs out will end up at the lot for the dealership to sell to someone else. (And this is there the up to 20% name mismatch plays a role)

 

[Fly by Nite]

^^^ Zack, what concerns me at this time, are the dealers that are now converting customer reservations to orders without the customer consent.... it is happening, and has been reported here numerous times.
If the customer does not intervene and 'claim' their order, the remaining 'ghost' orders may get built, and end up in limbo......on dealers lots. Dealers can claim the customer went awol and keep those ghosts for themselves, unless Ford reclaims them (unlikely?)
It's not realistic to expect Ford to verify every order with the customer. It's up to the dealer to play by the rules (we already see how that's going).
As Squatch said, that 20% leaves unscrupulous dealers a nice cushion to gamble with.

 

[ZackDanger]

^^^ Zack, what concerns me at this time, are the dealers that are now converting customer reservations to orders without the customer consent.... it is happening, and has been reported here numerous times.
If the customer does not intervene and 'claim' their order, the remaining 'ghost' orders may get built, and end up in limbo......on dealers lots. Dealers can claim the customer went awol and keep those ghosts for themselves, unless Ford reclaims them (unlikely?)
It's not realistic to expect Ford to verify every order with the customer. It's up to the dealer to play by the rules (we already see how that's going).
As Squatch said, that 20% leaves unscrupulous dealers a nice cushion to gamble with.

Right. Absolutely.

Remember though, these are actual reservation holders that will result in an actual sale.

You will certainly have a few out lighters of people who forgot they reserved... or who are so fed up they just walk away from the dealer... but for the most part the path of least resistance for these dealers is to sell to the person who reserved the order.

My feeling is that a lot of these dealers that placed orders without consultation we’re doing so to more or less “lock the person in” to their dealership... but with the understanding that they wouldn’t have that reservation on their books unless 1. That person wanted to purchase a Bronco and 2. From them.

Given the small window, it almost, under that logic (ignoring the issue of consent)makes the most sense to just to convert all reservations to orders as fast as possible before the deadline... and then reach out to the individuals to modify the orders to what they wanted (or learn they no longer want it and keep that order for inventory).

It’s in a dealer’s best interest to sell as many Broncos as easy as possible... and the shortest path to that is by building and selling the Broncos their current reservation holders want.... instead of chasing them away only to have to find a new buyer (which they won’t have too much trouble doing... but it’s still more work... even if you might be able to squeeze more markup compared to what you were going to charge the first guy)

(This in no way discounts the existence of a-hole dealerships... but you catch my drift)

$0.02

 

[Fly by Nite]

....
My feeling is that all of these dealers that placed orders without consultation we’re doing so to more or less “lock the person in” to their dealership...
....

We should point out, some dealers are converting w/o actual consent to streamline the order process..... get the order in now, work out the details with the customer later. That's understandable.
But some will convert just to ensure their initial allocation. if they can only get 40% of their reservations to convert, that's gonna hurt their dealer allocation.... so they fake it.
I just see too much opportunity for abuse of the present procedures.

 

[ZackDanger]

We should point out, some dealers are converting w/o actual consent to streamline the order process..... get the order in now, work out the details with the customer later. That's understandable.
But some will convert just to ensure their initial allocation. if they can only get 40% of their reservations to convert, that's gonna hurt their dealer allocation.... so they fake it.
I just see too much opportunity for abuse of the present procedures.

Ugh. I legit meant to type “a lot of those dealers” and this forum’s garbage spell check changed it to “all of those dealers”.

Oooofff

In any event, I think you and I are generally on the same page.

 

[DUSTYcazOREGON]

I wonder how many Dealer employees have them on reservation and within the allocation? Hummmmm........

 

[North7]

Just to be clear, if a person cancels their order before it is built... that Bronco never gets built.

Aside from a scenario where a dealership lies and tells a person they cancelled it but didn’t... it’s not like these cancelled Broncos end up on the lot free to be sold.

Only Broncos that are built and *then* the buyer backs out will end up at the lot for the dealership to sell to someone else. (And this is there the up to 20% name mismatch plays a role)

From all the discussions of slimy dealers ordering a customers "canceled" reservation, there is one point I have not seen discussed or I may have missed it.

If the dealer just tells the customer they "canceled the reservation" the customer will never call Ford to get their $100 deposit back, letting Ford know to truly cancel the order.

So what are the slimy dealers doing, cutting a check for the $100 refund instead of crediting the persons credit card?

 

[ZackDanger]

From all the discussions of slimy dealers ordering a customers "canceled" reservation, there is one point I have not seen discussed or I may have missed it.

If the dealer just tells the customer they "canceled the reservation" the customer will never call Ford to get their $100 deposit back, letting Ford know to truly cancel the order.

So what are the slimy dealers doing, cutting a check for the $100 refund instead of crediting the persons credit card?

I was thinking about this. The interesting thing is the $100 is held by the dealer and is theirs to do with what they want... and the reservation is controlled by Ford... until the dealer converts it then it’s tied to them.

But, you couldn’t make a reservation without a creating a Ford.com account... so conceivably all these people would be able to log in and either cancel their reservation on their own, or see that a dealer converted their order... and that person would get email updates as the build progresses.

So yeah, a dealer could just cut a check to make the person whole... but for the whole scheme to work it would require that person either never logging into their Ford account or thinking it’s weird they’re getting build updates... or they would have to be complicit to some degree.

Which is why I think the majority of non-consensual conversions were not nefarious... save for the handful of idiot dealers that didn’t think it through.

 

[Bronc-O]

This is exactly what I see happening. Dealers will have stock from people who order and don't do the deal after it's delivered. Dealers will also have stock from people who "cancelled," dealer offered to take care of the cancellation for them, then went ahead and placed the order anyway to boost their allocation and have retail trucks on their lots. As long as 80 percent of their sales match the names on the reservations, there is no penalty. And they are going to be marking those stock units wayyyy up.

My dealer didn't seem very concerned with this. I told my salesman I wasn't interested in waiting for a 22 and was good until around August and take a look at the situation then and maybe move on to plan B. He asked me what plan B was and I told him most likely an F-150 Tremor. He just asked me to give him a few days notice if I decide to bail on the Bronco.

 

[Palerider]

^^^ Zack, what concerns me at this time, are the dealers that are now converting customer reservations to orders without the customer consent.... it is happening, and has been reported here numerous times.
If the customer does not intervene and 'claim' their order, the remaining 'ghost' orders may get built, and end up in limbo......on dealers lots. Dealers can claim the customer went awol and keep those ghosts for themselves, unless Ford reclaims them (unlikely?)
It's not realistic to expect Ford to verify every order with the customer. It's up to the dealer to play by the rules (we already see how that's going).
As Squatch said, that 20% leaves unscrupulous dealers a nice cushion to gamble with.

Yes, correct.
Short Bronc timeline;
Spent several hours 7/13 trying to reserve Bronc to no avail.
Son is able to get the Broncs reserved on 7/14.

Jan 20 comes around; date we can change reservation to order, but we have till....March 19 to change reservation to order.
Dealer converts reservation to order 1/21, without our consent.

Call Dealer; mad at us because we called them out. Jim, the manager has no intention of changing the order back to reservation.

Call Ford support; call dealer they say...Ford can't change back the order to reservation; dealers are independent. Ford cannot make them change it back. An honest dealer will change it back. Ford has no idea what to do when the reservation hijack was intentional, and not a "mistake".

Now the dealer has the orders. Dealer can (and will) charge MSRP, +ADM (at least $800) + "market adjustment". You have to pay whatever they charge---they have your order. And, they have a "conversion" to bump their allocation.

If you cancel the order, you get no Bronc. If you go through with it, you pay whatever the dealer wants to charge you. If Ford can't figure out how to reinstate our dealer hijacked reservations by March 19, and we don't cancel, well... the dealer gets a Bronc to sell on their lot, or we pay whatever they feel like charging; which is exactly why they are doing this.
They are not concerned about the 20% order to reservation name requirement. This dealer has 300 reservations; they have inflated their conversion numbers to bump their allocation. They can hijack a lot of reservations before they are penalized. So we wait for Ford to try to figure out how to override the dealer hijack.

 

[North7]

Yes, correct.
Short Bronc timeline;
Spent several hours 7/13 trying to reserve Bronc to no avail.
Son is able to get the Broncs reserved on 7/14.

Jan 20 comes around; date we can change reservation to order, but we have till....March 19 to change reservation to order.
Dealer converts reservation to order 1/21, without our consent.

Call Dealer; mad at us because we called them out. Jim, the manager has no intention of changing the order back to reservation.

Call Ford support; call dealer they say...Ford can't change back the order to reservation; dealers are independent. Ford cannot make them change it back. An honest dealer will change it back. Ford has no idea what to do when the reservation hijack was intentional, and not a "mistake".

Now the dealer has the orders. Dealer can (and will) charge MSRP, +ADM (at least $800) + "market adjustment". You have to pay whatever they charge---they have your order. And, they have a "conversion" to bump their allocation.

If you cancel the order, you get no Bronc. If you go through with it, you pay whatever the dealer wants to charge you. If Ford can't figure out how to reinstate our dealer hijacked reservations by March 19, and we don't cancel, well... the dealer gets a Bronc to sell on their lot, or we pay whatever they feel like charging; which is exactly why they are doing this.
They are not concerned about the 20% order to reservation name requirement. This dealer has 300 reservations; they have inflated their conversion numbers to bump their allocation. They can hijack a lot of reservations before they are penalized. So we wait for Ford to try to figure out how to override the dealer hijack.

@DealerInsider have you seen a solution for this?

 

[ZackDanger]

[...]
Call Ford support; call dealer they say...Ford can't change back the order to reservation; dealers are independent. Ford cannot make them change it back. An honest dealer will change it back. Ford has no idea what to do when the reservation hijack was intentional, and not a "mistake".

[...]

Which customer service number did you call?

This sounds like the answer you get when the wrong people pick up.

(somebody have the doc from Ford that outlines what to do when this happens? If I can find it I’ll edit this post)

::EDIT::

I see Dealerinsider has replied to Palerider in another thread.

Short of the long of it: Ford doesn’t want these situations... so they’re working on fixing them. I would say not all hope is lost.

 

[jtt411]

So I have two 7/16 reservations that are within my dealers allocation numbers. I made two because I was unsure how it worked originally and wanted my bases covered in case I wanted a different trim level. Anyway, I only plan on converting one. My dealer has been saying MSRP all along BUT I’m wondering if I have any bargaining chip with the second reservation. I could convert that for a certain percentage off MSRP and then walk away when it arrives? I’m not clear if dealers would find this attractive or if they are being penalized?

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