People so unreasonable sometimes...

[Anon9283]

Originally Posted by Kira
Donald and Eddie beat me to it.

OK, mistakes happen in a large shop over a 25 year span.

Were the 2 employees "normal" or do you hire retards? Nothing inflammatory or insulting here, just askin'.

How many episodes like this have you gone through?

Ha-ha....the "common sense test" you need is akin to the one people should be required to take in order to have children.
(Flame suit on)


You can't say nothing inflammatory or insulting and then use the word retard. You could've chosen so many other adjectives

 

[ls1mike]

I come from a world (submarines) where not owing up to mistakes is a bad thing.

I get the "sliding scale of integrity" but your tech, your garage messed up.

The lady, while certainly unreasonable, should have been told up front and given the option of what she wanted to do with her car.

Yes she got her asking price, but I always tell my kids if you tell me the truth up front I am certainly going to be less mad.

If I had found out from a tech, not the owner after the fact I would have been mad, but I would not have acted like the lady.

Ask yourself, are you mad/disappointed when you are lied to regardless of the out come?

 

[maxdustington]

Originally Posted by ls1mike
Yes she got her asking price, but I always tell my kids if you tell me the truth up front I am certainly going to be less mad.
It's very easy to say that, especially in hindsight. In reality, very few people can put their emotions aside in that situation.

You can't project your own morals onto others, that's how you get taken advantage of and embittered. She almost instantly tried to take advantage of the situation which should tell all the virtue signalers posting in this thread that OP made the right call. She tried to increase the asking price by 100% after it was sold and you guys are treating her like she is Mother Theresa.

Some threads you can really tell who is a keyboard warrior and who actually knows that they are talking about. Anyone who has run a business for any length of time knows that there are certain types of customers who know that the open mouth gets fed and will try to rip you off.

Save the altruism for altrusts!

 

[ToadU]

>>> you lose and everybody is good. Overall a completely fair deal. She should be happy. You a little sad.
Not sad. This car will be sold who knows how many times and repoed and sold again or sold on a rent to own. I accept weekly cash payments due by midnight on the same day of the buyers / renters job's payday. Payments are made at my impound yard 24/7—365. If 12:01 rolls around and a weekly payment hasn't been made the computer sends a notice to my wreckers the cars GPS location and the engine is disabled. Before morning that car is back at my lot and ready for resale. I think the record is selling the same car 11 times. This car will be $500 down and $75 to $95 per week.

I don't usually buy cars for my buy-here-pay-here / rent-to-own operation because I get 30-60 cars a month people and finance companies either don't bother to claim, can't afford to claim or don't have the proper paperwork to claim from my impound towing. A large number of those cars either are great cars.....some almost new bc finance companies can't get their acts together and be organized w their paperwork and often some finance companies don't even bother trying to get the car at all for various reasons. Example in Florida a finance company MUST have the original ink signed finance agreement per State Statue or a certified copy of said original inked document to retrieve a car. You would be surprised how many times Ford Finance or Mercedes ect wants to pick up a car but has no original document bc it's been lost or scanned a million times or the notes been sold from bank A to B to C. Recently got a 2017 Challenger with 35k miles bc Fiat Chrysler couldn't get their act together. Sold that one to CarMax. Same w wrecked cars. Sometimes the insurance company doesn't want to pay the tow and storage bill and we come to an agreement I take the title and a lesser amount in the tow and storage and the car becomes mine w a clean title. If they don't want to negotiate the car eventually becomes mine free and clear anyways if they don't pay.

So sad bc I don't buy cars to sell usually but not sad bc an 04 Accord will be sitting in someone's driveway before the end of this weekend.

 

[ToadU]

Originally Posted by maxdustington
Originally Posted by ToadU
Hire retards. See my above post. Excellent employees with real skills and work within are an endangered species. Every now and then you find one. The rest of the time you have to hire what you can. The economy is booming and oil change kids are making $15 an hr. Dishwashers at local restaurants make that now. They can't hire off the books because the Trump admin has cracked down and in an already super tight labor market with virtually no unemployment you are lucky to even get applicants. Everyone in trades has this issue. At least around here.
They are not endagered, they are out of your price range. An "excellent employee with real skills" probably knows it and is going to be looking for an excellent employer that offers competitive wages + benefits. The cost of living is too high anywhere near any city, you need to make good money to be able to afford a house. Boomer's don't realize that you can't buy a house with Labourer's wages like you could in the early 80s.



My BEST impound drivers make $75-$80k a year often high school dropouts. The money is there. My mechanics and tech make a fair wage compared to the industry especially if they can beat the book. You can run ads all day long and not even get applicants. The economy is smoking hot and there is essentially no unemployment. I can't hire off the books because the Hispanics have disappeared and many self deported. There is a HUGE labor shortage in skilled and non skilled trades at the moment. Around here some crops die on the vine literally bc there is no one to pick them. I'm laying car detainers $15-18 an hr!!!!

 

[atikovi]

Originally Posted by ToadU
This car will be $500 down and $75 to $95 per week.


A brand new 2020 Corolla is less than that. No wonder used car dealers get such a bad rep.

 

[Gebo]

I ran a feed mill for 13 years. Our base was dairy farmers where average order was 6 tons of feed that we would deliver. In that course of time, we had a few mixups. Bill's feed went to John's farm. Mistake in Manufacturing. Every year we would screw up here and there.

We always told the customer the truth. Even if we merely thought we screwed up. Our customers trusted us because they knew we always sided with them and told the truth.

Sometimes, as I would be the one to tell the customer, I looked like an idiot. I'd be out there with an employee emptying 5 tons of feed and loading it up to sell to some knowing farmer at a huge discount.

There's not much about me that is good but I know that telling the truth will pay off in more ways than just in your bank account.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Originally Posted by maxdustington
She almost instantly tried to take advantage of the situation which should tell all the virtue signalers posting in this thread that OP made the right call.
She tried to increase the asking price by 100% after it was sold and you guys are treating her like she is Mother Theresa.

No one called her Mother Theresa. She is simply the customer who trusted her car to the shop for an oil change.
Perhaps she felt deceived because she found out the truth from an employee instead of the owner.
Who can say? I don't know what was in her head.
Would you be upset at being deceived?
We cannot say what she would have done or said if the whole story were presented instead of hiding it.

I do give the OP credit for posting this.

 

[ls1mike]

Originally Posted by maxdustington
Originally Posted by ls1mike
Yes she got her asking price, but I always tell my kids if you tell me the truth up front I am certainly going to be less mad.
It's very easy to say that, especially in hindsight. In reality, very few people can put their emotions aside in that situation.

You can't project your own morals onto others, that's how you get taken advantage of and embittered. She almost instantly tried to take advantage of the situation which should tell all the virtue signalers posting in this thread that OP made the right call. She tried to increase the asking price by 100% after it was sold and you guys are treating her like she is Mother Theresa.

Some threads you can really tell who is a keyboard warrior and who actually knows that they are talking about. Anyone who has run a business for any length of time knows that there are certain types of customers who know that the open mouth gets fed and will try to rip you off.

Save the altruism for altrusts!


Really keyboard warrior? So you like being lied to?

It is as simple as that. This lady sounds like she would have been mad or an As* either way.
But the now shop owner will have some goofball telling other people he is a liar.

She got her asking price, but was lied to. I certainly wouldn't take my car to this guy now. When you make a mistake you own up to it.

 

[caprice_2nv]

Originally Posted by Imp4
What you have done is engaged in theft by deception.

The ethical response to this situation would have been to be transparent with the customer and fully inform them of the situation.
You could have then offered to purchase the car or replace the engine.
By withholding critical information from the customer so as to prevent them from making a fully informed decision, you took the unethical path in an attempt to minimize your own costs with no consideration for the customers decision making process.

These types of behaviors are exactly what give many auto repair businesses a bad name.

Good day.


Good day. I can understand some people wishing to be told the truth, but the fact that this person turned out to be non trustworthy, proves that the op made the correct call in order to not be taken advantage of. Clearly she would have wanted double compensation in this case.

I'd prefer to be told the truth, but the shops I go to know me and know that I wouldn't take advantage of them. It doesn't hurt that I worked at those places before.

You can call it unethical all you want, I can see how you're making it that way in your own thought process...makes me think you would act the same way as this customer did... looking out for your own best interest which is more $ in your pocket...(I could be wrong just saying - only you know the answer to that - you're not going to admit if I'm right), but the car was for sale for $2500, the shop owner purchased it for that. End of story. Nothing more needs to be said. If you would personally want more than asking price because of the situation... Then you are no better than this unethical purchasing of said vehicle for the asking price.

That's all I have to say about that.

 

[pbm]

I have no problem with how the OP handled this situation.....but the ‘Impound tow' business seems to be quite a racket....

 

[atikovi]

Here we go.

 

[jeepman3071]

The OP had the right thought in mind, but went about it in a shady way.

Here's what you should've done:

Told the woman what happened to the car, how it was an honest mistake, and that you would like to make good on it by purchasing the car from her for the full asking price. Regardless of where she was in the shop, who she distracted, etc, she is still a customer who expects to have a running car when they have the oil changed.

This would have gone over much better and likely won him points with the customer instead of all this BS. Money is not the issue here, when you left out the information it became shady. Besides what if it was not her car but someone else's and she was just bringing it in? Or if she wanted to drive it home and think about it/get documentation before doing the deal with you?

Much easier to be upfront and honest, and people have more respect for that.

 

[Sayjac]

Quote
...No one called her Mother Theresa......
No doubt, Mother Theresa she's not. To my knowledge MT never threatened to extort anyone, which the customer subject did in this case

So while she had the right to express dissatisfaction with not being told after the fact, once she made the deal at her advertised asking price she was entitled to nothing else.

From the standpoint of not knowing from the owner I 'might' have felt one pulled over on me. That said, I'd also realize I got my asking price, a deal is a deal, and not resort to an extortion threat. I might not go back or advise others to so, which would be my right. And really as far as the vehicle goes, if I wanted $2500 for the vehicle and got it, I'd have nothing to complain about.

 

[dishdude]

The customer felt like she was lied to since she wasn't told the entire story upfront. I think anyone here would have been upset had this occurred to them - even with the outcome of being paid full asking for the car. Even she was made whole and financially it couldn't have worked out better for her, there's still a dishonest factor here.

Also, you pay peanuts and you get monkeys that forget to put oil in and don't know when to keep their mouths shut.

An insurance payout would have probably been more, since it would have been for full dealer retail + sales tax and fees.

Impound towing is slimey.

Of course a buy here-pay here lot is going to be expensive, the buyers don't have credit! It's expensive to be poor.

 

[Duffyjr]

Isn't this the way the world works now, the guy that told the truth got the short end of the stick, unbelievable.

 

[ecotourist]

Originally Posted by ToadU
She is getting a written warning today, issued by the wife and "other owner" so I can have documentation.

I've headed a department with a large number of employees.

In my opinion that action is both appropriate and sufficient. If she's a good employee that's the last time this will happen. If not she'll be gone and that's okay too.

You shouldn't lose your job because you're attractive. But you might for being where you shouldn't be and interfering with others doing their job.

 

[geeman789]

Originally Posted by ToadU


A few years ago had a local lawn spray company owner call me. I used his company bc it was local like me. Not one of the big names. He calls and tells me when they sprayed my yard...and everyone else's on that's trucks route....their tech made a mistake in the mix. Told me my lawn would be dying but he had all new sod already on order and wanted to let me know he was going to replace it ASAP. I recommend this guy everywhere and let him advertise at my shop too.

The fact he called me and owned up makes me a customer for life.



So why didn't you OWN UP and tell the lady you broke her car ?

 

[caprice_2nv]

Originally Posted by Duffyjr
Isn't this the way the world works now, the guy that told the truth got the short end of the stick, unbelievable.


Sometimes you have to think about repercussions before giving out information that wasn't even asked for. It's just the same as telling someone they're fat. This kid reminds me of a guy I worked with at Goodyear, always sticking his foot in his mouth.

 

[Duffyjr]

Originally Posted by caprice_2nv
Originally Posted by Duffyjr
Isn't this the way the world works now, the guy that told the truth got the short end of the stick, unbelievable.


Sometimes you have to think about repercussions before giving out information that wasn't even asked for. It's just the same as telling someone they're fat. This kid reminds me of a guy I worked with at Goodyear, always sticking his foot in his mouth.

Your right, the kid should of kept his mouth shut because the OP should of been the one to tell her, sorry I got confused.