Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Unconscious Willing Victim

This post is a little long... but I hope that you will finish reading it, so that you can benefit from lessons learned. All examples below are true.

Examples:
Case 1: A secondhand car dealer offered my mum RM125 for our old Honda Accord (I think it was CA5). He sold us a reconditioned Toyota Ipsum for RM70K. He gave all kind of excuses why my car was worth only RM125! Later, he saw his car driven by a friend and he paid RM30,000 for it.
Case 2: My nephew trade-in his old car in exchange for a new Kancil (a mini car). He paid RM40,000 for the Kancil whereas the actual cost was around RM23,000. He wanted to take back his old car but was told that it was sold. He lost his old car and paid almost double for the new car.
Case 3: My brother-in-law saw a 5-years old Toyota twin-cab. He liked it very much and trade-in his own car and bought this 5-year old twin-cab for RM75,000. New price was RM77K. Later, the car was full of problems.
Have you been “conned” as what my friend called it? I found something interesting. Many times, it was our eyes which had caused us to desire something so badly that we forgot good advices and was too willing to accept things as it appear, even to the extent that it may be defective.
Now, I just wanted to make some parallel with the fall of man since creation time:
Genesis 3: 1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" (Creating doubt)
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' " (Eve wasn't sure... added extra "knowledge", eg, "not touch it"!)
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Make wrong sounds like a good thing!)
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. (Her eye - "pleasing to the eye"!)
Parallel with the salesperson:
1: Crafty and create doubt to things you already knew is wrong
2: You added in extra wording to the command, or thing we already know is true. Eve said “you must not touch it” – extra which God never said.
3: Crafty salesperson counter with more lies or things that you like to hear(verse 6)
4: Your eye is the window to your soul and it is our weakest point. Eve found the fruit “pleasing to the eye”.
How many times do we fall simply because it pleases our eye?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, because Honda have no resale value whatsoever, that's why it's RM125!!!

*rolleyes*

Anonymous said...

To continue the above, (i accidentally hit "submit") the general consensus of the people around these parts is that they always fall for the excuse that a Honda is worthless.

I drive a 20+ year old Honda in relatively good condition, still running strong, and people who know what they're doing (i.e. mechanics) keep asking me if I'd like to sell it.

If there's so much demand for it, heck, it should be worth bazillions. Here's something I wrote about it.
http://ian.miriresortcity.com/content/busting-toyota-honda-myth

Take every advice from "coffeeshop experts" with a grain of salt.

RWP said...

and i myself wonder why these mechanics always, always ask if i would like to sell my old car to them. i feel proud everytime one asks me to sell my car and instantly dismissed them. sometime i think these mechanics r into illegal racing so bad that they want to buy our old cars so cheap??? go find any kaput VW by the road and fix it and race.

Anonymous said...

RW FINE ART : That's what I thought as well. They want a working machine for the least amount of money with the excuse that it's worthless.