Porsche Dealer Sues Sales Manager for Alleged Bribe Scheme - Article

[Tooney]

A report from Automotive News (by subscription) says, "The sales manager of a Porsche dealership in South Carolina took hundreds of thousands of dollars in "under-the-table" payments from customers hungry for high-demand vehicles."

According to a recent lawsuit filed alleging fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, conversion, breach of contract, and related claims, the sales manager of a luxury Porsche dealer in South Carolina is in hot water over the scam he was running for the past two years.

The report says a lawsuit filed by Porsche Center in Charleston, South Carolina, accuses James Marino of running the "disloyal scheme" from at least 2022 until it was discovered earlier this year.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Marino has been the Porsche dealer's sales manager since March 2018. The lawsuit said he was fired in March for the illegal activity.

https://www.torquenews.com/1084/how-bad-do-you-want-new-porsche-buyers-pay-mgr-thousands-bribes

 

[whitex]

Interesting. It sounds like he was the manager there when I bought my Taycan there. (I primarily dealt with my SA). Not saying this isn't true, but nobody approached me for any side money. Sure, the negotiations started over MSRP (it was 2022, so tail end of the pandemic supply-chain woes), but ended up getting at ever so slightly slightly under MSRP after a few included extras. Overall I had good buying experience there. Again, not arguing this didn't happen, just reporting my personal, anecdotal experience from there.

On thing in the article caught my attention:

The Taycan is by far the most in-demand Porsche model and is getting absorbent markups from dealers. It's the highest-markedup vehicle in six states, and the average markup is just under $30,000.

My question is, are Porsche managers in those states also taking bribes? Or does it all go back to the Porsche dealer? We'll only know if there's another lawsuit.

The article lists Taycans as today selling on average 28% to 34% over MSRP, which immediately suggests to me whoever wrote this really does not pay much attention to details - perhaps this is an AI written article. There is no way Taycans are selling on average that much above MSRP today. Heck, I doubt they are on average selling above MSRP at all today. I suspect this was just an uninformed interpretation of comparing the selling price vs. base MSRP (no options), since we all know Taycan's are definitely heavy on options. Given the rest of the article, "Taycan most recalled car" it really sounds like the author (or LLM) was intending to write a click bait aimed at anyone wanting negative news about Porsche, since recall rate on Taycans is completely unrelated to someone being accused of taking bribes, which was the title of the article. The picture used definitely not of the guy the article is claiming to be about, unless he went through some major cosmetic surgery.

 

[Jonathan S.]

Given that many dealership allocation wait lists seem to comprise a collection of haphazardly arranged post it notes, definitely lots of potential for this.
(Kind of the equivalent of the college admissions scandal, i.e., money goes to the employee not the institution.)

And yes, when I contacted multiple Porsche dealerships last summer about 4CT allocations, everyone was at MSRP, not a single ADM.

 

[DerekS]

"The Taycan is by far the most in-demand Porsche model and is getting absorbent markups from dealers. It's the highest-markedup vehicle in six states, and the average markup is just under $30,000."

In what reality is that true? I hear of people getting thousands off MSRP on new Taycans, and of course we all know the state of the used market.

 

[whitex]

"The Taycan is by far the most in-demand Porsche model and is getting absorbent markups from dealers. It's the highest-markedup vehicle in six states, and the average markup is just under $30,000."

In what reality is that true? I hear of people getting thousands off MSRP on new Taycans, and of course we all know the state of the used market.

Clickbait reporting. Anyone can call themselves a journalist nowadays, it doesn't mean they have the ability nor the will to understand the statistics from which they are drawing their conclusions. The more negative and outrageous, the more clicks it gets, so that's the goal when writing these clickbaits. See my comment #2 above.

 

[snstevens]

Am I the only one who finds the articles use of the phrase "absorbent markups" ridiculous?

absorbent​

adjective​

​

absorbent paper towels. porous, spongy, sponge-like, permeable, pervious, absorptive, penetrable, assimilative, receptive, soaking, blotting; technical spongiform; rare sorbefacient. ANTONYMS impermeable, waterproof.​

This incorrect usage may be another indicator that an LLM is at work on this article, and the author didn't really proof-read it before posting. I think the word the LLM was looking for is "absurd".

 

[Jonathan S.]

Probably the intent was Exorbitant.

 

[Jhenson29]

Am I the only one who finds the articles use of the phrase "absorbent markups" ridiculous?

because the markups are soaking up all of the money! ?

 

[snstevens]

Probably the intent was Exorbitant.

Absolutely. Good correction ?

 

[whitex]

Probably the intent was Exorbitant.

The intent was exorbitant number of clicks. The author is just no more capable than a poor LLM. He could have easily checked the claim of "almost $30K average markup" by simply doing a search for new Porsches for sale, but I guess fact checking is a lost art of journalism. Today all that matters is as much negativity and sensationalism as possible to get clicks. I see this in so many "news" sources. Earlier I was reading an article about Amazon CEO's advice about personality trait most indicative of your future success. Half way through the article the author writes "It is important to note that Andy Jassy opposed unions in... blah, blah, blah...". Really? Why is it important to note that he opposed unions when talking about an unrelated subject? Needed to fill in word quota or just looking for clicks? It is about as relevant as mentioning the Taycan recall rate in an article about an alleged fraud by an ex-sales-manager of one dealership selling all Porsches.

 

[d00d]

Remember kids, bribe bad, markup good.

 

[eisenb11]

$30k markup... more like $30k discount!