App claims to reveal secret prices used car dealers pay for vehicles

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If you knew what a used car dealer paid for a car that you’re interested in, wouldn’t that give you a tactical advantage when negotiating a deal?

Of course it would.

Now one self-described used car dealer, who goes by the nom-de-guerre of Dennis Miller, is letting consumers in on the big secret.

Miller and his colleagues have launched a new app called SnafuScan that gives prospective buyers information they say has never before been available to the general public, and could help them win the battle of the bargain.

“This is an app that gives you the prices that dealers pay for cars at dealers’ auctions,” Miller, founder and CEO of SnafuScan.com tells FoxNews.com. “The auction price is much lower than the Kelly Blue Book price, which reports on the prices of cars as sold to the public. Consumers have been very much keyed in to the Kelly Blue Book for years.”

According to Miller, most of the used cars at dealerships are bought at special dealer-only auctions closed to the general public, not directly from consumers, and the prices paid can be $5,000-$10,000 less than what’s on the window when you kick the tires.

Miller is not giving this information away for altruistic reasons. He is, after all, still a used car dealer, and wants to sell you his app for $9.99 for a 30-day subscription.

As a spiff to get customers in the digital door, he’s offering a free version of the app that allows users to get all the details on safety recalls for a particular car. The information will enable consumers to check the VIN number of a vehicle and find out if there is any outstanding work that needs to be done.

“We’re hoping to get the word out about recalls, and generate attention to our site as a resource for automotive information,” says Miller. “If millions of people use this as a recall scanner for their current cars, when they want to buy a new car, they will know about us, and can spend the $9.99 to get more detailed information about other cars.”

The free application idea came to Miller first, inspiring him and his investors to take the product to a higher level of design and functionality.

“When we buy a used car at an auction, we always look up recall information, so the cars can be upgraded, for free,” says Miller. “Some are benign, some are serious, like a faulty gas pedal or airbags. We want to prep the car and get rid of it as soon as possible.”

Most used cars, he explains, are bought by the dealer on credit, and it could cost them $200 or more every month the car sits on the lot, so they want to move the metal quickly.

The pricing info provided by SnafuScan will come in most handy for consumers if the car has been on the lot for more than 30 days, when the dealer’s profit margin really starts narrowing and he’s ready to deal.

Working with computer software developers in Russia and the Ukraine, Miller has come up with an algorithm that takes the last five years of transaction data from used car auctions, crunches the numbers, and comes up with the probable price the dealer paid for a particular used car, “within a few hundred dollars over, or under.”

Miller says that less reputable used car dealers in the past have gone as far as forging receipts from auctions to show to prospective buyers, claiming that their margin of profit on the car was less than it actually was.

“Let’s say we buy a vehicle for $6,500,” Miller says. “The industry has made up receipts that look like auction receipts, but which say the car cost $10,200 at auction. Meantime, Kelly Blue Booksays the car is worth $12,000. So you can see there is a lot of room for negotiation there.”

But what do Miller’s colleagues think about his turncoat move?

When contacted by FoxNews.com, the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association, which represents many of the nation’s used car dealers, had no comment.

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Secret Service expands security at White House after Boston explosion

Published April 15, 2013

Associated Press

The Secret Service says it has expanded its security perimeter at the White House following the explosions at the Boston Marathon. 

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan says the measure was taken "out of an abundance of caution." He says it is not unusual to expand or contract the security perimeters. 

Shortly after the explosions Monday, Secret Service shut down Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House, cordoning off the area with yellow police tape. Several Secret Service patrol cars also blocked off the entry points to the road. 

The White House was not on lockdown and tourists and other onlookers were still able to be in the park across the street from the executive mansion.

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Secret Service probing claim new director's information was hacked

Published April 04, 2013

FoxNews.com

The Secret Service confirmed Thursday that it is investigating whether personal information on newly appointed agency Director Julia Pierson had been hacked. 

The Service told Fox News it is investigating the claim, after a website posted a list of details -- including a Social Security Number and credit report -- purportedly belonging to Pierson. 

The site has previously posted information on a string of other high-profile figures including first lady Michelle Obama. 

The Secret Service would provide no further comment. 

The target in this case, Pierson, was sworn in as the first female director of the Secret Service during a March 27 ceremony. 

In addition to a Social Security Number and credit report, the website posted a list of phone numbers and addresses supposedly belonging to the new director.

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Obama names first female director of Secret Service

Published March 26, 2013

FoxNews.com

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  Shown here is Julia Pierson, whom President Obama has appointed to lead the Secret Service.Secret Service

President Obama plans to appoint agent Julia Pierson as the first female director of the Secret Service, a senior official confirmed to Fox News -- marking a shift for an agency marred by last year's prostitution scandal. 

The appointment of Pierson to the top job in the agency that protects the president and other top officials could help to address concerns about the agency's culture. 

Pierson, who most recently served as Secret Service chief of staff, will take over the top job from Mark Sullivan, who announced his retirement last month. The agency faced intense criticism during Sullivan's tenure for the prostitution scandal during preparations for Obama's trip to Cartagena, Colombia, last year. 

The incident raised questions within the agency -- as well as at the White House and on Capitol Hill -- about the culture, particularly during foreign travel. In addition to protecting the president, the Secret Service also investigates financial crimes. 

Obama is expected to announce Pierson's appointment Tuesday. Pierson does not need to be confirmed by the Senate. 

Thirteen Secret Service employees were caught up in last year's prostitution scandal. After a night of heavy partying in the Caribbean resort city of Cartagena, the employees brought women, including prostitutes, back to the hotel where they were staying. The incident became public after one agent refused to pay a prostitute and the pair argued about payment in a hotel hallway. 

Eight of the employees were forced out of the agency, three were cleared of serious misconduct and at least two have been fighting to get their jobs back. 

The incident took place ahead of Obama's arrival in Colombia and the service said the president's safety was never compromised. But news of the scandal broke during his trip, overshadowing the summit and embarrassing the U.S. delegation. 

The incident prompted Sullivan to issue a new code of conduct that banned employees from drinking within 10 hours of starting a shift or bringing foreign nationals back to their hotel rooms. 

Sullivan apologized for the incident last year during testimony before a Senate panel. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Calvin Coolidge's faith was the secret to his success

Calvin Coolidge did all the things we’d like to see a politician do today: Coolidge cut the federal budget, cut taxes, and vetoed spending bills. He acted on principle when public-sector unions challenged the public safety. Finally, Coolidge left the presidency with a higher reputation than it had enjoyed upon his arrival.

What enabled Coolidge to do all these difficult things, to succeed where other politicians fail, was his faith.

Calvin Coolidge wasn’t as vocal as some presidents about his religious belief. But that faith was real, strong enough to help him surmount personal setbacks, to make unpopular decisions, and to restrain his own vanity and so govern better.

What enabled Coolidge to do difficult things, to succeed where other politicians fail, was his faith.

Coolidge spent his childhood steeped in religion. The Vermonter grew up among northern Baptists, Methodists, and Congregationalists. His own ancestors constructed the simple clapboard church in their town, Plymouth Notch.  His grandfather encouraged his first reading by having Coolidge read to him from the Gospel of John.

No regular minister served Plymouth Notch, but growing up Coolidge was taught Sunday school by his grandmother. Before his mother’s death, and perhaps after, prayers sessions took place in the Coolidge home. Even food preparation had a religious flavor.  Among the Coolidge recipes I found while reviewing documents at the Vermont State Archive was one for “Scripture Cake”:
     One Cup of Butter: Judges 5:25
     Three and One Half Cups of Flour: I Kings 4;25
     Two cups Sugar: Jeremiah 6:20…

Coolidge attended a Baptist boarding school, followed by a stint at St. Johnsbury Academy, where he attended at least one service with the “Congos,” as he called them – Congregationalists. He matriculated at Amherst College, a school originally founded for the education of Protestant ministers. As a young lawyer in Northampton, Massachusetts, Coolidge met his future wife, Grace, a member of the Edwards Church, and followed her to services there.

Coolidge didn’t join a church until very late, well into the presidency. But from an early age he came to lean on his faith as a support in hard times. His mother and sister both had died while he was young, and he carried a lock of his mother’s hair with him, a symbol of the afterlife and his expectation that he would join her.

While in the White House, another tragedy befell Coolidge. His son Calvin developed a blister from playing tennis on the White House courts.  The blister led to sepsis and he died within a week. The Coolidges could not understand the “ways of providence” that had taken Calvin from them. But, as the president later recalled, “my wife and I bowed to the Supreme Will and with such courage as we had went on in the discharge of our duties.”

As president, Coolidge started the tradition of a national Christmas tree as a symbol of America’s faith. After his son’s death, Coolidge could not bear to see any living thing die. He decided that the national Christmas tree would be a living tree, tended by gardeners.

Coolidge respected others’ faith as well. And he was acutely aware that government intervention in society, no matter how subtle, could impinge upon the spiritual forces at work there.

Coolidge’s piety gave him an understanding of what we call natural law, the idea that some laws come not from jurists but from above. “Men do not make laws, they do but discover them,” he told fellow lawmakers in Massachusetts while he was still a young politician.  

That led Coolidge to veto numerous bills as president, representing his conviction that the souls of people, and the collective of society, fare better when the government refrains.

Even in his tax cutting, Coolidge’s plans reflected faith. He cut taxes, he said in his 1925 inaugural, not only because tax cuts work, but also because high taxes were morally “wrong.”

This Coolidge conception, that a surfeit of earthly laws reflects earthly arrogance, differed mightily from the theory advanced by progressives, who believed in law almost as a religion itself.

One of the most revealing speeches Coolidge made was to Jewish leaders and community philanthropists in 1924. He applauded them for taking care of one another, a good role for any church-related community. “I want you to know that I feel you are making good citizens, that you are strengthening the Government, that you are demonstrating the supremacy of the spiritual life and helping establish the Kingdom of God on earth.”

Coolidge could be wary of individual clergymen, concerned they too might exploit his office or fame. He pointedly refrained from raising money for his church in Washington, First Congregational. But Coolidge did see great value in churches. The Coolidges’ membership at First Congregational gave prominence to the church, which had long been associated with promoting the rights of negroes. During the Coolidge presidency the church invited the singer Marian Anderson to perform a concert, the beginning of steps that would lead to her famous performance on the Mall years later.

In the summer of 1927, Coolidge and his wife attended a little white box of a church in Hermosa, S.D., that resembled the church back home in his boyhood Vermont. The ladies at the church noticed that Grace Coolidge knew every hymn and sang them well. During this same trip Coolidge decided not to run again.

It was a difficult decision, because his policies were a success and because Coolidge, like any president, was getting used to that success. My own sense in looking over his life was that Coolidge’s faith – his understanding that men must always remember that there is a force greater than themselves – played a role in his willingness to turn down his party’s warm invitation to run again.

Coolidge died in 1933. At his funeral, appropriately brief, the guests sang “Lead Kindly Light.” To Coolidge the light of faith had been a beacon all along.

The general tendency of presidential history is to blinker out the faith of presidents. Yet when we do this our accuracy suffers. Coolidge the budgeter or tax cutter provides a useful model for today, but the thirtieth chief executive becomes more useful when we understand the role of faith in his day-to-day policies.

Amity Shlaes is author of three national bestsellers, "The Forgotten Man" and "The Greedy Hand."

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