Talk:DriveTime

Off topic chat

Off topic chat

To say this sounds like an ad is understating it. This is a company whose business model is to sell vehicles at well above their actual value, and chsrge as much interest as the state will allow. They have people in cars where the balance at the start is 2-3x the value of the car, making it impossible to get out of the loan without paying in full or a repo. Acting like they do their customers a favor is ridiculous. For most of those customers it would be better to take a year and save what would be DriveTime's monthly payment and save it. That would give them enough to buy most of the cars they would have gotten outright, or at least come close. At a minimum that degree of LTV would open up a lot more financing options.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.135.124.84 (talk • contribs) 15:04, August 4, 2014‎

Proposed updated article

Hi, I'm Chris from DriveTime. I recently created a draft I think will greatly update this article on multiple levels. But before I get into detail, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm new to Wikipedia and I've studied the site's guideline on conflict of interest and policy on paid editing. As an employee of DriveTime Automotive Group, Inc., I won't edit this article directly. Instead, I will post suggestions to this Talk page for others to consider and implement as they see fit.

I uploaded a new draft of the DriveTime article in my user space. What you'll see is basically a complete rewrite. I decided to take this route because there are significant issues with the existing article. It might help any editors reviewing my new draft to understand those issues, which I've outlined below.

Issues with the existing article

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Unusual structure This article contains an unusual structure, from what I've seen of other Wikipedia articles. Following the introduction is a Philosophy heading, which I haven't seen on other Wikipedia pages for companies. After that is a History heading, dealing mostly with DriveTime's predecessor Ugly Duckling. Advertising maintenance tag This article is tagged as reading like an advertisement. I agree. Language that calls one of the founders of Ugly Duckling "the visionary and spark plug for the meteoric growth and driving force of the company for 12 years" is not encyclopedic and needs to be addressed. Lack of sources This 1,500-word article contains 10 references. That seems low to me. Many facts in this article contain no inline citations at all. Undue weight Nearly two-thirds of the article revolves around the history of Ugly Duckling, not DriveTime. While Ugly Duckling is an important part of the story of DriveTime, I would argue that it should not dominate the encyclopedia entry on DriveTime. DriveTime is a much different company than it was even 10 years ago, and that is not reflected in here. "Convicted felon" sentence lacks context This article mentions that DriveTime's founder is a "convicted felon for his role as a straw borrower in the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association collapse". While this is true and not necessarily relevant for DriveTime's article, the statement lacks important context. I personally believe this statement shouldn't appear in this article, but if other editors deem it appropriate to include, you'll see my draft seeks to improve this point by expanding on it.

Having written a lot of the article, I want to comment on some of these. "Philosophy" maybe should be called something else, but at the time I wrote the article, I thought that was an acceptable way to describe what the business did.

As for lacking inline citations, at the time I wrote this I did not realize every paragraph needs at least one inline citation. If you go back to my version, everything there is cited, but not until a later paragraph.

Undue weight is a problem. I agree, I worked with the sources I could find and, apparently, I found less about the company today than about its early history. If you have that information, great.

I don't recall adding the convicted felon information, but I'll double check.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:56, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

No, I didn't. And that "meteoric rise" comment wasn't me either. I took a second look at the Ugly Duckling section as I wrote it and I'm sure there's a lot in there that can still be used.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:13, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Changes you'll see in my proposed draft

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New structure I've divided the article into the following sections: Introduction, with up updated infobox Operations History Sister companies GO Financial Carvana SilverRock Group References External links More concise This draft is about 1,100 words, about 400 words shorter than the existing article. It also eliminates the Philosophy section, and greatly reduces the bulk of the Ugly Duckling history in the article. Adds Operations section I propose adding an Operations section that highlights DriveTime's current business model and other key information on the company, number of locations, employees, etc. Adds sister companies My draft also includes information on sister companies that spun off from DriveTime: Carvana, GO Financial and SilverRock Group. References My draft includes inline citations to more than 30 references for each fact in the article.

If any reviewing editors need additional information on the changes I've made in my draft, I'm more than happy to supply more info.

What do you think of the draft? Is this ready to be used to update the article?

Thank you, CP at DriveTime (talk) 22:19, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Hello, CP at DriveTime. I read your revised draft of an updated version of the article, and yes, it is MUCH better than what is here now! I live and work in north Phoenix, so I have heard of DriveTime, as your corporate headquarters are in Maricopa County. Right now, it is the middle of the night, and I need to go back to sleep, but I will return to discuss the draft with you. Then we can see about revising the main article, as all that Duck stuff reads almost like a joke, more than an advertisement (which is how it is tagged by previous editors). If you don't hear back from me on the talk page here within a week, go ahead and leave a reminder on my talk page. I will try to make time before then. Thank you for declaring your COI by the way. This is the right place to be doing things, on talk pages! Any changes to the actual article need to be done by NPOV editors.--FeralOink (talk) 09:51, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi FeralOink, thank you for taking a look at my draft and replying. As you dig in again, please let me know what you think. I'm happy to answer any questions or concerns. Thank you, CP at DriveTime (talk) 17:42, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi again, FeralOink and other Wikipedians, I wanted to drop a quick line here to let you know I have just uploaded a logo to include in this article. As you can see in my proposed draft linked above, I'm suggesting we add an infobox to this article and I think the logo should belong there.

Also as noted above, I have a financial conflict of interest so I don't want to attach the logo myself. Can someone take a look at it? I uploaded File:DriveTime_logo.png directly to Wikipedia under a fair use rationale.

Thank you, CP at DriveTime (talk) 18:39, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I looked at the logo upload which seems fine to me. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll have time to help with this article, as I don't have time for Wikipedia in general now. If that changes, I'll let you know. I'm sorry.--FeralOink (talk) 10:08, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

"as all that Duck stuff reads almost like a joke" Gee, thanks.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:00, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't have a lot of time these days to help out, but if I was seeing this draft having never attempted to write an article about the company, I would say it looks pretty good. I personally would question taking out all the Ugly Duckling information, but I suppose it depends on what people want to know about both companies.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:04, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

And let me just clarify: "Pretty good" means even if it is an improvement over my effort, I'm sure it could be better.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:15, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

What I have done so far

I have accepted most of the proposed draft and incorporated content from it into DriveTime. I have not studied the details from prior to 2013 in the history section from the proposed draft but I will later, though I did include material from my "Philosophy" section in "History" and we can decide what to keep. Those who object to the amount of space given to Ugly Duckling should discuss what does not belong, but since it is the same company with a different name (and not necessarily entitled to its own article) I will defend most of the Ugly Duckling material. What I have done with that section is restore it to the section I created, and hopefully by eliminating any problems created by others, I have addressed people's concerns.

I replaced the lead entirely. I didn't look to see if it was exactly the version I created, but that doesn't matter. The proposed draft is superior to my work. No one likes to admit that but it improves the encyclopedia.

We do have a problem with the proposed draft:Of course I will likely add more of it later, but the template I am supposed to use for copying the text requires that the draft never be deleted.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:24, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Okay, a confession. I had to wait until I was at a library to verify this information, as my Internet is slow at home and going to all these different web sites would be a problem. I did find one big mistake and a couple of little ones. And I'm not absolutely sure some of the information is verified by the sources. But I'm going to say it's close enough until someone else looks. The "green van" may have been in a video I couldn't see.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:41, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Vchimpanzee, thank you for taking the time to look at my draft. And thank you for fixing this typo! I noticed you incorporated the proposed introduction, infobox, Operations, Sister companies and a few paragraphs of my History draft. I am looking at History and will be back soon with my thoughts on what I would add or suggest removing from the live article. Also, you mentioned "one big mistake". What was that? I will take a look at it. Thank you, CP at DriveTime (talk) 20:13, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

You already thanked me above for fixing your one big mistake. As for further improvements to the article, this will not be a good week for me, unless I just trust your sources to be right (and of course I've already found a few reasons why I should have checked the sources). I can look at your draft again later in the week.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:24, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Most of my checking of sources will take place on Friday. I go back to the college I graduated from, where I can do that better. I don't really have time but I can't access some sources anywhere else. I did check the company history I used as my primary source and no wonder the Wikipedia article had so much about Ugly Duckling. That history hardly mentions DriveTime.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:49, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I decided to go ahead and accept the remaining content from the draft (at least I think I have). I won't get around to verifying the information I added until Friday. At this point, if everything checks out, all that remains is to decide what content from my previous version to include (under "DriveTime" in the history there could still be edits added by others since I finished with it the first time). I still feel the Ugly Duckling history is worthwhile, and now that I have removed all edits to that section since I first created it, hopefully that will work. I know it's still very long, but you should see the source I used for most of it. It hardly acknowledges there ever was a company called DriveTime despite being called a history of DriveTime.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:04, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't know that I will have time to verify everything today. Unfortunately, I ran into two roadblocks. At the library where I am now, there is no access to the Arizona Republic. I was told I could get the information through interlibrary loan, but not today. Anything else that requires access to nexis.com means I have to sign in. Which I can't. I found other ways to access some of the articles for which the URL include nexis.com, and I have changed the URLs for those. Also, some of the sources I used when i first created the article were on the DriveTime web site. Since I didn't know about archiving then, they are no longer accessible. And for some of the sources, that really means no longer accessible. For others, it's just a matter of finding the right database, but that won't happen here.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:12, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Further changes

Hi Vchimpanzee, I noticed you put in a lot of work incorporating my draft and helping with the Ugly Duckling part of the company's history. It's coming together quite nicely. Thanks for taking the time and doing such a thorough job and for being willing to hear me out and work collaboratively.

First, I wanted to bring to your attention that I uploaded DriveTime's logo that could go in the infobox. I uploaded File:DriveTime_logo.jpg directly to Wikipedia under a fair use rationale. Can you take a look at it and add it to the infobox if you think it looks good?

Secondly, I was going through the History section again and I had a few concerns I wanted to run by you. I welcome feedback from you and others.

• The majority of the Ugly Duckling section relies on the fundinguniverse.com source. There are few other citations used. This seems to me like an overreliance on one source for a portion of the article that consists of nearly 40 percent of the article's text, particularly as (from what I've learned during this process) this isn't a very strong third-party source. With that said, if other editors don't share that concern, I will not push this!

• Leaving aside the source, I still think there is too much about Ugly Duckling when it comes to minutia that does not have much bearing on DriveTime's operations today. Some examples below:

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Ugly Duckling helped customers in several ways. The company prepared tax returns and let them use their expected refunds for down payments. The company allowed people to get Visa credit cards by paying a deposit to Visa. Also, those who made payments on time could have their down payment refunded, usually 10 to 15 percent of the purchase price. The dealers had repair service, and a buyer could obtain a repair contract. And unlike most car dealers, Ugly Duckling let customers make their payments with cash.[19] Ugly Duckling lost money three of its first four years.[19] GE Capital increased its credit line to $100 million. With new financing sources, Ugly Duckling began a major expansion program. The company bought five dealers and $25 million in finance contracts from Seminole Capital Corporation in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. For $26.3 million, Ugly Duckling bought some assets of E-Z Plan Inc. of San Antonio, Texas. It also opened its first dealers in Las Vegas, Nevada and opened two dealers in New Mexico. By August 1997, the company had 24 dealers in five states, and 64 branch offices in 17 states. Through the branches, Champion purchased financing contracts from 2710 dealers. Many of those contracts required casualty insurance, Ugly Duckling went into the insurance business, buying policies for those required to do so. Ugly Duckling's Drake Insurance Agency did this through American Bankers Insurance Group, and offered other types of insurance as well.[19] With all the expansion taking place, Ugly Duckling changed advertising agencies, from Moses & Anshell to Riester Corporation. For Spanish speakers, Ugly Duckling used Dieste & Partners of Dallas, Texas.[19] I find myself asking why the above details are important for an encyclopedia. They seem trivial compared with the major developments at the company. Also, if we're trying to create an overall history of the company, these can be cut to reduce the size of the section while not altering the key parts of Ugly Duckling's past that shaped where DriveTime is today.

That said, there are parts of the Ugly Duckling history that should be kept in the article. These points appear in the live article. For me, the key things to include regarding Ugly Duckling:

• The company originated in Tucson, Arizona, as a rent-a-car business founded in 1977
• It was the fifth-largest car rental company in the U.S.
• The company filed for bankruptcy in '89
• Ernest Garcia II bought it in '91 and turned it into a series of used-car dealerships
• The company later moved to Phoenix and, in 1996, went public on the NASDAQ, raising $170 million. This is also where I would incorporate detail about the Cruttenden Roth analyst saying "You go to Tucson or Phoenix and people know The Duck. It's an icon in those cities"

Now for the DriveTime part of History. A chunk in the middle of this portion looks like WP:PROSELINE, short paragraphs that come off as a listing of facts and years, rather than a developed narrative written in an encyclopedic tone. It is also dated, for example:

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By 2005, DriveTime had added Austin, Texas and Norfolk, Virginia and planned sites in Charlotte, North Carolina and Nashville, Tennessee.[28] On November 2, 2004, the company announced plans to expand from 75 to 100 locations over two years, mostly in the Southwestern United States and in Florida, Georgia and Virginia. DriveTime employed 2100 but expected to add 550 more workers. Revenues at the time were $760 million. Part of the company's success resulted from what the American Bankruptcy Institute said were the highest bankruptcy rates ever, though fewer people were filing for bankruptcy at that time.[24] I don't see the benefit of including how many workers DriveTime expected to add 12 years ago. I'm sure that info made sense at the time it was added, but it doesn't seem relevant anymore. As currently written, it speaks of a future plan that is now 12 years old. In 2004, chairman and CEO Ray Fidel said DriveTime intends to treat customers with financial problems the same as customers at premium auto dealers.[24] That same year, the company introduced Rate Advantage, allowing buyers to get a lower interest rate with a higher down payment. The rate could be as low as 8.99 percent, with 20 percent being average for the industry.[28] This reads as promotional to me.

Here are some other issues I see in the article:

• References to Rate Advantage and DriveCare as currently in the article appear promotional to me, and not worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia

• The article brings up a 2009 lawsuit by CarMax, yet there is no information on the outcome of that lawsuit or its current status in the Wikipedia article. In fact, this case was settled. Since there was limited coverage of this, and no coverage at all of the outcome, is this really worth including?

All that said, I'd like to hear your thoughts on what I've proposed above. I'd also like to ping User:FeralOink, who took a peek at my proposal recently. I know FeralOink is busy with other things, but I figured I would loop her in just in case she had any comments.

Thank you, CP at DriveTime (talk) 16:33, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back to me.

Let me address your points one by one.

I added the logo. That was pretty simple.

I was asking for help at one of the libraries I go to and it was pointed out to me that fundinguniverse.com has sources of its own. I just don't think I'll be able to access most of them. I'm having a hard enough time accessing and checking your sources. One of these days I might find some of the fundinguniverse.com sources. But at the time I used this, I wasn't very good at creating articles and still haven't really mastered it. I just wanted something that would be able to stay around because I believed this company was worthy of a Wikipedia article and as many times as I had seen their commercials, it was a shame not to have the information.

The first paragraph about Ugly Duckling you had a problem with seems to contain a lot of information that reflects how the company was different from others and offered all these services. I still feel pretty strongly about it.

The second and fourth paragraphs may not be important. They just seemed like it to me at the time.

The third paragraph has details about major expansion and I don't see how you wouldn't include those.

Now, once we get to DriveTime, yes, I've always had a problem with making histories look like a list of facts and dates. I don't know how to solve that. As for where the company stood in 2004, this seems like an important milestone, or at least a progress report. Future plans for expansion also look important to me, but I suppose we don't have to say how many workers.

It's great that someone with a COI can spot promotional content, because I just don't see it that way. That reads to me like the company's philosophy and what makes it unique. Okay, "philosophy" sounds promotional and "unique" sounds like what is being promoted. Maybe I'm missing something, but it sure seems like what people should know about the company. I just don't know.

I suppose Rate Advantage and DriveCare could be left out.

If I put in a CarMax lawsuit, I must have searched for an outcome. I don't really remember, but I probably did look all over the place. I know I've done this for at least one article and got very frustrated at finding no results.

I sure would feel better seeing other people's opinions, but a lot of what I defended looks important and I just don't feel comfortable leaving it out.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:31, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Vchimpanzee, thanks for adding the logo to the infobox. It makes the article look much better. Also, thanks for reviewing my notes and for responding. I understand you have strong feelings about some of the content in the article, and that's fine with me. I'm glad you were willing to openly discuss the issues and collaborate. Here's an idea: I can put together a version of the History section that includes everything we've done so far, while deleting the info you said could be left out, and I will attempt to write this up in a way that's less WP:PROSELINE, but does not change the details. How's that?

Thank you, CP at DriveTime (talk) 23:47, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Okay. I'll look at it. Amazing you're so new at this and I've been doing it nine years and you're better at it.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:46, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Vchimpanzee, I posted a revised History section in my user space. As we talked about earlier, the new draft deletes areas of the history you agreed could be cut from the article: that Ugly Duckling lost money is three of first four years; that Ugly Duckling changed advertising agencies in the 1990s; mentions to Rate Advantage and two paragraphs on DriveCare packages. I eliminated the sentence that said "By 2009, DriveTime had 79 American dealers and 2300 employees", as we have sources that say DriveTime opened its 100th dealership in 2007. There was also a paragraph in the Ugly Duckling section that said: "Garcia bought most of Ugly Duckling's publicly traded shares and took the company private. As of 2004, he owned 85 percent of the company, the largest Latino-owned firm in Arizona". I deleted the first sentence, as this appears to be out of sequence and is confusing mentioned here without a specific date, and we say later in the article that Garcia would take the company private. I then moved the part about DriveTime being the largest Latino-owned firm in Arizona as of 2004 to the DriveTime section, where it would make a little more sense. I entered the new draft in a way so you could see the changes in a single diff when looking at the edit history. I hope this helps. Again, I appreciate your collaboration.

Thank you, CP at DriveTime (talk) 00:01, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll look at it all this afternoon. I was confused about how to deal with taking the company private, but it did happen at some point. If it was out of order, we can probably blame the source material. It was written in 2004, and that would explain the reference to 2004. Okay, I probably messed that up. And I can't look at it because it was on the DriveTime web site, and I do not have access to Arizona Republic articles.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:55, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I went ahead and finished the Ugly Duckling section. Also, I can surely find a Washington Post article which is stated to be a source, and change the source.

It still looks like it could use more improvement (meaning the content I added in the first place), and now we just have to figure out what sources to use and how better to word things. And I found am embarrassing grammatical error which I supposedly made since we're mostly working from the version of the section that I created originally.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:20, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

I didn't read the above message very carefully. Now I've gone ahead with the rest of the history. Yes, it does look simple enough to move that date around. I've done that sometimes, but I should do that to other articles I've contributed to, because that doesn't look good.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:33, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Vchimpanzee, thank you for moving the revised History section to the live article. I appreciate all that you've done. In my opinion, I still feel that anything for under Ugly Duckling that cannot be found in a more robust source than Funding Universe should be trimmed from the article, but I know you feel otherwise regarding certain details. There is one more issue I see here: that {{Advert|date=March 2015}} tag at the top of the article. Now that this article is improved and promotional details trimmed, do you agree this should be removed?

Thank you, CP at DriveTime (talk) 00:07, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Probably. You told me about a lot of what sounded promotional. I'll work on the sources Funding Universe used when I can.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:55, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I asked someone at a library I go to how to get the Arizona Republic articles and some others. I've already verified some information, and one detail didn't appear where you said it did, so maybe like most of us you forgot to list one of the references at one point. I didn't ask for all the sources from Funding Universe yet. I can probably locate most of them on my own.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:47, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I have my first Arizona Republic article. I'm a little confused. One paragraph refers to a "proprietary system" for collecting payments, but another paragraph says they have a credit scoring system of their own. I'm not sure that works. You work for them, you say, so you're the expert.

I don't see anything about expanding across the country after the name change either. But I'm about to check on the Funding Universe sources.

— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:00, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm slowly finding information. Unfortunately, unlike Wikipedia, Funding Universe didn't specify where each detail came from.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:55, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I just checked my email and got a bunch of the Funding Universe sources. I don't have time to look at them now. Others we may never actually find. I also double-checked my earlier research when I received one article that appeared on the driveTime web site. It needed fixing.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 14:41, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Permstrump I have some comments regarding your edits. I may have the article that you marked with "verify source" every time it was a source. I was planning to look at it tomorrow. I have problems with the email service I used in order to get it, which most likely would cause me problems here at home. Tomorrow, I'll be at a library where I don't have problems with this email service. Also, You marked several sources with "primary source". They were most likely independent, but DriveTime had these on its web site at one time. I doubt that I'll be able to access them now. I should always archive what I use as sources, although I don't know whether it's something everyone who puts information on a web site would agree to.

And thanks for cleaning up the infobox. I thought it was better to leave it because I was afraid of deleting the wrong thing by mistake.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:15, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Proposed update to Sister companies

Hi Vchimpanzee and other editors, DriveTime recently launched a new company called Bridgecrest Acceptance. Can we add that to Sister companies? I posted a new draft of that section in my user space. The draft adds a Bridgecrest subsection and three sentences with sources. I also fixed a typo under GO Financial: the existing article has "Go Financial", it should be "GO Financial". Other than that minor fix, the remaining copy is the same as is live now.

As you are aware, I work for DriveTime and have a conflict of interest, so I have not edited this article directly. Can you update the article if you have no problems with adding the new company and fixing the typo?

Thank you, CP at DriveTime (talk) 00:30, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Eventually.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:13, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I feel like I should introduce myself or something since this conversation has just been between the two of you for a few weeks (seemingly at least, though there could be other lurkers like me). I added this page to my watchlist a few weeks back after CP at DriveTime posted about it in the teahouse (or some project page, who knows, I follow a lot of random stuff and forget why later). I've come to this talkpage a few times with the intention of chiming in, but I guess I keep getting sidetracked, so first, hello. :) Second, I think it's smart to wait on adding new stuff until the current version is in better shape, because like they say, wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS. Also, as of now, this hasn't received any coverage by major news outlets, so it's not "noteworthy" yet. The the two sources cited in the draft aren't independent of the subject, so they don't count towards its noteworthiness. They are both "in universe" publications, basically promotional materials that aren't meaningfully different than press releases. In the time it takes to get the rest of the article is in better shape, there will probably be more substantial coverage of Bridgecrest. I'm going to take better look at the draft and the current version now. Vchimpanzee, what was that funding universe thing you were talking about above? I was having a hard time following that thread. PermStrump(talk) 17:09, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm glad someone else is responding now. It's a lot of responsibility doing all this on my own. Funding Universe is the major source I used when I originally created DriveTime, and back then I didn't really understand about reliable sources and independent sources. I just used whatever looked reliable to me. When I asked someone at a library for help with something, it was pointed out to me that Funding Universe had its own sources. When I found some of these, I used those sources for information in the article instead of Funding Universe, or corrected the text in the article to reflect what the sources said. Several librarians are tracking down those sources that they can and I will be changing the article accordingly as I get them. I have a big pile of stuff to work on right now but no time to do it (Correction: I will go to the Teahouse and Help Desk archives, which is how I discovered the planned work on this article, this afternoon, along with reading the Signpost, and Bits and Bytes, and going to a couple of other web sites where I interact with others. And this weekend I will do essential stuff. Thursday I may have time to work on this.). Thanks for helping us.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:22, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Vchimpanzee, depending on the kind of stuff the librarians are tracking down for you, I might be able to help. I have access to the a university library's online database through work, which has almost any academic journal and major newspapers/magazines. So if you want to tell me some of the titles that the librarians are looking up for you, I can see if I have access to them. I'd have to look into the copyright rules for sharing them, but I could at least let you know if they're relevant/worth waiting for from your library even if I can't actually post them here. PermStrump(talk) 18:44, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. They're emailing the text to me. But I have a list of other sources I want to check out. The list I sent myself somehow didn't get sent. So this list includes the ones I've already gotten and with my slow Internet at home, there's not much chance of my finding the list.

Box, Terry, "Dallas Dealership's Low-End Car Sales Rake in High-End Profits," Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, June 2, 1998.

Byrne, John A., "Keeping Out of Mischief Now," Forbes, October 8, 1984, p. 238.

Cecil, Mark, "Chairman Garcia: Gimme All of Ugly; Ugly Chairman Needs Someone to Show Him the Money, However," Mergers and Acquisitions Report, September 25, 2000.

Croft, Nancy L., "It's Never Too Late," Nation's Business, September 1986, p. 18.

Dunaj, Diana, "Ugly: Tucson Car Rental Firm Turns Beautiful Profits," Arizona Business Gazette, December 30, 1985, p. A1.

Elliott, Alan R., "Swan-To-Be," Investor's Business Daily, October 14, 1996.

"Gauger + Santy Rebrands Ugly Duckling," ADWEEK, Western ed., September 2, 2002, p. 6.

Giblin, Paul, "Ugly Duckling Looks to Turn into a Swan with Expansion," Arizona Tribune, August 25, 1996.

Gregory, Michael, "Duckling Works Subprime Niche," Private Placement Letter, August 7, 2000.

Knight, Jerry, "Dealing in Stock Cars, Both New and Used," Washington Post, November 11, 1996, p. WB27.

Murray, Teresa Dixon, "National Auto Credit Agrees to Buy Out Major Shareholder," Plain Dealer (Cleveland), May 14, 1999, p. 2C.

Nickell, Naaman, "Phoenix, Ariz.-Based Used-Car Dealership Continues to Grow," Arizona Republic, January 24, 2000.

"Prizes Found in Empty Boxes," Business Journal--Serving Phoenix & the Valley of the Sun, October 19, 2001, p. 62.

Pulliam, Susan, "Ugly Duckling, Subprime Auto Lender Run by Convicted Felon, Manages to Raise Money," Wall Street Journal, February 12, 1997, p. C2.

Sawyers, Arlena, "Ugly Duckling Thriving in Subprime Pool," Automotive News, June 12, 2000, p. 40.

Serres, Christopher, "Nat'l Auto Interests Rival CEO: Ugly Duckling Exec Owns 7% of Car Lender," Crain's Cleveland Business, September 21, 1998, p. 5.

"Ugly Duckling Corporation CEO Discusses Product Line," Wall Street Transcript, June 12, 2000.

"Ugly Duckling Offering Shareholders a Way Out," Arizona Republic, December 20, 1998, p. D1.

Vandeveire, Mary, "Sub-Prime Auto Lending Expanding Operations Here," Business Journal--Serving Phoenix & the Valley of the Sun, March 13, 1998, p. 4.

— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:10, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi PermStrump, thanks for joining the discussion. I welcome your feedback. Just to bring everyone up to speed: I originally posted a new draft of this article in January, which you can see here. I then added a follow up draft of the History section to work collaboratively after much discussion with Vchimpanzee. You can see that draft here. Due to an error, I mistakenly placed my second draft of the History section in the wrong place and deleted my original draft of the full article. I have just undone that edit and placed the History draft in its proper space, so all my drafts are where they belong. Sorry for any confusion.

Thank you, CP at DriveTime (talk) 23:13, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

CP_at_DriveTime for a minute there I thought you had actually deleted your draft. But of course you can't do that since only administrators can actually delete. There is a template that requires it not to be deleted. What you must have meant is that it was blanked. I'll ask sometime exactly what procedure to follow to keep the draft after it is no longer needed.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:33, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

I know I posted something similar in a discussion below, however I want to bring it up here as well. In addition to the SubPrime Auto Finance News and Auto Finance News articles I used as sources in my draft, there is also a Phoenix Business Journal article on Bridgecrest Acceptance. (You can also read the article on Nexis if you have a subscription. Can someone take a look at the Phoenix Business Journal article? In my opinion, this is worth mentioning in the article. If not in the Sister companies section, then at least in History. I look forward to feedback from others.

Thank you, CP at DriveTime (talk) 17:07, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Questions

• Question: HQed in Tempe, AZ or Phoenix? Bloomberg says Phoenix. Looks like they moved there in 2015ish? But the article and drafts still say Tempe, so wanted to double check.

Permstrump I think the expert is the person creating the drafts. The article just says what the draft said, but I haven't verified everything in the draft yet.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:17, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Nm I just realized that I had it reversed. I think they moved from Phoenix to Tempe, so the bloomberg source must be out of date since the move seems to be recent. PermStrump(talk) 18:22, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

That's correct. DriveTime's HQ relocated from Phoenix to Tempe on November 16, 2015. Thanks for checking. CP at DriveTime (talk) 16:29, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

PermStrump, I also wanted to ask: Do you have any questions pertaining to my drafts that have been incorporated into the live article? I see you've been assisting Vchimpanzee with finding the sources that were used on Funding Universe for the Ugly Duckling history.

Lastly, I wanted to bring to your attention this Phoenix Business Journal article on Bridgecrest Acceptance. You need a subscription to access the article. You can also read it on Nexis if you have access to that. I think this is a good secondary source that could be used to add mention of Bridgecrest. What do you think? Thank you, CP at DriveTime (talk) 20:05, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm not aware that PermStrump has actually found anything for me. A librarian has sent me numerous articles, and when I get the time to read them I will. Hotmail causes me problems at the library I go to most so I try to look at only one or two emails there. At home, things are worse. The articles that are not attachments might not cause me problems.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:48, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Funding Universe

I noticed at the very bottom of the Funding Universe website, below the list of sources, there's a statement that says, "Source: International Directory of Company Histories, Vol.68. St. James Press, 2005." I was able to access that book online through work and found that Funding Universe had copied the text verbatim (including the source list at the end), so I replaced the Funding Universe citation with the original source. All of the short links (<ref name=History/>) still work. International Directory of Company Histories seems to be a well respected, reliable source, but I'm posting on WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard to get input from other people who will hopefully know more about it. Assuming it's a solid source (which I think it is), then Vchimpanzee can cancel the requests from the library as it wouldn't be necessary to find each individual source on that reference list anymore. PermStrump(talk) 20:43, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

FYI I posted a question about it on the reliable source noticeboard here. PermStrump(talk) 22:22, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Well, people have gone to the trouble of looking for some of the sources. I haven't looked at them yet but I will Thursday. I have some trouble with Hotmail on this computer, and I expect I would have even more trouble at home. Anyway, if all the information from Funding Universe is in the other source, that's fine. Regarding your comment on the noticeboard about too much space devoted to Ugly Duckling, they sure do. But thanks to User:CP at DriveTime, we now have more of a balance.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:01, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

As it turns out, there's not a whole lot in what I was sent, so if we continue to keep the information from Funding Universe, we'll have to use the source as the source. I replaced the source in the one case I found useful information in what I was sent.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:54, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Disputes over name

I was sent two articles on the company's disputes with other companies called DriveTime. Since one source didn't give the long name of the company but did give the date of the change, I changed the company's name in the article, and then when I found the long version that had been in the article to begin with, I put that there. There's only one real reason why that name exists, and that is the dispute with the other company. Is this needed?

I decided the other dispute wasn't worth mentioning.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:57, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Bridgecrest Acceptance

Hi to all who have worked on this page lately. Last week, editor The Green Arrow1 included Bridgecrest Acceptance in the article's infobox. As you may have seen in previous requests on this page, I am asking editors if they can include Bridgecrest Acceptance in the Sister companies. In my draft, I used sources from SubPrime Auto Finance News and Auto Finance News. Phoenix Business Journal article on Bridgecrest Acceptance also wrote an article when the new company was announced. If editors do not feel it is worth including in Sister companies, I think this is at least worth including in History. As an employee of DriveTime Automotive Group, Inc., I won't edit this article directly. Would someone make this addition?

When this was first discussed above, editors said it could be added at some point and with the addition to the infobox I'm wondering if it might be included now. I won't be pushing this further, as I'm aware the final call comes down to the volunteers here, but wanted to leave this request here so this doesn't drop off everyone's radars. While I'll be stepping back for now, I'll still keep an eye on this request and will be happy to check back in to answer any questions.

Thank you, CP at DriveTime (talk) 20:37, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't seem much of a sister company considering the fact that DriveTime owns Bridgecrest and the two are not owned together by another entity. Same with Carvana and Go Financial (IDK where Go Financial came from but there was information supporting its existence so I left it there) — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Green Arrow1 (talk • contribs) 00:41, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at this, The Green Arrow1. I see you've changed the section headings in the article and added a brief mention of Bridgecrest, did you see my draft with suggested wording and sourcing about Bridgecrest? The current mention is very bare and I think this would help clarify what the company is and its relationship to DriveTime. Bridgecrest, technically, is not a division of DriveTime and Carvana and Go Financial are not subsidiaries of DriveTime. Bridgecrest, Carvana, Go Financial and SilverRock are not owned by DriveTime, rather, they share a common shareholder. This would indeed make them "sister companies" and not the former. To clarify, DriveTime is not a holding comapany and each of the other aforementioned companies operate independently from each other. Can we revert back to the "sister companies" heading and remove the divisions and subsidiaries mention? Additionally, in regards to GO Financial, they are not "out of business" as it has been stated with the latest update. On May 12, 2016, GO decided to stop originating new loans, but they will still continue to operate for the next several years as a servicer. More information about the changes of GO can be found from these sources: Phoenix Business Journal, F&I Showroom and Auto News Thanks, CP at DriveTime (talk) 21:35, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

This Is straight from the DriveTime Blog: AutoRemarketing spoke with DriveTime vice president Greg Sax about the rebranding of its service division to Bridgecrest and what steps the company took to come to this decision. Sax also spoke about how this will not affect the way that DriveTime is currently operating and how it plays into the company’s long-term roadmap. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Green Arrow1 (talk • contribs) 07:31, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Marked this edit request as answered. Altamel (talk) 17:44, 8 August 2016 (UTC)