Share your funny anecdotes about getting the upper hand

[mjd]

I was out most of the day and could only access CB via my phone. I saw this post by TastyReuben which made me laugh.

Mountain Cat - I hear you on the car story. In 1992, we were in the UK, just arrived, and needed to buy a new car for the wife.

For Americans living overseas, there's the option of buying a European car in US dollars at a good price via diplomat sales. They had a little lot with maybe one or two each of Volvo, Saab, BMW, etc cars and a sales rep from each company, who had a full list of cars available, just not on property.

The first car we looked at was the BMW, and the gentleman stepped out of his little sales shed, asked if he could help, and my wife cheerfully said, "Hi, yeah, we just arrived and I need a car."

He looked at her like he'd just stepped in dog crap, then turned to me and asked how he could help. Over the next couple of minutes, she'd try to ask a question, and he'd completely ignore, at one point getting between us and turning his back to her face.

That's how far that went. Both of us immediately turned around and walked away from him without even looking at the car.

As far as your dad, and I'm not even saying this in a negative way, some people don't care so much about "the principle of the thing" as long as the end result is beneficial to them. Maybe as far as your dad was concerned, that was a good car at a good price, so who gives a crap if the guy's sexist or rude or has body odor or any other number of negative things, you're getting the car you want at the price you like.

I'm not like that, though, and neither is my wife. Maybe it's a little kernel of spite that lives in me, but I'd have been damned before I let that ass of a salesman make one penny off us. We ended up buying the Volvo from a woman who looked like Maggie Thatcher!

Here's my funny story.

I donated my car to a single mother of six kids and I needed a new car right away. Yes, poor planning on my part. My h (at the time) and I went to a car dealership where I saw a car that I absolutely loved. It was very pretty, drove nice and was in my price range. I fell in love that day. It was a Saturday and all the other dealerships would be closed and I really needed a car so I tried to negotiate. Yes, my company would have paid for me to have a rental but I fell in love with this particular car and wanted it.

We head back to the office and the sales guy tells me that he can't get me a lower interest rate because of some nonsense. My credit score has always been in the 800s so I knew he was lying. I talked to him for about 30 minutes. He left the room, came back and said his manager said that he can't go lower than 13%. WTH!? I was absolutely in love with this car and there was no way I was leaving without it. I told him again that I know how credit works and there is absolutely no reason to give me a subprime rate to purchase a car. The whole time my husband sat there watching this exchange (he doesn't speak up about anything).

I signed the stupid loan at 13%...BUT, it was only because I had a plan.

The following Monday I called the branch manager at my bank and told her that I needed a car loan and didn't want to pay more than 5%. I actually planned to pay the car off in one year so I was going to save on interest anyway. I just wanted to bump up my credit score even more. ;-) Barb, the branch manager called me about an hour later and told me to come into the office to sign the paperwork. H and I drive out there so I could sign the paperwork. She cut the check to the dealership as we were leaving and congratulated me on my purchase.

My phone starts ringing while I'm driving my nice beautiful car back home. It was the sales guy from the weekend. He begged me to come into his office so he could renegotiate the terms of my loan. I politely declined and told him that I needed to get off the phone as I was driving at the moment. I handed the phone to H and this is what happened next:

H: I'm not sure what you think I can do about it.
Salesman: Please convince her to come back in. I crunched the numbers again and we can get her a better rate than 13%.
H: I was there. She tried to negotiate with you for over an hour and you were pretty rude to her.
Salesman: Sir, please. I'm not going to make any commission on this sale because it's been paid off by her bank.
H: Yes, we know. Maybe next time you will treat female customers a little more respectfully. I can't help you dude.

I got the car I loved at a rate I would accept and the cliche' condescending car salesman got put in his place! Woo Hoo!

 

[lastmanstanding]

Reading your story reminded me of a somewhat similar story not exactly happened to me but I was involved.

One of my friends, now living in Madagascar, had overspent a lot and had an outstanding amount of around 250,000 LKR (something like 2000 USD) to be paid and he was not in a position to pay it at the time. HSBC bank had handed the recovery to a recovery company.

I don't know about your countries but in Sri Lanka here's how recovery goes: Each case is given to some "official" to handle, and he starts by asking for the whole amount in a friendly manner. Then gradually goes to threatening. Then he and the whole "staff" start calling all the telephone numbers associated with that client insulting him in every way possible. They call his friends at all odd hours disturbing them in order to build the maximum pressure.

All this while my friend was begging them to give him a payment plan so he can pay it all off in a year but the agent wouldn't because he won't get his total cut of recovery. But I knew that talking to the bank directly would get him a plan but the management said that it's already with the recovery company. I don't know about those procedures but I knew what to do about the calls.

I got the telephone numbers of the said "official" and his colleagues who called my friend and his family frequently, and posted ads on every available free classified ad website on the internet and facebook with those numbers. The ads were very tempting, e.g. a car priced at 300,000 would be sold for 290,000. Not unrealistic numbers but really good bargains. Within a day I posted more than 500 ads (after you post a few, all that's left is to copy paste them on other sites).
Within a day all the calls stopped coming in because all their lines were disconnected temporarily, and I called that guy's home and told him not to mess with clients anymore. I didn't say on whose behalf I spoke, but I'm sure he would've known it by then.

My friend then went to the head office of HSBC and negotiated a payment plan and paid it off in full.

 

[rascal]

Another car sales man story, my son at 17 he was working for my company at the time. Wanting his first car he went looking and found a nice Mitsubishi Galant, nice big 4 door car. About 1996? He asked me to go with him and make an offer. I checked the car and told my son, don't look keen and don't get excited. I said it was ok. The price was $7000 ? I offered something like $6000. The guy said no way at that price. I know businesses have monthly targets so I gave him my card and said ring me at the end of the month if you want our business. My son was gutted but I said just trust me. Sure enough the guy rang and said $6500 to which I said $6000 like my first offer, the phone was quiet for a while then he said ok but it needs doing today. My son was happy as larry. He said later he learnt a lesson. He's a hard negotiator now.

Russ

 

[Duck59]

Catherine worked at the Bord Failte (Irish Tourist Board) office in Cork some years ago. From time to time, she took people on guided tours and one day, she was waiting outside a museum in the city with her group until such time that they could enter together. Some chap in a suit and tie barged past her and when she took umbrage, he turned and snapped, "Don't you know who I am?"

Unfazed, she turned to her group and asked calmly, "Any of you a doctor? There's a fellow here who doesn't know who he is."

Of course, this went down like a buffalo off a diving board with the chap and he started issuing all sorts of threats. When Catherine got back to the office, her boss had heard all about the story, but far from being displeased with her, he thought it hilarious and it was the suit who got a flea in his ear. It turned out he was some local bigwig who thought he could push anyone around. Big mistake.

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

Wife in bed rolled over on the TV remote and the TV defaulted to voice response & command. It's a super high speed annoying voice that describes what you are doing.

It's maddening and very confusing and with the 4 button remote difficult to figure out how to turn off.
We backed into TV remote hell.

So after a long frustrating attempt I turned to Google and eureka, we're not the only ones that experienced this.
Evidently half the entire planet earth has, and is pissed off. My brain isn't so peas sized and as empty as it may appear to be.

After several tricky to find menus, sub menus and further navigating, then further figuring what button Icon quadruples as off & on, we found relief.

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

Upper hand maybe is akin to owning someone.

The porno industry left town for Las Vegas after a few petty ordinances were past.
A few players from that industry still live here.
Porno Dave is one.
6'5, deep voice not bad looking. Obnoxious with a ridiculous male ego.

He's a nuisance at the local bars. Loud, shooting his mouth off and he is absolutely committed to the idea women are meek.
All women.
I'll get back to Porno Dave.

My wife walks the dog some warm evenings and meets up at a local sidewalk bar/cafe with her Nursing girlfriends.
All highly educated, all sharp and witty, all adorably cute. All work highly technical nursing jobs.

Porno Dave was there at the bar this night and tried to flirt with them.
They flushed him with yesterdays lunch.
He then blurted out that male semen has an enzyme that makes girls shut up - and they must all be full of it.

The one time I didn't have the phone with me to record their response to Porno Dave. It would have gone viral on YouTube.

They verbally thrashed Dave like an elephant stepping on a Tuna sandwich.
Most hilarious, cutting, verbal beating anyone ever took. Epic and a legendary beat-down tale.

Dave, stunned, dazed and defeated vacated the bar well over 6 months.

 

[rascal]

Another one about my son, he was returning to work from being on site doing a job. He was driving one of my companies vans with sign writing on it. It was rush hour traffic and as he approached the long line waiting to turn right, he made a cheeky decision to go in the left lane and got a free turn left, drove up the road 50 metres and did a u turn and drove past all the vehicles still waiting to turn right. Someone in that line realised what he had done by jumping the queue and rang my office. The call got put through to me, the guy was ranting and raving about my driver cutting people off and endangering other motorists. I thanked him and said I will deal with the driver. I said he was a new employee and I may terminate him. The guy thanked me,lol. The father of the driver. We all had a laugh about it. I know that piece of road, I would have done the same.

Russ

 

[Duck59]

I go back a goodly number of years to recall a scathing put-down delivered by my friend Susie, a mere teenage schoolgirl at the time but these days my historian friend Dr Susie.

She had gone to help her mother at a charity event in the summer holidays. She was working on a stall when she was approached by a lad of eighteen, one of those types who evidently believed that he merely had to appear and teenage girls would swoon. Predictably, after a bit of smooth patter, he asked her out.

"Should I wish to go out with a chimpanzee, I will phone Whipsnade Zoo," came the reply.

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

We were in Jackson Hole Wyoming.
Lots of Middle eastern employees we encountered. Most always dressed in Soccer uniforms. Even bartending at a Cowboy bar.
They hate Americans with a cavalier, arrogant attitude and make sure Americans know this.

So we were at the top of one mountain ski lift and bought fresh made waffles from an employee like who I just described above.
A real jack ass. I had enough and asked him "if he hates Americans why does he live here?"

Just then from behind me a fist flew over my right shoulder and the Waffle clerk took one right to the eye was unconscious on the floor.
Wife was outside on the deck and I scooped her up, told her I'll explain later,,, we cued up for the chair lift and headed back down to the warming hut.

And that was that.