The only person in the room paid by the buyer

Neel Mehta was a Ph.D. student at Arizona State University, buying a Nissan Rogue. He found that every dealership was selling the same car at a different price, and the process was built so that he would never find out which one was fair.

So he refused to accept it. After three weeks of sleepless nights he bought the car and saved $7,450 off the selling price. The saving was real, but so was the cost: the process is time-consuming, exhausting, and demands time off school and work that most people simply do not have.

Friends heard the story and asked him to do it for them. Then their friends did. That is the whole origin, not a business plan, a grievance that turned out to be everybody’s.

42,000+ vehicles are sold every day across the United States. Buyers spend countless hours finding the right deal and still end up paying millions of dollars more.