The Automotive Troublemaker w/ Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

Labor Day Special - Rescuing Chrysler, Dodging Parking Scams

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It’s Labor Day and dealers all over will be out in force selling and servicing cars today. We’ve got our own Labor Day special, talking about a bold plan to reinvigorate the Chrysler and Dodge brands and how to watch out for QR codes scams.


Show Notes with links:

  • Frank Rhodes, great-grandson of Walter P. Chrysler, has proposed a bold plan to rescue the iconic Chrysler and Dodge brands from Stellantis' European ownership. His vision involves revitalizing these American automotive giants with a fresh approach and new leadership.
    • Rhodes has written an open letter to Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares, outlining his acquisition plan, saying "I believe that my plan would allow Stellantis a graceful and profitable exit from a brand that in my opinion it has no interest in keeping, and it is already trying to somehow quietly exit without a lot of publicity and minimal UAW membership turmoil,"
    • Stellantis responded in a statement: "Stellantis acknowledges the interest in its North American brands and reaffirms the Company's commitment to its entire portfolio of 14 powerful, iconic brands, which were each given a 10-year timeframe to build a profitable and sustainable business… The Company is not pursuing splitting off any of its brands." 
    • It is unclear if Rhodes has the funding to accomplish the purchase if Stellantis were to agree to it.
    • Chrysler will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2025.
    • In a YouTube video, Rhodes passionately states, "I'm very proud of what this company did, and I don't want to see it go away. We need to keep our American brands here."


  • Scammers have found a new way to steal your credit card information, and this time, they're targeting parking meters. In Southern California, fraudulent QR codes are being placed over legitimate ones, tricking people into giving away their financial details.
    • The FBI reported that Americans lost over $150 million last year to fraudulent QR codes.
    • Redondo Beach, CA, discovered nearly 150 fake QR codes on parking meters, with URLs that closely mimic legitimate payment sites.
    • Some of the fake codes actually sent drivers to a website called "poybyphone" instead of PayByPhone - just one letter off. 
    • The FTC advises scrutinizing URLs for misspellings or errors before entering payment details to avoid falling victim to this scam.

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

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Paul J Daly:

Good morning, everybody. It is September. Can you believe it? It's Labor Day. You know this already today we have Jordan Cox in the studio, and we're wearing sunglasses, because for some people, it's a holiday Labor Day, Baby, for a lot of the car business, is called a work day. That's right, beginning of the month, and we have to earn it every day,

Jordan Cox:

one of the best selling days of

Paul J Daly:

the quarter. I know for sure, probably the year, probably here. I don't know.

Jordan Cox:

I mean, David Long sells like, what, 200 cars on Black Friday. It's

Paul J Daly:

nuts. Oh, that's true. That's a that's an oddity. A lot of people don't sell a lot of cars on Black Friday. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. I don't know, but it's Labor Day. Some people are vacationing. Some people are saying goodbye to summer, because this is the week that school begins. That's what it's like in upstate New York. School begins in two days, so Wednesday and Thursday, when the kids go back unless they're homeschooled, like my schools. Yeah. Oh, today we're gonna be talking about a few things. One is a grandson of Chrysler founder, rescuing Chrysler. And since a lot of people are doing the picnic thing and the special event things, there's a scam going around where people are stealing credit card information when you're trying to park so we're going to try to warn you there as well. We do have an upcoming a so do edge webinar. We want you to know about. It is September 12. It's Wednesday. What's holding your title department back? Beth carol of national independent vehicle agents, title agents and Erica Calderon of Maryland auto dealer Association are going to bring the the shimmy and the glitter to title processing, and they're going to help you up. You know, people, they get a bad rap because they were an amazing amount of fun at a soda conversation.

Jordan Cox:

Oh, for sure. And like, the personality is like crazy for Beth and for Erica. I'm just talking with Erica on Friday, and there's, like, there's so much to her career in automotive. So she she was a controller, she took care of the tiling department, and there's so much knowledge that comes from the dealer side, from Erica. I'm really looking forward to her sharing with sharing all of that knowledge with our community. Absolutely.

Paul J Daly:

Go to asotu com. Register for that so you can be there with us, because it's always a lot of fun. We record them live, and you can tune in live, and you can comment. You can heckle us, because we could take it. It's going to be, it's going to be a lot of fun talking, talking through this topic, and probably opening the eyes of a few people to get you a little bit more efficiency and hopefully process those titles keep those customers happy. Let's get into some news. Frank Rhodes, great grandson of Walter P Chrysler, has proposed a bold plan to rescue the iconic Chrysler and Dodge brands from stellantis European ownership. His vision involves revitalizing the American automotive giants with a fresh approach and a new leadership. Basically, he wrote an open letter to stellantis CEO, Carlos Tavares. Tavares, outlining his acquisition plan, saying, quote, I believe my plan would allow stellantis a graceful and profitable exit from a brand that, in my opinion, has no interest, it has no interest in keeping, and it is already trying to somehow quietly exit without a lot of publicity and minimal UAW membership turmoil. That's, I mean, he's like, trying to say, like, I know what you're doing in there. Stellantis responded in a statement saying quotes the Landis acknowledges the interest in its North American brands, and reaffirms the company's commitment to its entire portfolio of 14 powerful, iconic brands, which were each given a 10 year time frame to build a profitable and sustainable business. The company is not pursuing splitting off any of its brands. So basically, they're like, listen, we don't feel that way about the brands. We love them all. We're on a 10 year plan, which is exactly what you're going to say, even if you're trying to raise the price of the few that you would split off. It's unclear if Mr. Rhodes even has the funding to accomplish the purchase, even if stellantis were to agree. Chrysler will be celebrating its 100th anniversary next year, in 2025 and in the YouTube video, Rose passionately stated quote, I'm a very proud of what this company did, and I don't want to see it go away. We need to keep our American brands here. See this one coming.

Jordan Cox:

This is one on a left field. I mean, if you think about it. So I just looked it up. Stellantis as a whole is valued at $50 billion which is nuts. So the thought that comes to my mind is, how much is Chrysler, and what's the valuation of that in there? And does the Chrysler brand have more value to that company, or the infrastructure of Chrysler? You see that a lot where companies will buy a brand because they know it's valuable to them, just because of whether the infrastructure set up. The technology is there, the distribution is there, and then they just completely shut down the brand because now they have what they want. So it's like, so tough to say where stellantis is going long term. I mean, obviously they're still, still in Chrysler and Dodge, so it makes sense. But I'm just so like, I'm so surprised that Chrysler still. Leaper on the market. That's what I mean

Paul J Daly:

by that. All right, when I say Chrysler, what is the first vehicle?

Unknown:

Minivan, baby. All

Paul J Daly:

day, all day. How about what's

Jordan Cox:

the second one? Oh, man, dude, it'd have to be, it have to be under dodge, like a Dodge truck. But, I mean, that got spun off as RAM. It's

Paul J Daly:

RAM, right? Like I've already got the 300 comes to mind. Oh, that's

Jordan Cox:

true, which is funny. So you might not know this, but if you read the letter that Frank Rhodes wrote, The great grandson of Chrysler founder, he bought the last 300 off the production line. Isn't that nuts? Yeah, it's awesome. There's a picture with it. Well, it's still on the production line.

Paul J Daly:

When that car came out, I remember when that came out, there was, like, some, some Mojo around it. Oh, for sure. It's like the poor man's Bentley. That sucker looked amazing. That's

Jordan Cox:

right. There's still some people that love it. Do you remember the Dodge Magnum, the the station wagon version? Oh,

Paul J Daly:

yeah. Like, it was like, half half hertz, half hers and half, right? Yes. Like, you could carry a casket in there and lumber, you know what? Strangely enough, I knew a bunch of drummers that had them, and that means a great space, yeah, yeah. And got a Hemi, I know it a thing. And then they had, what was that little one? The crossfire. Oh, the crossfire. That

Jordan Cox:

was a good one. Yeah, yeah, an affordable one. The Chrysler sabring Cypress. God drove that one that, I

Paul J Daly:

mean, epic, vegan office, epic view. I mean, it's how you know you've made it really in in corporate life, is if your company leases you a secret, that's right, no, I think. But then you start thinking back to, like, the epic nature of what Chrysler vehicle stood for. They had, they had, like a swag or two. Then they had a prestige to them. They were big, they were bad. And so it'd be interesting to see what the vision is. I haven't read it, but, I mean, he outlined it. Was it 16 pages, exactly? Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know if anything else, it brings a little bit of public attention to the brand. And I think even if stellantis is smart, they'd find a way to, like, use the momentum to their advantage. But I mean, it sounds like the great grandson of Walter P Chrysler has some different aspirations on bringing that country back to being an American, owned and operated brand, and we'll see what happens. I mean, Stranger things have happened, right? I mean, Elon Musk bought Tesla. I mean, Elon Musk bought Twitter, yeah, well, technically, that's right, he did buy Tesla too, right? He bought Tesla and Twitter, right? Yeah. A lot of people don't know that. No, we're not found test. I just

Jordan Cox:

thought about this, Paul, if I was still antis, like they have Frank, who's so, like, passionate about trying to get back involved with the brand. How could you not leverage that in some way? You know, I

Paul J Daly:

know. I They. I mean, you're right. It's the question is, can he be bought? Yeah,

Jordan Cox:

we'll find out. Maybe a little,

Paul J Daly:

little stock trade,

Unknown:

yeah, speaking

Paul J Daly:

of being a credit card, speaking of credit cards, so scammers are finding a way to steal your credit card information, maybe, as we produce this podcast, while you're trying to pay for parking. This time, they are targeting parking meters in Southern California. Fraudulent QR codes are being placed over the legitimate ones, tricking people into giving away their financial details, name, credit card number. The FBI reported that Americans lost over 150 million last year due to fraudulent QR codes. Redondo Beach, California discovered nearly 150 fake QR codes on parking meters with URLs that closely mimic the ones for the actual payment sites. Some of the fake codes actually sent drivers to a website called poi by phone, Po, y, instead of p, a, y, right. Pay By Phone is kind of the brand, and so it's just the letter off when you get to the website, it's got the Logos, the icons, all the things that make it look you put your credit card information in and you could still get a parking ticket that maybe is the biggest rub of all. So you know, when you're scanning that parking meter, check the URL to make sure it is the right URL, not changed by a letter. But I mean, and scammers always going to find a new way to scam somebody, and this one actually seems like a very easy to execute one,

Jordan Cox:

the poi by phone by phone. That reminds me of back in the day there was this big fishing scheme on MySpace, so, you know, 20 years ago, and the URL that they used was RN, why space? Because it literally looked like it was an RNN together, exactly. So that just reminded me of that from, you know, when was that? 20 years ago? R and y space, r

Paul J Daly:

and y space, I wonder if that here. Let's go to the r and y space, yeah, let's see. Let's see what comes up. Just for fun, because it's like R and what that does look like an M. That's really great. Type it in. Well, maybe

Jordan Cox:

mine's spinning right now is it says the site cannot be reached. Maybe that's a good thing.

Paul J Daly:

Shut them down. Maybe

Jordan Cox:

it does the same thing with MySpace. I haven't checked that out in a long time. Maybe it does. I maybe my profile is still

Paul J Daly:

active. Who's the guy that everybody's a friend with MySpace? Tom. Tom, yeah, Tom. Exactly. Tom's on. Tom's on a beach somewhere right now, just, uh, enjoying the fruit of his labor. That's right. Oh, well, how appropriate and story. Jordan, thanks for being with me. If you're out there, if you're selling cars, sell cars. If you're out there enjoying yourself, enjoy yourself, whether you're doing either or make sure you care about and love on some people.

Unknown:

You

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Kyle Mountsier

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Paul J Daly

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