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Cliff note.... A large sponsor has been kicked on at least one major car forum. Story follows for those that might be interested but thats the gist of it.
Over on corvetteforum when the dealers started taking per-orders for the soon to be coming Z06 they (for the most part) took them at MSRP. Seems crappy to pay MSRP right but keep in mind that the Z hit at 65k that first year and demand was initially very high. All the forum dealers took deposits and agreed to deliver the cars in the order the per-orders were made as they received the allocation but one of them didn't. What they did was sell the pre-ordered cars they received to any buyer that called or showed up on the showroom floor who agreed to pay more than MSRP for one rather than sending them off to the folks that per-ordered them. The car was hot enough that this amounted to most of the cars they got.
As it went down on the forum there was first wonderment that everyone was getting their cars, one by one, but sthey were coming. Except for those at the dealership in question. Their answer was that they had pre orders from non forum people as well and they were in fact delivering them to everyone in the order that deposits were made. At first posts complaining about it were disappeared. Wasn't long before one of the guys with a single digit pre-order number started a thread asking only that people post their place in line so they could try and sort out what was going on, but no bitching about the dealer so as to keep the thread within forum guidelines. At this point things were starting to look hinky to anybody and the admin allowed the thread to stay and a list began to fill out. Now like everyone else regardless of the dealership they opted for they were told what their overall place in line was at that dealership when they made their deposit and it turned out the vast majority of the first fifty cars at this one were accounted for by forum members almost none of who had their cars. Things heated up then, locals were wandering by and counting the cars daily and it wasn't long before it was well proven.
As this went along the issue of running a forum where a sponsor was more than just being deceptive but out and out lying and well proven to be doing so became a rather well covered discussion. I don't recall action being immediate but it was not too far down the road an announcement was made and they were removed as a forum sponsor.
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