Monday, February 2, 2009

Sign of the Times

Sure, I expected some of the Super Bowl ads to reference our tough economic times -- like the Budweiser ad centered around a company seeking cost-cutting measures -- but should an ad really pitch the down economy as a selling point?

Hyundai's "Assurance" ad says that if you buy a Hyundai and lose your income, you can return it with no impact on your credit rating. The fine print on the compnay website says that if you buy a Hyundai, and you make at least two of your car payments, and you're current on your payments, and you then lose your income because of involuntary unemployment or other covered causes, and it happens within a year, then you can give back the car and Hyundai will forgive up to $7,500 in negative equity on it.

Well, that's really getting me out to the dealer. I suppose it's better than nothing, but it's hardly a happy sales pitch to know that if I get fired I can walk away from all the money I poured into buying the car and keeping my payments current until I turned it in. And you also have to pay any "Additional Balance Amounts," whatever those are (the website doesn't say). Things must be getting bad if the company really thinks this is going to sell cars.

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