Article December 9, 1991 Issue

A businessman's dilemma: doing the right thing, through prayer

What is a businessperson to do when he or she believes that the business can be ruined by doing the right thing?

Written for the Sentinel

For many years I have been an automobile dealer. I always felt that I had a high standard of ethics, practiced clear disclosures, and tried to be fair to every customer. But at one time there was an industrywide activity that wasn't right, and I'd accepted it in my company as well: the mileage on cars was set back before they were sold.

My managers and I justified this by rationalizing that our customers generally expected this, and perhaps they actually liked it because they were purchasing a low-mileage car for a price that was just too good to be true. In fact, we knew that many customers also set back the mileage on their cars prior to trading them in, knowing they'd get a higher allowance. It was, at best, pure self-delusion, and all the dealers I knew were doing it too.

At the time, the practice of setting back mileage on used cars was not specifically against the law. Many dealers understood the basic wrongness of "spinning" odometers, but they were afraid of taking the first step to correct the wrong. The arguments that confronted us in a very competitive market were "If I quit spinning, the competition will destroy my business." "Everyone is doing it." "If I don't do it, my colleagues will turn against me."

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