Scumbag gets just rewards...

[Kit Sullivan]

Yep. I don't take it personally anymore. I have decent security and good insurance. I try not to stress over such things anymore. You can't change people.

I have no problem telling rude and nasty customers not to come back. We do the best we can, and if and when we make a mistake we own up to it. Most customers love us and our entire organization has a pretty good reputation in the area. But when someone trys to take advantage of us, we don't accept that. So many businesses today quietly tolerate these kind of jerk-off customers, which leads them to the false conclusion that "the customer is always right" really means "the customer can abuse any business at will without repurcussion". Not so with me. I tell them right to thier face not to come back if they deserve it.

Example: several years ago a woman came into one of my shops. There were jumper cables on the passenger floorboard. ( what does that tell you?)

When finished, the car would not restart...dead battery. By jump box could not start it nor would the "conveniant" jumper cables she had on the floorboard.

I said "your battery is dead and cannot be jumped. I will put a new battery in to get it stsrted, then put your old one back in so you can take it to your mechanic."

She says "No...I want that new battery for free! You obviously broke my old one...it was perfectly fine when I came in."

I said "no, your battery is obviously not fine, but a full charging-system diagnosis would be better first than to just throw a new battery in it."

She says "that girl obviously broke it when she was fiddling with it...i demand a new battery"

I said "no, that girl has worked for me for 10 years, is an ASE-certified Master-Tech, as is her husband the shop manager and she doesn't "fiddle" with things, she services them. If you dont want me to get your car stsrted, thats fine with me. You are not getting a new battery for free.

If you want to call a tow truck, please do so now we have more customers. If not, i will have it towed out of the shop at your expense. What is your preference?"

She let me get it started, and I told her when she left to find a diffetent place to service her car in the future.

Customers ( some of them) today act this way becsuse they think every business is just going to roll over and give the house away. Not me.

 

[Jim and Jutta]

...One funny anecdote that ALL jerk -off customers have in common: they all say very forcefully " I will NEVER come back here again!"...

If you really want to jerk their chain all you have to say is "Promise?"

 

[Boss1Ray]

Good. I can't say what I REALLY want to say.

+1

WOW.

Ray

 

[matrixx]

I agree 100% with kit. We don't honor that " customer is always right" crap. And usually that's one of the first things a customer will say that's trying to get one over on you.

Another funny story is I had a customer come in with a 09 Tahoe. Well the battery died during service from those automatic headlights (stupid idea btw) well when we were done with service the truck wouldn't crank so we jump started it and sent him on his way ad told him he may need to have the battery replaced so this doesn't happen again, especially somewhere where there's no one to jump you.

A day later he comes back hollering and blabbing on about now his a/c only blows cold out the left side of his dash. He's blaming us saying we did something under the car or knocked something loose to cause this.

I explain it's more likely the blender motor in the dash went bad. Or could be a simple fuse. He then went on saying that it must have been because we jumped the battery that caused his issue.

Seriously!?! Did any of you know a simple oil change or tire rotation can cause your a/c not to work, coil packs to die, and my favorite, window motor.

I don't have an issue telling someone they are wrong and to get off the property. I have hundreds of loyal repeat customers and all my new customers love the service and atmosphere. Problem is there's far to many half ass shops around here that do poor work and everyone gets labeled as a rip off.

The worst situation to explain is when the check engine light comes on right after service through no fault of your own due to a totally unrelated part of the car an your immediately labeled as the mag that messed up the car.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[rpmcarter]

Ha.... there are two ways to look at this situation. First if a shop has THAT many complaints.... maybe a mirror will help. Second sometimes customers see a trend with shops these days. One, I was cruising down the road coming home and the whole dash on the Benz just went BLANK !!! I'm looking around and move over to the right lane. Realize if I am in the middle of a REALLY nice neighborhood and I would prefer to get out of it but the car is still running fine. So I stay in the right lane...now to get over the bypass and I'll be in a better neighborhood when this thing dies. So I call a guy WHO CLAIMS to be a member of our classic car club. Well she made it all the way. He checks it out calls me back the next day...yessir Mr.Carter and goes about telling me all the great things to fix my car... Original Bosch alternator etc etc..... ONLY 800.00!!!

I was polite and picked up the car....had it fixed in my own garage for 130.00 and an hours worth of work. I'm assuming he was charging for the dirty little secret Benz had with getting the alternator out.... once I figured that trick it was clever and simple. Apparently he charges 600.00 for that knowledge. I never yelled, cussed, nor threatened, very polite just went about my business making sure I told EVERYONE!!! Sure enough others finally thanked me and said he had GAUGED them too. (btw in 5 years I've NEVER seen him at a club event) Dr. Larry went out of business later on.

 

[matrixx]

It's not complaints, just really dumb people who believe they should get something for nothing or really cheap. I don't advertise my business as being cheap. Hell I don't advertise at ALL. Word of mouth is best advertisement and my ticket count has increased year on year since 2008 tri fold.

There's shops that prey on the uninformed but is much rather have a customer for life than trying to gouge them once for quick $800.

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[Luke]

UPDATE:

This morning at 8 am a big, muscle-bound goon friend of the girl who got arrested showed up and said he was coming back at 9 am ( when the other employee from yesterday came to work today) " kick some ass" for getting the girl arrested. A quick phone call to the cops, and as the thug showed up at 9:10, two cop cars swarmed in, asked a few questions, and arrested him too. I think it was for assault, even though all he did was make threats.

I shake my head in disgust....

What a brain donor, who would say their coming back in an hour. Idiot deserves to fall down the steps at the cop shop

 

[will e]

The thread has morphed a little from the person trying to rip you off by claiming that you stole a radio to customers in general. Regarding catching her... GOOD FOR YOU. I can't even imagine what a person that would come up with that thinks in their brain most of the time and how unhappy they must be.

As far as ignorant customers go I can tell you that my lovely wife. And I do love her. Knows very little about cars. About 2 years ago I decided to stop paying a shop for working on her Liberty. It is amazing what she tries to relate to the same issue. Now, she's actually pretty good and can really help identify a problem but every once in a while she comes up with a doozy. 'I noticed the brakes seem squishy ever since you replaced the alternator'. That kind of stuff.

 

[rpmcarter]

UPDATE:

This morning at 8 am a big, muscle-bound goon friend of the girl who got arrested showed up and said he was coming back at 9 am ( when the other employee from yesterday came to work today) " kick some ass" for getting the girl arrested. A quick phone call to the cops, and as the thug showed up at 9:10, two cop cars swarmed in, asked a few questions, and arrested him too. I think it was for assault, even though all he did was make threats.

I shake my head in disgust....

What a brain donor, who would say their coming back in an hour. Idiot deserves to fall down the steps at the cop shop

That would be a good idea Luke but that area and population is 60,000 are of one type and 289,000 atheist type. So it would offend people who are not honest and the Sheriff's department would face discipline. They walk a very fine line because nearly half that population is paid by the government, I didnt say they worked...just are paid. Accusations against the department by the above groups is constant from the statistics available.

So back to experiences per Mattrix. One guy in our area makes himself out to be a "classic shop". Upon arriving in the area 6 years ago, I stopped by, cool shop, thought hey they must be cool guys they are into classics. Later on the Expedition had a engine miss and wifey called. I was in DC, so I sent her there. Well he tells wifey its gonna be 1100.00 or so. I get on the phone, and ask him to explain. Well sir the engine miss is caused by the starter and we have to fix it first to evaluate what the big problem is to start work. Its heating up and going out and drains the battery, which causes strain on the computer to malfunction. When the computer malfunctions, it sends bad signals to the motor. So we need to replace the battery and starter first, THEN we will be able to put it on the diagnosis machine and determine and trace the problem.

So I ask, "why cant you put it on the diagnosis machine now"? Well sir we cant. Why cant you? Because the Starter is overheating and pulls all the energy out of the battery which causes the truck computer to malfunction due to the lack of power from the battery. me; "so you CANT put the truck on the diagnosis machine because of a bad starter?" him; "thats correct"

me; "okay you go ahead and replace the battery and starter and write me a receipt stating this is why you did it" him: Well I can see where this is going "YOU think your some kind of know it all"

I wont bore you guys with the details of the coil pack being bad at a cost of 75.00 for the part and labor to install it.

This SAME shop charged my dumbazz friend with TOO MUCH money 15,000 to rebuild his 454 because it had a bad heads due to the fact he was using racing fuel which THEY recommended. (note they did the original build 1000 0r so miles prior to the tune of 18,000. so they cut him a deal the second time around for being a good customer.)