I hate you Kenneth. Or Why I Have Every Car Dealer In South Florida Blocked on My Phone.

It started about a week ago with a wrong number.  It is still going on.

I figure I am playing Whack-a-Mole with my phone and blocking one after another car dealer in South Florida.

I am not in the car market.

I do not want a Volkswagen.  They do not import the cars of their line up that I would like to see on the road,and if they did I would not trust them due to the diesel engines they would have.  For the record, that would be a Polo or an Up.  The Golf has gotten so bloated and fat that it no longer is a small car.

I do not want a Toyota.  Oh, when I do go to look I will check them out. But I am not in the car market.

I do not want a Nissan.  Their electrical systems are crap from what I remember, and they seem ... boring.

I do not want a Buick.  Buick?  If a Nissan is boring...

I do not want Auto Nation.  You don't get that big without doing something right - for you, not for the buyer.

I do not want a Ford.  Oh they're doing better now, but that Ford Taurus I had back in the day had a problem they never could fix and that was how I got turned onto Jeeps.

I have a 15 year old, 2002 Jeep Wrangler X.  It only has 46,000 miles on it.  That would be 74,000 KM give or take a centimeter or three.

You see, the model year is waning.  Volkswagen and Toyota are apparently doing give aways.  Enter your personal information and you get a free gift!  Actual value may vary, along with your own sanity you cheap bastard.

In that personal information is a phone number.

Mine.

My number, that I have had since just after I bought that aforementioned Jeep Wrangler X with the soft top and the inline six motor that I refuse to get rid of (AMC! AMC! AMC!), is predictable.

It has a pattern of numbers.  It is memorable.

Even to a moron like Kenneth.  Come here, Kenneth you need to be corrected.  Repeatedly. 

So when Kenneth got to that web page for the Volkswagen, he came up with mine. 

The web pages already check for the obvious "555-1212" so you can't get your Free! Gift! with that.  So he mangled the digits and ended up ...

With mine.

Hang on... I just got another call.  

This time it was Al Hendrickson Toyota.  Apparently Kenneth has a desire for a Toyota Tacoma truck. 

Kenneth if you do get that truck I hope you wreck it.

As for why am I blocking the numbers? 

Have you ever tried getting a salesman to do something like delete a number from a database?

I didn't think so.  I have.  Repeatedly.  It's just easier this way. 

This is a group of people, to put it kindly, too much in a rush to listen to the announcement that says my name on the "answering machine".  They hear my name and go ahead and leave a Cheery Message From Your Friendly Sales Manager At ... fill in the blank.  Pick a random car dealer from West Palm Beach to Kendall Florida.  I've heard them all.

I figure eventually he'll hit some of the other dealers.

Auto Nation.
Al Hendrickson Toyota.
Rick Case.
Toyota of Hollywood.
Don Lemay.
Endicott Buick.
Volkswagen of North Dade FL.
Miami Lakes Auto.
Ford in Pompano Beach (twice in rapid succession)
Nissan of Delray Beach (at least they were polite)
Coral Springs Nissan
Volkswagen of Pompano Beach.

All of you people have called.  All of you people have been blocked.

Kenneth, stop it.  I have more rude things to say to you but won't here.  I have a phone call to answer again, only 30 minutes after the last one.

I guarantee you this has given me an insight into how awful buying a car is in the United States, and I will be aggressive in shutting that nonsense down when I do decide that my own now-antique needs to be sold for roughly what I bought it 15 plus years from now.

Oh yes, they do hold value.  And I'll have a secret smile as I tell the car dealer to get me a cup of coffee and a full lunch if he wants to keep me in that chair as he goes to talk to his sales manager one too many times.

Yes, grilled, not fried.  You can't do that?  Ok.  I'm out ... You mean you will? Oh great...

Salespeople.  They are the worst.