The dealership where I take my car for oil changes emailed me this morning, advertising, “Savings Going On Now..Hurry In!” with questionable ellipsis, so I had to click.

I open the email and the first thing I see is a coupon layout. Not particularly sexy, but it’s functional. I could probably read it on my phone, I guess, and would probably be able to redeem the coupons with minimal effort. The next thing I notice is the choice of a crashing wave on a white sandy beach…then I remember that it is, in fact, summer, and that these are SUMMER SAVINGS ZOMG. I pause to feel a little bit bad for the office manager who probably designed this thing. But the last thing I notice—the egregious thing, the reason this email gets some snark today, is the questionable math. Let’s look:

No. Nononono. This is exactly the wrong way to do a discount. It benefits the dealership but does not incentivize (observant) consumers. So no, I suppose it’s not untrue that “The More You Spend, THE MORE YOU SAVE,” in the most literal of interpretations, however, those are not percentages, people: they’re dollars.

Coupons like this are the tools of panderers, trying to make you feel better by giving you 3.8% “back” on the $653.82 you had to spend on parts and labor for that brake job. Whatever, stealership. Ugh. Great job picking that totally seasonal background, though: reward your office manager with that box of Dunkin Donuts French Vanilla K-Cups she’s been mentioning constantly, would it kill you to buy flavored ones?

This has been email snark-eting.