This is a brief description of the service ...

Key Benefits

• Seniors who need help with major financial decisions get help free
• Senior volunteers who can advise others on finances get to use their talents
• Seniors feel they are not alone

Program Description

The SVC Shopping Buddy Program offers a senior volunteer “Shopping Buddy” to accompany a senior purchaser to make a financial decision.  The Buddy does not suggest a particular transaction choice.  Rather the Buddy will remind the purchaser of the senior’s purpose. 

For example, we who deal with seniors know that a common tactic of car dealerships is to greet the lone senior who drives in with her old vehicle with the friendly invitation to wash her car for her free of charge.  Once those keys are in the hands of the salesperson and passed to an associate, the senior is effectively held hostage until the salesperson or sales manager decides to release the senior or until the senior threatens to call the police as she is a prisoner.  As female seniors tend to submit to any injustice to avoid discomfort, the senior usually is worn down by sales tactics and unable to leave tends to sign, not for a new car, but for a new lease agreement and drives off the lot with a leased car.  The next day full of buyer’s remorse and refreshed from a good night’s sleep, the senior will call the dealership to reverse the sale and get her old car back.  She is usually told that her old car is now sold and irretrievable and that she is the proud owner of a leased vehicle and its payments. 

If a Shopping Buddy had been present, the Buddy would have advised the senior to not get the free car wash and to keep her keys.  Then when she had wanted to leave, she could have done so. 

If after coming to the dealership to trade in her car and buy a new one, the senior was steered to a leased vehicle, the Shopping Buddy could remind the senior that her intention was to buy a new vehicle, not to purchase a leased contract. 

Persons who wish to use a Shopping Buddy should contact a Office near them or leave word here at this web site.

"The Seniors vs. Crime Project does not offer or provide legal services or legal representation. Any response provided is not legal advice, is not a definite statement of the law, and is not a complete analysis of this area of inquiry."

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Copyright © 2006 Seniors Vs. Crime Project - Special Project of Attorney General
Last modified: 03/09/10