Slicker than Cheap Polyester, So Always Remember to Read the Fine Print
It is not my intention to impugn the dignity of men and women who actually sell used cars for a living. I’m sure most of them are upstanding citizens. The used car salesmen that lend their name to the vampires in this section are those archetypal personifications of verbal chicanery who, clad in white shoes, pinky rings, and plaid polyester jackets, tinker with odometers and claim that their warranties cover everything (except anything that breaks).
All emotional vampires lie. Daredevils lie because it’s the easiest thing to do at the time, Histrionics lie to you because they believe the lies they tell themselves, Narcissists lie because it’s expedient, Obsessive-Compulsives lie because they can’t possibly be wrong, and Paranoids lie when the facts don’t support their beliefs. Used Car Salesmen lie because they like it.
Antisocials of all kinds love excitement. Used Car Salesmen are partial to the shadowy thrills of deceit. It is not so much that they get off on lying for its own sake; it’s more that they want the things they want so much that they don’t mind lying to get them. To their prey, the distinction is immaterial. You have it, they want it, and they’ll happily lie, cheat, or steal to get it.
Used Car Salesmen have the terrifying ability to imitate human warmth without feeling anything but desire for something you have. If you think that the worst they can do is trick you into paying a lot of money for a piece of junk, you may be in serious danger.
Heidi met Jeff on a Christian singles website. She was hesitant about using an online service, but one of her friends had met her husband there, so she thought she’d give it a try. Jeff seems really nice. Good looking, too. He’s an engineer who consults at construction sites, so he travels quite a bit. This is not a problem for Heidi. She’s been on her own so long that she appreciates having some space.
Jeff is an old-fashioned gentleman; he actually brings flowers and opens doors for her. He insists on paying for everything. She feels like she’s living in a romance novel.
Heidi’s friends are dying to meet Jeff, but he keeps putting it off. He’s actually kind of shy. Heidi finds this endearing. A man who’s so successful and outwardly confident being shy kind of makes him seem like a little boy. She wonders how, after all these years, she could be so lucky.
Heidi’s friend Jeanne has her doubts.
“Heidi, what do you actually know about him? Where does he live?”
“Over on the Westside.”
“Have you been there?”
“No, it’s just a small condo. He doesn’t need much; he travels a lot on business.”
“Who does he work for?”
“Some engineering consulting firm.”
“Let’s Google him.”
“I already have, but Jeff Wilson is such a common name. There were thousands of them.”
“Heidi,” Jeanne says, “I don’t like this. I hate to say it, but you’re pretty well off …”
“He’s not after my money. He has plenty of his own.”
“How do you know?”
Heidi turns bright red. “It’s kind of personal.”
“Well, we were down at the beach. On the spur of the moment, he asked me if I’d like to stay over. We got a room at a really nice B&B, but when we were checking in, he couldn’t find his wallet. I used my credit card. I said it was okay, that I didn’t mind paying for it. But the very next day, he paid me back. An envelope of money with a rose on top.”
It turned out that “Jeff” was a confidence man, and he ended up bilking Heidi out of a considerable sum of money. She discovered later that he had used that same lost wallet trick on several other women.
What hurt Heidi even more than her broken heart was the fact that she had been so thoroughly taken in.
“How could I be so stupid?”
That is an important and relevant question, but it should be asked not the way Heidi did, for self-castigation, but for information. How do Antisocial Used Car Salesmen persuade us to make decisions that in retrospect seem so stupid? The best way to protect ourselves is to know their techniques and recognize them before the fog of hypnotic confusion settles in upon our brain.
The first and most important thing to remember is something we’ve all heard before but seem to forget in the heat of the moment: if a deal seems too good to be true, it is.
The funny thing is that one of the best ways to make us act stupidly is by making us believe that we are being really smart.
How could you be so stupid? The answer is the same as for everyone else who has been drawn in and drained by an emotional vampire. You were hypnotized.
As you can imagine, Used Car Salesmen are masters of using hypnosis for their own personal gain. Their interpersonal world is one sales pitch after another. In their element, they twist and twirl, as graceful as figure skaters and as venomous as snakes.
It’s not all that easy to recognize a sales pitch. The best ones go by so quickly that the ink on the contract is dry and the paper is safely filed away before you know you’ve bought anything. Most sales pitches are based on built-in polite responses—the vampire gives you something, and before you know it you’re offering a bite of your neck, just to be nice.
My discussion of various kinds of sales pitches is strongly influenced by the work of Robert Cialdini,* a social psychologist who has made a career of understanding the ways in which people influence one another. He points out that there are only a limited number of possible sales pitches, but an infinite variety of ways in which each may be used. All the patterns rely on people choosing the automatic, socially acceptable response, rather than thinking closely about what they’re being asked to do.
Vampire sales pitches usually follow one of seven basic patterns.
It’s easy to like a vampire. In that short period of time when there is some doubt as to whether you are going to give them what they want, Used Car Salesmen can sparkle with wit and glow with synthetic kindness. The display usually ends three seconds after you give in, but while it lasts, it smells as sweet as cherry blossoms on a warm spring day. No one else on the face of the earth is half as charming as a vampire who wants something. Ask Heidi about the hundreds of endearing little things Jeff did to draw her in.
Research shows that the best way to get people to like you is to show an interest in them. Emotional vampires don’t need to read the research; they do what they do instinctively.
From the very beginning, they seem so interested in you, your kids, your hobbies, or whatever else they can get you to talk about. Emotional vampires are the most charming people you’ll ever meet. Do bear in mind that the original meaning of the word charming was “casting a magic spell.”
It’s not just intuitive charm that makes you like Used Car Salesmen; it’s technique. People tend to like people that they perceive to be similar to themselves. Used Car Salesmen usually begin their pitch by establishing a perception of similarity. They watch you closely. They ask questions about who you are, what you like, and what you think, then profess to like and believe in the same sorts of things. Unless you’re paying attention, their probes and ploys can seem like innocuous chitchat.
When actual salespeople start doing this, you can easily steer the conversation back to the product. When other people begin asking a lot of questions about you, ask yourself if they might be trying to sell you something, and what it might be. Of course, they might just be friendly, but then again, friendliness is the most common technique used to elicit information.
One way to recognize the “like me” sales pitch for sure is to identify a repeating theme. Over a period of time, a vampire might unconsciously attempt to establish similarity in a number of different areas. If casual conversations keep drifting back to how much you’re alike, it’s either an amazing coincidence or a Used Car Salesman who’s softening you up for the kill.
Another, more subtle way in which Used Car Salesmen use the perception of similarity to take advantage of people is to identify themselves as members of the same religion or as having the same political leanings. This approach is becoming much more common. How many ads have you seen that have a fish logo or an American flag? It may be reasonable to want to give your business to someone who believes what you believe, but is it relevant? Ask yourself why someone would do a better job of fixing your clogged drain because he is a Christian or a right-leaning patriot. Or a vegan, for that matter.
One of the unspoken assumptions that vampires take advantage of is that both of you are part of an oppressed minority who are against the same things. Unfortunately, being similar in what you hate seems to form a stronger bond more quickly than being similar in what you love, so watch out and check qualifications rather than politics or religion.
At work, Chris and his buddies love to listen to conservative talk radio. A couple of them would be card-carrying Tea Party members if Tea Party members carried cards. Anyway, it was these guys who told Chris about Darla, a bookkeeper who knows way more about taxes than most accountants. She can help little guys exploit the same loopholes in the tax code that big corporations use.
Chris goes to see Darla. Her office is decorated with flags and eagles. More important than that, what she says makes sense. “You know Wall Street and Washington work hand in hand. The tax laws are full of all kinds of giveaways that the IRS doesn’t want you to know about.”
Her fees are pretty steep, but she assures Chris that he will probably more than make it up in the size of his refund.
As it turns out, she’s right. With dollar signs in his eyes, Chris files his return. He’s not much good with numbers, so he doesn’t check it too closely. Anyway, Darla knows what she’s doing.
Unfortunately, when he gets the audit notice, Darla is nowhere to be found. She didn’t sign her name as a third-party preparer. She said that was one of those red flags that the IRS looks for.
Chris ended up paying back his refund and more in penalties.
Please don’t assume from what I’ve written so far that conservatives have a monopoly on financial chicanery. Liberals can be just as sleazy.
Naomi is trying to be a vegetarian. She hopes to be a vegan someday like her friend Sierra, who is also heavily, and judgmentally, into animal rights and anything else that is good for the planet.
One day Sierra approaches Naomi with a proposition. “You’ve never heard of Super Green? It’s rated as the most environmentally responsible company in the country. Its vitamins are the purest available. All its products are made from natural substances with no animal testing. The great thing is, its products work even better than all that chemical garbage you get at the grocery store.”
After trying some free samples, Naomi has to agree that the stuff works. It smells great, too. So what if it is more expensive? It’s way better for the planet, and it just about sells itself.
Naomi gets talked into getting in on the ground floor as a distributor, which requires investing about a thousand dollars in samples, stock, and glossy brochures.
One of Naomi’s first sales calls is to her sister, whose husband teaches high school chemistry. “Chemicals are chemicals, Naomi. Petroleum is a natural ingredient. I don’t think this stuff is any different from what you’d get at the store.”
“But they’re rated as the most environmentally responsible company in America.”
“By whom?”
Naomi looks at the brochure. “It doesn’t say.”
Selling was hard enough for Naomi as it was. Now she has lost her faith in the product, and she just can’t bring herself to make more sales calls or to throw a party. She’s afraid that Sierra will be upset, so she avoids her.
It’s not totally clear in this example who is being conned and who is doing the conning. Sierra was undoubtedly convinced by the person who sold the product to her, who herself was probably convinced by the Super Green company. However, being convinced is one thing. Selling distributorships to a friend who has a hard time saying no and is probably too timid to sell is another. Of course, if you want to make money, you have to move product and distributorships.
Needless to say, these days everybody claims to be green and gluten-free. Very few of these claims are actually checked because nobody has the authority or the inclination to do so, especially when the claims are made by a small start-up company that sells its products out of people’s homes.
To protect yourself from charming Used Car Salesmen, remember that just because you like certain people, have a similar background, or have the same friends or enemies, it doesn’t mean that you have to buy whatever story they are selling.
Used Car Salesmen would have you believe that because they gave you something, you owe them something back. In their view, small favors are like the free samples those motherly types hand out in grocery stores. The purpose is not to nourish you, but to get you to buy.
Protect yourself by understanding that a gift or a favor is not a contract unless you make it into one. When someone offers to do something for you or give you something, ask yourself if there are obvious strings attached. If you feel obligated, you can reciprocate quickly with something of equal value, before you are asked for something larger later on. Remember, even if there are strings attached, they bind you only if you let them.
Used Car Salesmen are great at creating a bandwagon for you to jump on. Before you do, remember what your mother said: “If all your friends jump off a cliff, does that mean you should, too?”
Vampires know that anything that is scarce takes on a value far beyond its intrinsic worth. Call it the Tickle Me Elmo effect.
Cognitive dissonance, that amazing force that bends reality to conform to the choices we have already made, is what Emerson would call foolish consistency. Used Car Salesmen call it a gold mine. They’re all too ready to sic the hobgoblin of small minds on you until you do what they want.
Foolish consistency is the psychological principle that makes grooming possible. People try to maintain an internal sense of consistency between their actions and their beliefs. This is hard enough to do with careful thought. It’s almost impossible when a vampire is trying to confuse your perceptions about who you are and what you believe by making you cross one little line after another.
Sierra, in her group of friends, is the arbiter of morality. If you are not green enough, or politically correct enough, or generous enough to the right charity, she will tell you—and everybody else.
Sierra’s favorite charity is herself. In return for her approval, her friends are expected to pick up tabs, help her with her projects, donate items to her yard sales, and buy whatever she is selling.
Over a period of years, her friends have come to realize that their relationship with Sierra has a high price tag, but they are in so deeply that if they tried to get out, they would lose not only Sierra’s approval, but that of the rest of the group. Every time they get an e-mail with yet another request, her friends secretly sigh, then do whatever she wants.
You can protect yourself from the hobgoblin of small minds by never agreeing to a request right away. Always ask for time to think about it. This will give you a chance to decide about each request separately. If you say no, you can offer to do something else instead, and thereby at least partially avoid the charge of disloyalty. Buy one bottle of cleaner rather than a distributorship.
Mark’s boss looks over the spreadsheet and shakes his head. “I can’t believe these numbers. Do you realize what this could do to our share price—not to mention our jobs? Look over this spreadsheet really carefully. I’m sure there is a mistake somewhere.”
Nobody ever specifically orders anyone to cook the books. It always happens in a situation like this, with a vague request backed up by an implied threat.
If a vampire should put you in this position, you will have to decide what your integrity is worth.
Your best defense in a situation like this is to be completely literal, ignoring the underlying message. Look over the spreadsheet, and if there is no mistake, say so. Vampires will rarely give you a direct order to do something illegal. They will try to preserve their deniability. There will be consequences, but probably not something that could get you indicted.
Vampires know that people are likely to do what authority figures tell them. Regardless.
In the most chilling social psychology experiment of all time, Stanley Milgram,* who was trying to understand why relatively normal people participated in the Holocaust, demonstrated that average people would administer what they believed were potentially lethal electric shocks because someone in a white coat told them it was okay. Unquestioning belief can create mass murderers and suicide bombers.
On the other hand, all societies are built around trust in authority. Most of the time, that trust is justified. Everyone can cite exceptions to this general rule, but the fact remains that people who have some knowledge of what they’re talking about usually give you better advice than, say, your brother-in-law.
A very dangerous trend in the world today is confusing someone who believes what you believe with someone who knows what he or she is talking about. Everyone does this to a certain extent, but more and more it is becoming the official doctrine of whatever religious or political group people belong to. Dogma is superseding fact, because everywhere, every day people are being told by the most nefarious vampires imaginable that anything that people with different beliefs tell them cannot be a fact.
The scientific method used to be the bastion against superstition, but sadly, to me at least, superstition seems to be winning, as it seems that the preponderance of the evidence can be negated by producing one scientist who disagrees.
In my wildest paranoid fantasies, I imagine that somewhere there is an institute staffed by vampire scientists who will say that cigarettes don’t cause cancer, that greenhouse gases don’t affect the climate, or that evolution is a myth because God planted fossils as a test of faith.
To protect yourself, search for your own hard evidence before you believe what any vampire authority figure tells you.
It depends on what you mean by best. If you mean does honesty yield the most internal rewards, then the answer is yes. Absolutely.
If you mean is honesty the best way to make money or amass power—well, no.
This is probably why there are so many successful Used Car Salesmen. So watch out.