Let us start a smart "Orphanage"

[raytmercer]

Originally Posted by jwight

Again, as far as I know, smart USA and the dealers have agreed that cars go to the person who reserved them. If you want someone else to have it, you'll have to buy it and sell or give it to them. Family members included, again as far as I know. If someone has seen this work differently please let us all know.

Does anyone see something wrong with this whole concept? It is as if they are doing us a favor by selling us a car. The only disclaimer that
I have seen in the reservation process is when asking for the driver's license number: ("We ask for your driver's license number for security reasons. You will be required to present your driver's license for verification purposes once you have officially placed an order for your smart fortwo vehicle with an authorized smart dealership. This ensures that your reservation fee is applied only to your purchase of a smart fortwo."). Do you have a copy of an official smartUSA document that specifies this fact?

[ShoshTrvls]

SMART's policy is, IMHO, a good one. At $99/reservation, there would otherwise have been very little ability to stop someone from reserving 100 or more cars ($10,000 investment, not all that much) and then selling those reservations on e-bay or craigslist (or however) for a significant premium. That would then create a significant secondary market, essentially, raising the price of the car -- and destroying the market niche/presence of the SMART as an affordable vehicle. People would be forced to either pay the premium (which, given the demand, could be several thousands of dollars) or to suffer an even greater delay in delivery as the scalper's cars are manufactured and imported.

I do agree, however, that you should be able to assign your reservation to a family member.

[mmmeat]

Originally Posted by raytmercer

Does anyone see something wrong with this whole concept?

Nope.

I'd rather not see scalpers out there selling spots in line to buy a Smart when I'm on the orphan list. If you're not going to buy the car or have dark and sinister purposes for getting a reservation just to resell the spot then that's a bad thing.

What Smart is doing is the right thing to do.

Your pal,
Meat.