Glenn Shepard’s Personal Blog

In today’s world of identity theft, you need to pull your credit report every year to make sure there are no errors. Even if you don’t borrow money, it could still affect things like your insurance rates and eligibility for employment. You can pull a free copy at www.annualcreditreport.com.

Tomorrow we officially launch the car giveaway. I haven’t done this in a few years, and quite frankly, was a bit reluctant to do it again. The old cliché “No good deed goes unpunished” has an unfortunate seed of truth in it. Every time I do something like this, we get snarky e-mails from people who criticize me. And what, you might be wondering, would someone find to criticize about a free car? That’s exactly what my thought was the first time I did it. The answer is “EVERYTHING”! For example:

1. I’m adamant about making sure I actually help people, and not become an enabler. Because of this, I began placing some conditions and restrictions on who I help. One of those is that I ask the person who gets the car to promise to send me a thank you note after they get home. Why? Two reasons. First, because my biggest pet peeve is ungrateful people, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask someone who just got a free car to send a thank you note. The second is because of what Zig Ziglar said, “The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more you will have to express gratitude for.”

2. I require that they get liability insurance on it before they take the car home. I’m not going to put an uninsured driver on the road. If you can’t afford the insurance, you can’t afford to own a car – even if it was given to you.

3. They have to come pick the car up from my office in Nashville and drive it home. You’d be amazed at how many people complain that I won’t ship or drive the car to them.

4. I make them promise to pay it forward in one of two ways. When they’re done with it, they are to give it to someone else who needs a car. If they can’t find someone and choose to sell it, they have to donate every penny of the proceeds to the Glenn Shepard Tribute Fund at St. Jude’s. You’d be amazed at how many people squawk about this.

5. I take their photo when I present them with the keys, and use their name in my newsletter. Admittedly, this one is a bit self-serving. I do this because people are reluctant to believe what they read on the Internet. This is why we always use first and last names, as well as company names and city and state in all our customer testimonials, instead of “Sally Q in California says this is a great product”. I understand that some people are embarrassed and don’t want others to know they got a free car. But they have to decide between actually improving their finances, and trying to keep up an image to impress their neighbors.

6. The car is not new or nice enough. Yes, I am giving away my older Jaguar, and keeping a newer one. You’d be amazed at how many people will find something sinister in that, and insist that if I was “sincere”, I’d give away the newer one, and keep driving the older one (If you see the logic in that, please explain it to me). I don’t like to use the term “Beggars can’t be choosers”, because I’m not giving the car to a beggar. I’m giving it to someone who needs help. But for heaven’s sake, let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth.

7. I’ll get criticized because somebody didn’t get the e-mail announcing the giveaway. Admittedly, some spam filters will block an e-mail that contains phrases like “Free Car”. Apparently that’s my fault, too.

8. I’ll get criticized for giving away only one car. At least one moron will write and say “You can afford to give away more than one.”

9. I’ll get criticized for using the word moron in #8. You should have seen the complaints we got and heard the whining after I sent out the 9/25/08 e-mail urging people to tell their members of Congress and vote against the $700,000,000 bailout plan and change the Mark to Marketing rule, because I used that word to describe the morons in Congress. (In hindsight, “idiot” might have been more appropriate).

10. I make the recipient promise to never buy a brand new car again. As Dave Ramsey says, car payments are what keep most people in the poor-house. I don’t buy brand new cars for myself, and neither should you.

11. And here’s the big one. After the winner is announced, people will e-mail and demand to know why they weren’t chosen. Some will claim it’s discrimination, and at least a few will say it relates to the color of the recipient’s skin, no matter what color that happens to be. No matter how we choose the recipient, some moron(s) will chastise me for what they descibe as a “discriminatory and unfair” selection process.

Okay, I have to stop before I talk myself out of doing this. At least it was cathartic. And now you understand what we’ll get to go through all because I committed the two unpardonable sins in today’s “Atlas Shrugged” atmosphere:

1. I became a success.
2. I tried to actually help someone, instead of be an enabler.

Heaven forbid that anyone commit such atrocities these days.