Judge: Ford Affiliate Charged Blacks More

[NNN0LHI]

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article.asp?Feed=AP&Date=20050316&ID=4277621&Symbol=US:F

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A federal judge said Wednesday that the plaintiffs in a lawsuit had proved that a lending affiliate of the Ford Motor Co. discriminated against black customers by charging them higher rates on car loans. But the judge gave the two sides another 30 days to come up with a plan to end the practice and settle the case.

After a two-week trial, U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger announced from the bench that she would rule against Primus Automotive Financial Services, a unit of the Ford Motor Credit Corp.

But before issuing a final ruling, she asked both sides to negotiate for 30 days to draft a proposal on how to end the discrimination and said both sides could still agree to settle the case.

"What I have decided is that the plaintiffs have proved their case and that they will win in my decision," Trauger said.

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[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. And yet Libertarian fools claim we no longer need laws protecing AA's

and that laws should be color blind. What asshats!

Nominated for greatest page just so others will see this.

[Tomee450]

6. Why am I not surprised.

Just more of the same. I believe Nissan also charged blacks higher interest rates.

[Azathoth]

2. Not too surprising, given who founded the company

Henry Ford was not exactly known for his charitable views towards minorities.

[Straight Shooter]

3. Can you even begin to imagine the uproar if they had charged whites more?

Ah, but blacks, stab them in the back and tell 'em it's acupuncture.

This is one of the few we know about, the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. How many more generations until all ethnicities have a level playing field? Or is that answer blowing in the wind.

[NNN0LHI]

7. Car dealers do the same thing to single women too

Word of advice to the ladies out there. Never go to a car dealer for anything alone. Even if you need to pay some guy a few bucks or just take him out for lunch for his time try and bring some dude with you. It will pay dividends. Believe me.

Another hint for everybody. Never argue about inferior work done on your car in the back where the service department is always located. Take it out into the showroom where there are prospective buyers shopping around and within hearing distance. You will get much better satisfaction from the dealer by doing that.

Don

[KamaAina]

9. The "female tax" and the "non-Caucasian fee"

was how a wise activist once explained this to me.

Also, an auto industry rag once actually printed a dealer crowing, "Inner city dealerships don't sell as many cars (as suburban ones), but we hit a lot more home runs", meaning they rip off their customers for a lot more per car.

[shanti]

12. i found a better idea

(as a single woman). i used CARMAX for my recent van purchase and am still thrilled by the ease of it all. they have a no-haggle price guarantee and it's great! just make sure you have your financing already prepared beforehand.

[harpboy_ak]

17. and sometimes you don't need the dealer

Another hint for everybody. Never argue about inferior work done on your car in the back where the service department is always located. Take it out into the showroom where there are prospective buyers shopping around and within hearing distance. You will get much better satisfaction from the dealer by doing that.

Better yet, don't have anything but warranty repairs done at the dealership. Take the car to the independent shop down the road owned by the the former service manager at the dealership, the most honest mechanic you know.

[Mist]

18. Yep-both sales and rentals

I totally fucking resent having to have a "talking penis" with me to buy a car.

[candy331]

4. I can believe it, I know a Black man who went on the Ford lot and

bought a used car for his son and financed through FMCC (Ford Motor Credit Corporation) and he had a 17% interest rate and that was with good credit score. It is still happening because that is just one case that I know of personally. I would have refused the financing myself but I think he is not business savvy.

[patcox2]

23. So was he charged a high rate because black, or lack of savvy?

Its not racism to charge fools higher rates because they are fools, and without regard to their color.

[candy331]

30. I say he was not business savvy but that was certainly no reason

for FMCC to take advantage and charge 2x the going interest rate. I suppose we are just to expect business people to be dishonest now and take advantage of any situation they can. I could not tell you matter of factly it was his race but I also could not tell you it wasn't.

[AzDar]

5. Wasn't Ford Motor Credit a major force behind the 'Bankruptcy Reform'?

DISGUSTING!!

[patcox2]

24. No, they have no horse in that race.

Auto lenders are secured and almost never get discharged in bankruptcy, they are generally affirmed. The bankruptcy bill will probably hurt auto lenders because it will make it harder for debtors to keep up their auto loans. (as a general rule, Chapter 7 debtors would file to get rid of their unsecured debt, credit cards, and would gladly keep their secured debt, their car loans and mortgages, which never could be discharged anyway. Now they will still have to pay their unsecured debt and will have a harder time keeping their secured debt up).

[sandnsea]

8. There's no racism in America

People on DU tell me that every time I ask why white males think they need their own party. It's not about staying at the top of the heap and keeping minorities and women at the bottom, oh no.

As always, white DU males not included. At least not most of them.

[Tigress DEM]

13. I've got problems with racism. Help me out.

Personally, I don't care what color someone's skin is, I give them the benefit of the doubt until they prove me wrong.

One thing that's been bugging me is how to get around this repub method of accusing DEMS of pulling out the "race card" whenever we bring these issues up.

I don't know what to do. I want to see everyone treated fairly and I know blacks and other minorities aren't treated fairly, but when I lobby for justice that I know affects blacks I don't necessarily call it that.

Blacks or Latinos or Asians are simply fellow Americans to me - if there are a lot of them in a "ghetto" then it is the whole "ghetto" mentality I want to bust. For everyone.

Racial profiling like this Ford deal is obviously something that is totally about race and second class citizen status, but a lot of the things that affect minorities hit home for more and more of us who are in the fight as well.

I don't know. Is it still better to keep pointing out the race issue even if there is a solidarity of all kinds of people dealing with the same things? Unemployment, Urban Crime, Inner City Schools - these all affect blacks in a major way, but it is their common humanity that matters more to me than the color of their skin.

When I've mention race in these areas, I've been flat out told by some blacks not to do that because it takes away from blacks who don't come from that background. They don't want to be lumped in with the "problem" segment.

I wouldn't want anyone to have to deal with this. Of course, I've lived in inner cities most of my life. Get bored with the "whiteness" of the burbs. Need diversity in my world to feel alive. But how is a white person supposed to talk about this issue?

[sandnsea]

14. Depends on the issue

If whatever circumstance you're discussing relates to racism, you talk about racism. If it relates to class, you talk about class. It's not real complicated to me when somebody starts ranting racial stereotypes to say I don't allow anyone around me who talks that way. And it's not so hard to explain that white men have a 20 yard head start in the race, even though that's still no guarantee they'll win. And it's not so hard to say all women are having difficulties getting men to stick around and help raise the kids. Or that colleges have programs for low-income students as well as minority students.

It's only hard if you're afraid to call people on their crap, whatever their skin color.

[Tigress DEM]

15. I'm not afraid to call people on their crap.

What I'm asking is how do you determine when something relates to racism when some of it is so prevelant in our culture that it's more than that?

Racial profiling by the police. Got it. Housing discrimination. Got it. Educational inequity? Class warfare or racial issue?

I've simply talked about my experiences and people I knew who had it bad and had it thrown back in my face. I wasn't ranting about stereotypes. I guess it was probably the people I was talking to, maybe they had to seperate themselves that way. I don't know.

It's like some people become repubs when they make a certain amount of money. They don't want to look at the reality for some people because it isn't their reality because they can purchase barriers to put around themselves.

When someone explains to me what I'm truly doing that is offensive I can get that. But even though things are still hard for a lot of blacks and people treat them bad I don't do those things and they aren't done to me, so I don't always get it.

[sandnsea]

16. I've heard it

That's when I say white males have am automatic 20 yard lead just due to the fact they're white, doesn't guarantee they'll win the race or that it'll be easy to run. All affirmative action does is attempt to close that gap and make the start even. There's programs to help low-income people as well. White men need to use them.

If people aren't satisfied with the playing field, demand that additional efforts be made to equalize it. Don't blame minorities for getting a chance to have an equal share of the pie.

There's a difference between having the help available to run the race and being too proud to accept it. More than a few young white men I've known have been too proud to accept it, and then stumble around and wonder why they've got no job skills ten years later.

[Tigress DEM]

31. I want minorities to have an equal share of the pie.

I want there to be real education and job opportunities for everyone. And I'd like education that teaches people HOW to think not WHAT to think so that when the time comes to reach out for their dreams young people have what it takes to dream.

All this crap about test standards is so bogus. I passed all kinds of tests in school and I couldn't tell you much about any of the stuff on them, but there were teachers who inspired me and I can tell you all kinds of things about what they taught me.

Still I guess I learned to be patient with the ridiculous, and I'm finding that's a great work skill in corporate America.

[Mairead]

26. "Educational inequity? Class warfare or racial issue?"

Think of it a different way: racism, ageism, sexism, ableism, wealthism, credentialism, etc are all expressions of classism. They all have classism underneath them, driving them. Get rid of the classism, the 'I'm better than you'-ism, and everything else instantly evaporates.

[Tigress DEM]

32. US vs Them is classism whether it's being racist or elitest.

Classifying. Pre judging. Putting someone in a box because of what makes it easier to make them a them.

So educational inequity is both class warfare and a racial issue. Like a doberman is a dog, but not all dogs are dobermans. There is a lot of educational inequity that affects more than just minorities, but the part that affects them does affect them and needs to be addressed.

It's just with the repubs spinning everything back at us, I get lost in where was I at when I started this thing? I know what I feel, I know what I do and why, but how it is percieved by others isn't always about good intentions, but layers of history and misconceptions.

[roguevalley]

10. I will never understand this kind of thing. NEVER.

[Erika]

11. Its called racism

[Blue_Tires]

19. it's been going on for years

[patcox2]

20. Its called making a profit.

Sorry, but I know this industry very well, and noone is motivated by racial bias.

The fact is that lending rates at auto dealerships are negotiable because the dealership makes a profit on the loan. The lender, primus, will quote a rate to the dealer, for example, "we approve this buyer at 5%." The dealer may decide to offer that loan to the buyer at 7%. If the buyer does not know enough to negotiate and accepts that rate, the lender pays the dealer a "rate spread premium." Thats called selling a product, in this case credit, at a marked-up price, so that the seller can make a proit. Thats known as being in business, as opposed to operating a charity.

There are studies which have shown that the dealers marked up the rates more for black buyers than for white buyers, on average. What does this mean? Could it be related to education and sophistication, comfort levels in negotiating? I would like to see how these other factors may have been controlled for.

In automobile transactions, unlike almost any other retail transaction in our society, you have the freedom to bargain, to negotiate, you don't have to just pay whatever the seller asks. What does this mean? It means that intelligent people who do their homework, look up the dealer cost and research available credit rates, will get a better deal. Tough negotiaters will get a better deal. And pushovers will get a worse deal. And the unprepared and the unsophisticated will get a worse deal.

Tough tootsies.

[NNN0LHI]

21. The judge disagrees with you

I trust his judgment over some anonymous poster on a chat board. Thanks anyway though.

Don

[patcox2]

22. I'm not anonymous, unlike you.

This is my name.

You are pretty selective about when you trust the judgment of judges, though, aren't you?

I know the case very well. I did not deny that there was a statistical disparity between the rates charged blacks and the rates charged whites.

I said that this does not necessarily prove racial animus as the cause of the disparity unless other factors are controlled for.

Thats just the scientific method, my friend, when you try to prove your hypothesis through statistical analysis, you must rule out alternate causes.

The courts are very amenable to accepting junk science, though, its a major issue in the legal community. It cuts for and against "liberal" interests. Here may be an example of where it cuts for, in other areas it cuts against.

[NNN0LHI]

27. Fords multi-million dollar legal team couldn't prove...

...this was all simply due to unscientific statistical analysis (junk science) with no merit? Who do you think you are kidding, friend? Yourself?

I know a little bit about how Fords legal team operates due to being an employee of Ford Motor Company beginning in 1973 and currently being a Ford retiree. Their funding is unlimited to fight these kinds of cases. And they still lost? That tells me a lot. This case had to have been blatant for them to lose this one with a legal teem like Ford has at its disposal.

Don

[noonwitch]

25. One of my friends calls it "The B Plan"

The ironic thing is that in Detroit, the dealership with the most offensive treatment of the poor is Mel Farr, Superstar.

[ucmike]

28. car business is full of thieves.

no surprise really, i'm surprised it was limited to any one group of people. they try to fleece anyone who walks through the door.

side note: i was looking for a used truck and went into a ford dealer after calling and confirming they had what i was looking for. of course, they didn't and started trying to sell me a brand new truck that was the exact opposite of what i was looking for. then they told me they could do it for what i wanted to pay. "great, but i don't want a lease."

"it's not a lease. you make monthly payments and at the end either return it to us or finance the balance."

"that's a lease"

"no, its our FORD RED CARPET FINANCE OFFER"

"sounds like a lease"

"no, let me get the sales manager to explain further"

i then got a line of sales people trying to sell me the deal, repeatedly telling me its a purchase, not a lease.

after 30 minutes the dealership manager admitted it was a lease and noted "most people aren't so suspicous about such a great deal". which i took to mean "most people fall for it".

2 months later they called my phone and left a message telling me to call and schedule an appointment to "finalize my RED CARPET FINANCE OFFER"

scumbags.

[struggle4progress]

29. kick