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(I'm another who saw this thread and just signed up!)
1) don't forget that no dealer -- much less a large dealer group -- pays invoice for their vehicles. There are three basic sources of additional discounts from invoice:
* standard discount for payment (typically 3%). Yes, basically, if you pay the bill, you get 3 percent off.
* volume discounts for reaching goals. Yep, additional discounts based on reaching certain volume goals
* dealer "holdbacks" which are effectively payments back to the dealer after the vehicle is sold to help pay for advertising, etc.
This is very simplified, so please don't waste time dissecting this breakdown, just know that every dealer in the US can sell cars at invoice all day long and not be losing money on them. BMW might have a slightly different setup than described, as I don't have exposure to BMW dealer operations specifically, but broadly speaking, the above will apply.
As for our friend the Moose, talk is cheap in a forum and it's easy to say "yes, I would hold the buyer to the same standards if the buyer had made a mistake in bidding" -- but would he in real life?
The truth is that the dealership is wrong, and just because they don't fully understand how to use ebay isn't an excuse.
Best of luck in this quest!
Steve
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