piper28

The interesting thing is the joke I've always heard was that at places like Ferrari dealers, the people coming in in suits are the people just looking or wanting to try to test drive one with no intention of buying. The people really coming in and buying were typically really dressed down.

FN-GM

I had a similar car experience as others with an Audi Dealership a few years ago. I was 21 at the time and accompanied with my 15 year old brother. I wanted an S3 at the time, I had seen an ex demo online at the it was about £33,000 (About $50,000 USD) - I could afford it. I drove into the car park and saw it outside with the price still in the window. I entered the dealership and enquired and was immediately told it was sold. I then told them I had driven an hour to this garage to see this car, all of a sudden the salesman says "I will just get the keys".

Lovethecabin

finance and insurance income is often the largest profit center at dealerships. In my banking days, nearly all the dealerships in my portfolio were in the red prior to the F&i line of the financial statement.

My friend had a pretty woman moment when shopping for some very expensive jewelry. The clerk straight out asked him if he was buying today. He said he was shopping for his wife and was deciding whether she would like the piece in the case or maybe he would special order something. The clerk told him to come back when he was ready to actually purchase instead of window shop.

He left and that evening, told us what happened. We know the owners and sadly, I was not surprised by the story. My husband recommended a different store and he went the next day and bought what was probably a $15,000 piece of jewelry.

He wanted to "pretty woman" the first store but his wife discouraged him from doing so.

nmh1204

forgetting your wallet isn't a Pretty Woman moment, its stupidity.

The moment is when she walked into a shop on Rodeo Drive, and they treated her like dirt, she then went elsewhere and purchased her clothes, went back in a white dress and hat with loads of bags, and she said 'you guys work on commission right? You could've earned a fortune, big mistake' and walked out.

rbwpi

In 1969 I was in my mid 20s. Walking by an upscale men's clothing store, I noticed in the window a tie on a mannequin priced at $25, or adjusted for inflation about $100 in todays currency. I went in wearing jeans and my old Army field jacket. After informing the salesman of my interest in the tie, his response was "Are you aware that the price is $25?" My response was "Yes, and I would like to buy it now." His answer was "The only tie we have left is on the mannequin. If you have a few minutes I can remove the tie and iron it for you." After paying for the tie, the salesman stated that they had Pierre Cardin shirts and asked would I like to see them.

rbwpi

Nothing like a kind word. Guess we all can't be perfect.

nmh1204

I wasn't being nasty, nor was I saying I'm perfect.
They misinterpreted the OP's post.

Efrem

As for reacting to appearances, this happened to a close friend of mine in Providence, R.I.:

At the time her father, who passed away not long after, was living with my friend and her husband. She had to take him (father, not husband) to the emergency room one night. She threw on jeans and an old sweatshirt that was lying around from house painting the day before and put him in the car. This had happened more than once before, so she knew the drill - or thought she did. This time things were different. They took him right away. A minute after they whisked him away, a doctor - not a nurse, not an aide, not even a PA or an NP, but an MD - came out and said what they figured the problem was, what they were going to do, what else they might have chosen to do, why they weren't going to do those things, and what would happen next. Another MD came out fifteen minutes later with an update, and so on for as long as he was being taken care of.

Only later did my friend realize that the old, paint-spattered sweatshirt she pulled on, which had been left behind by a visiting friend some time before, read "Stanford Law School."

Loren Pechtel

How about a different version of it:

England, 1982, border control.

We were flying out of Africa. A few months earlier thieves had stolen our cool-weather clothing, all we had was our tropical attire and it was a bit ratty after some months on the road. We also had trouble accessing our money from Africa and we were down to $5 in cash. Our passports were also pretty beat up and many older pages were basically unreadable (the result of carrying them with us 24/7 for the last 5 months.)

To compound things my father had an earlier deadline to be home than my mother and I did--he had flown out earlier. We expected to fly out a few weeks later but it turned out there wasn't going to be another chance to fly out, we ended up flying to London while he was still in town but since it wasn't planned we had made no arrangements to find each other. To compound things my mother was blind. The immigration official somehow got the notion that we were trying to get into England to get free medical care for her (as if a doctor can somehow restore vision to someone with glass eyes??) It took two hours to get him to take a VISA card over to British Airways and ask if they would accept it for a ticket to the US. It was amazing the difference when they ran it and had no problem with it.

Their loss--after that experience we decided to fly on out rather than actually spend a few days there as we had originally planned. (This was back when a last-minute standby ticket was the cheapest way to fly.)

FindAWay

Not really a pretty woman moment; but, it ties to FT well:

A couple of years ago Mrs. FindAWay and I were flying US KOA-PHX-PHL-CDG in F/J. With the long-ish layovers involved and having 2 redeyes with a transcon in-between, we were dressed in extremely comfortable clothes (not PJs or anything - Mrs. FindAWay was probably in comfortable pants and a t-shirt)....perhaps too comfortable.

When business class (Envoy) was called to board for PHL-CDG, we proceeded up to the Ops Agent with Mrs. FindAWay in the lead. Mrs. FindAWay approached holding out her boarding pass. The Ops Agent didn't even look at it or attempt to take it. Instead, the Ops Agent said to Mrs. FindAWay: "We're only boarding business class passengers right now."

Mrs. FindAWay was caught off-guard. After a moment, she responded: "Great, I'll board then." And, handed her boarding pass to the Ops Agent who took one look, apologized, and let us board.

sfoactuary

Interesting thread, and really enjoyed the stories.

My wife and I look relatively young and can dress really casually when leaving the house (I've been known to rock a sweatshirt and basketball shorts at times). But living in the San Francisco Bay Area I guess we're fortunate that you just can't judge a book by its cover, for all they know we could be tech billionaires.

Amelorn

How about every time I have walked into the Madison Ave Brooks Brothers? After some careless handling there, I decided to leave them and their cut-for-whales (junk quality) to the obese middle managers they prefer to serve.

The RL mansion has given me much better service and their stuff is higher quality (better cuts, lasts forever and beyond).

Annalisa12

I know dealers love the loans to make extra money but when you have to reach targets selling one without a loan or to a customer who has finance elsewhere is not something they would pooh pooh I am sure.

Kagehitokiri

race is not as big of a factor as (perceived) dress and things like entourage. but i wont argue about whether race as a secondary factor can become more heavily weighted.

real life stories about not rewarding are funny. may have been the book "richistan" mentioned a (former?) billionaire wearing clothes for ranch work waving to dismissive sales person, from their rolls royce as they left the parking lot to go to another store. seem to recall i know people (not ultra wealthy) who have shared stories.

personally, there are a few times ive been treated well when looking exhausted and terrible, including talking to an HSBC premier ($100K+) representative on behalf of someone (neither of us existing clients) who was considering banking with them. i admit i am caucasian though.

re law school clothing, i know someone who was driving while intoxicated who was pulled over, presumably because of suspicious enough driving, and was let go before any sobriety test after they mentioned their father was a lawyer. (real estate, heh)

Annalisa12

Love tv real estate shows. Watching Million Dollar Listing LA one of the agents was talking about how he never assumes anyone can't afford it. He said his change of thought happened when one person came through a multi million dollar house for sale dressed super casually and had bare feet. He said he bought the house and paid cash. He said that taught him a lesson.