[joshuakeys]

Hello BHpians

I was planning to book it from last 3 weeks, I started off venturing in Detroit ECIL, never knew that I am getting in to such a horrible trouble.

Here it goes like this

Initially me & my brother thought to go for a 2nd hand safari, but the prices were too high, mileage was ranging between 70k to 80k, and my Father was against 2nd hand Diesel cars.

that's when we decided to go for a new one. 1st went to Detroit ECIL, the sales guy Narsimha, welcomed us, "which car are you looking for?" I said Safari, He gave us the details of both Safari LX & VX , I asked him to give few days time ,may be a week, the next morning i get a call from him, "Sir we have an offer, The insurance is free & its valid only for this month" , I said let me decide on LX or VX & get back to you, so give me few days time, he said fine, Mean while i wanted to explore other showrooms.

The next day i went to Malik Motors(Hymyatnagar/basheerbag), got the quotation, asked him about the accessories , he said only mud flaps & matting. Asked about the bumper guard, sales guy Rehman was kind & courteous, may be he is new joiner waiting for sale, said he will try his best to get the best deal in the market and gave his quotation which was fair enough.

there was a huge gap of 40k between Detroit & malik Motors. So thought to check other showrooms as well, Our next option was Concorde motors , sales man Anvesh welcomed us, asked about the salary that i draw, Suddenly he started to pitch in for Tata ARIA, after listing to his bull crap about aria, told him that i can afford only safari, asked him to give his quotation, to my surprise he is asking me to book the car 1st & after that he will get me the best quotation in the market, thought this place is of no use & left the place.

Directly went back to Detroit told him about the offers that i got, he told me that he will give me 6k less that what mallik is offering me, I was ok with it & thought its the best price & immediately booked the Safari by paying 50k, got the payment slip & left the place, next day loan processing was done, I was called back & was asked to pay the rest of the down payment which i did, while paying this the TL (khaleel)of the sales guy (narsimha) took over & was asking about my existing cars, told him how many i have, he was asking which car is on my name, told him this & i was thinking that he was worried about the tax that i have to pay, suddenly he asked for a copy of my existing cars RC, I asked him for the reason, he said he can get further discount of another 5k by doing this, i was fine with it & gave him a copy of it.

after a week i get a call that the vehicle has arrived. I was happy & went for the deliver with the camera & sweet box, It was around 8pm, Narasimha the sales guy says the vehicle is ready & you can take it home, when asked about the documents he said it will be given next day, i asked him about the insurance should be given before the vehicle is delivered, He said everything will be one in a day or 2, I asked him what should i do with the vehicle without any documents, he insisted me to take it home, i felt he is rushing, took the car & did a long test ride, the vehicle was rocking, no problem with the vehicle.

Next day i call him & ask about the documents, he says it will take few more days, I asked him how many days, he said couple of days more. I felt something is fishy. Took the vehicle back to the show room & told him that i will take the delivery only after i get the complete documentation, i.e Insurance, TR, & invoice.

it was prolonging day by day, now I have become restless & thought that i have done a mistake booking at detroit.

One fine saturday i get a call from mallik motors tell ing me that will be given huge discount close to 40k. I immediately went to mallik Motors to check what they are offering. Met Sales guy rehaman, he took me to his manager Sridhar Reddy, He was kind enough to give the quotation again, now with a great discount of straight 40k. I was zapped, puzzled.

Then i realised why Mr. Khallel from Detroit wanted my Other car's RC copy. Actually there is an exchange bonus is going on with Tata, If exchange you get 40k discount & the market price of the car. What these guys say is that they need only RC copy, so that they can manipulate saying that the car has been exchanged & availed 40k discount.

I immediately called Mr. Khaleel & asked about the scam, now he is zapped & Puzzled, he asked me to come to showroom, I directly went to meet the MD of Detroit, his name is Mr. Sharma, but Mr.Khaleel begged me to talk to him first, I asked him whats going on, he told me nothing is wrong, i told him that he is cheating me & have shown him the quotation with the RC discount. His hands & legs started shivering, he was unable to talk or do the calculations, I asked him to give the same deal & price that i am getting from the mallik cars, else cancel the vehicle, he have the same price what malik cars gave me & he promised me the refund of 35k, i asked him to give in writing, he accepted & gave me in writing that cheque of 35k will be refunded with invoice, I asked him to sign it & give, which he accepted, after that i asked him to put the company stamp on it, which he did, I asked for his MD's attestation, for which he was almost in to tears & was about to fall on my feet, he was unlucky MD just stepped in, I asked him for his signature & the seal. For which he said "sir you are insulting me in front of my employees" I told him if u are ashamed of giving your autograph here, lets go out & get the autograph session done.

By this time he is already mad at Kaleel & Narasimha. These guys literally go weak on knees when ever they see me. In fact they go weak every where after seeing me. I have never been so aggressive before.

This is what Happened when i went to book safari. Once i get the Vehicle delivered, i will never take it to Detroit. Though its very close to the place i live.

Safari Guys let me know which is best TASS in Hyderabad for service.


Cheers
Joshua Keys

[carwatcher]

I think this drama of exchange bonus is played by most of the Tata dealerships. We even have a thread discussing exchange bonus as a marketing gimmick by Tata. Even I had witnessed the same first hand.

IMHO Tata Motors to be blamed for the same. Take the case of Aria, Linea T-Jet, etc. where they are offering 1 Lac or more as exchange bonus and we have many BHPians mentioning that without negotiation they were being offered exchange bonus, so it is just a gimmick to push the car. Are Tata not aware that a person can very well buy a used 800 or Daewoo car worth 10-15K and get exchange bonus of 1 Lac. Any customer would like to do that rather than forego 1 Lac bonus or some customers would then request/demand dealership to pass this bonus without exchange or they will cancel their booking so the dealership is kind of forced to do these kind of dealings.

In few cases, the dealership tries to take advantage of such offers from unaware and unsuspecting customers. I would ask again that who would like to forego such a decent amount.

The problem starts where Tata (like most of the manufacturers) values the car brought for exchange abysmally low and the customer is not ready to accept such price or the customer has no car to exchange.

Rather than improving their customer service and quality of their cars, they are more interested in making their customer's purchase experience horrible to say the least. Tata Motors is fooling no one other than themselves by such practice of exchange bonus.

I see the advantage of exchange bonus compared to price reduction is that exchange bonus is temporary and price reduction is kind of permanent. But had it really really benefit the Tata as well as dealerships and customers, I am not very sure.

[noopster]

Joshua,

That is indeed a horrible experience. Good for you that you were alert enough to spot it in time. So let me get this straight- the SR was ripping you and Tata off 35K on exchange bonus? That is indeed shameful.

My opinion is that dealer discounts need to be standard across the board and should be controlled by the manufacturer. Else it leaves the door open for corruption of this kind. Nobody beneifts- neither the customer nor the company, just a few greedy unscrupulous elements.

An exchange bonus of 40K is substantial and the dealer and/or his employees were all set to make a killing. I think the right thing to do is report this fraud to the company directly once you have closed your transaction with Detroit Tata.

[joshuakeys]

Originally Posted by noopster

I think the right thing to do is report this fraud to the company directly once you have closed your transaction with Detroit Tata.

let me close on my deal. I will defiantly report it to the higher principles.

Note from Team-BHP Support: Please do not quote a post in its entirety- it makes it inconvenient for our small-screen and mobile users.

[Lukeskywalker]

IMHO Tata Motors to be blamed for the same. Take the case of Aria, Linea T-Jet, etc. where they are offering 1 Lac or more as exchange bonus and we have many BHPians mentioning that without negotiation they were being offered exchange bonus, so it is just a gimmick to push the car. Are Tata not aware that a person can very well buy a used 800 or Daewoo car worth 10-15K and get exchange bonus of 1 Lac. Any customer would like to do that rather than forego 1 Lac bonus or some customers would then request/demand dealership to pass this bonus without exchange or they will cancel their booking so the dealership is kind of forced to do these kind of dealings.

Why is Tata Motors to be blamed? Any car manufacturer is in the business of selling cars, so what's the harm in them trying to push for a sale? By offering a bigger discount does not mean that they are employing unethical means.
As for buying a cheap car from the junkyard to avail the benefit, it won't work, simply because that is one of the reasons they ask for proof of ownership and they usually have a clause which states that a vehicle must be owned by the person for a reasonable period.
As for the old car evaluation, most car dealerships use the services of a valuator who values the car based on an accepted scale.
And the "drama" of exchange bonus you say is played by only Tata dealers is not true, most car manufacturers have the scheme.

If dealers use unfair means to sell, we should not blame the principals without justification, there are always black sheep in the industry who tarnish the image of the entire fraternity.

[mayankjha1806]

I can understand you feel cheated of ~40K but i wouldn't call it ripping you off. He gave you a quote and stuck by that quote and delivered the car with that price. If that price was not the best in the market then its your research that was probably incomplete and not the dealer.

Also there are lot of loop holes when it comes to exchange discount. Some dealers fudge documents to show it was an existing Tata customer buying another car, some others fudge it to show there was a exchange. It varies from dealer to dealer.

[joshuakeys]

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

I can understand you feel cheated of ~40K but i wouldn't call it ripping you off. He gave you a quote and stuck by that quote and delivered the car with that price. If that price was not the best in the market then its your research that was probably incomplete and not the dealer.

Also there are lot of loop holes when it comes to exchange discount. Some dealers fudge documents to show it was an existing Tata customer buying another car, some others fudge it to show there was a exchange. It varies from dealer to dealer.

Mayank If you say that they did not cheat on me then why did he take my RC copy? Mr. Kaleel wanted to bag that exchange price in to his pocket. Had it not been the same case, he would have given me the offer like the other Dealer has offered me.

More over he has given me a different version of payment slip for 40K, when questioned he said, CPU acting weird so has to give this slip.

I am not blaming TATA Motors, I am Blaming Detroit motors(the dealer), which i had to & should do it.

[noopster]

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

I can understand you feel cheated of ~40K but i wouldn't call it ripping you off. He gave you a quote and stuck by that quote and delivered the car with that price. If that price was not the best in the market then its your research that was probably incomplete and not the dealer.

Loopholes apart, at least from my understanding this is what happened in this case:
- Dealer promises customer an additional discount, gets documents from customer to that effect.
- Dealer files an exchange bonus claim for 40,000 with Tata Motors
- Dealer passes on 5,000 to customer (who is happy thinking he got additional discount), pockets 35,000

Frankly I have no problem with it except for the part in bold. I have worked in FMCG sales and seen how many retailers and even distributors/salespersons misuse schemes and offers. My opinion is that when a company funds a scheme/offer for an end-customer, the idea is that the company benefits from extra sales and the end-user from the additional benefit. The channel partner's role is to facilitate this and pass on the benefit. Obviously he makes money through the additional sales generated. The goodwill generated with the end-customer should also not be underestimated (e.g. future sales potential).

So when the channel partner tries to home in on the action, that too in what seems to be a disingenuous manner, I get very suspicious. In this case the SR's behaviour (crying, falling at Joshua's feet etc.) make it even more odd. I think there is some foul play afoot and Tata Motors senior officials need to be made aware of this.

[joshuakeys]

Originally Posted by noopster

Loopholes apart, at least from my understanding this is what happened in this case:
- Dealer promises customer an additional discount, gets documents from customer to that effect.
- Dealer files an exchange bonus claim for 40,000 with Tata Motors
- Dealer passes on 5,000 to customer (who is happy thinking he got additional discount), pockets 35,000

Frankly I have no problem with it except for the part in bold. I have worked in FMCG sales and seen how many retailers and even distributors/salespersons misuse schemes and offers. My opinion is that when a company funds a scheme/offer for an end-customer, the idea is that the company benefits from extra sales and the end-user from the additional benefit. The channel partner's role is to facilitate this and pass on the benefit. Obviously he makes money through the additional sales generated. The goodwill generated with the end-customer should also not be underestimated (e.g. future sales potential).

So when the channel partner tries to home in on the action, that too in what seems to be a disingenuous manner, I get very suspicious. In this case the SR's behaviour (crying, falling at Joshua's feet etc.) make it even more odd. I think there is some foul play afoot and Tata Motors senior officials need to be made aware of this.

I totally agree with Noopster. I got the vehicle delivered today with all the documents .

people now you guys tell me if i should escalate this matter or just leave it??

[noopster]

^^ Did you get your refund? I would suggest holding out on any action till they process that.

The choice is yours- either you can presume that they have learned their lesson and will not pull this stunt with other customers (somehow I doubt that) or let Tata officials know what is going on so that it doesn't happen in future.

[hyd_traveller]

Originally Posted by joshuakeys

This is what Happened when i went to book safari. Once i get the Vehicle delivered, i will never take it to Detroit. Though its very close to the place i live.

Safari Guys let me know which is best TASS in Hyderabad for service.

Though not a Safari owner, I find "Malik Cars" to be very good in Hyderabad and get my car serviced with them.

[joshuakeys]

Thanks hyd_Traveller, Most of them suggested me what u did. will stick to malik cars

noopster I have taken all the documents & also got the refund, I don't know for some reason i was expecting Cheque, But they gave me cash. Gave a thought & will wait for few more days.

Forgot to mention, Today another aria customer had a similar issue, i was just watching the show, the problem is he got the vehicle , documents, discounts as they promised, but the invoice that he got is showing 1.2lac less, Loan was processed, insurance & TR was also done, even i couldn't, understand why they want to show 1.2lac less & the customer paid 1.2 lacs more, and that was the problem with the customer.

Anybody any suggestions on why the showroom guys printed 1.2 lacs less in the invoice? The were reluctant to change it & they also told the customer that they cannot even cancel the vehicle now.

what could have they done? Faulty piece? its not a TD car also.

[Lukeskywalker]

Anybody any suggestions on why the showroom guys printed 1.2 lacs less in the invoice? The were reluctant to change it & they also told the customer that they cannot even cancel the vehicle now.

What was the reason given by the dealer about under invoicing? Usually, if the manufacturer is giving a discount (exchange/loyalty) the amount is refunded by cheque sometime after the vehicle has been delivered, this is usually informed by the dealer, this is to simply prevent the kind of misuse by unscrupulous individuals like it happened to you.

[joshuakeys]

Originally Posted by Lukeskywalker

What was the reason given by the dealer about under invoicing? Usually, if the manufacturer is giving a discount (exchange/loyalty) the amount is refunded by cheque sometime after the vehicle has been delivered, this is usually informed by the dealer, this is to simply prevent the kind of misuse by unscrupulous individuals like it happened to you.

The customer is happy for what he has got but after looking at the invoice he was unhappy.

For example, the customer brought the car with discounts for say 10lacs, he was fine with it & that was after discount. But in invoice it is showing as 8.8lacs, the customers concern was what about the extra money which is not reflecting?

That might be another trading technique or some kind of fraud, poor fellow was very much disappointed.

now any Idea, Any clue as to what were they trying to do?

[carwatcher]

I repeat again that Tata Motors to be blamed for this.
If one assumes they are not aware of the practices prevailing at the dealer, he or she is fooling oneself.

A car can be bought from a junkyard, transferred in own's name by spending 500-2000 Rupees and then can be used for exchange bonus, one can confirm this beforehand. I think its quite legitimate in the same way as tax planning one does to save income tax. One can also sell the car to dealership and buyback in one's spouse's or another family member's name at the agreed price after completing all the formalities as Tata buys cars to resell them and I strongly say nothing illegal in that. The one drawback of this is that the no. of owner's in your car increase and it surely affects the resale value. I have even heard cases where the dealer's staff directly buys the car at very low price and its staff then resell the car to the dealership at the fair price and pocket the difference.

But again I ask why one need to go through all this when Tata Motors genuinely tries to pass-on the benefit to the customer by way of exchange bonus and the customer doesn't have a car or doesn't want to accept the valuation which is abysmally low even after adding up the exchange bonus value.

I personally feel that firstly, its the value of exchange bonus that makes it lucrative and secondly, valuation of cars at very low price make people workaround the system. I mean you don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that from where that 1Lac would come from. But the problem starts when the valuation+Exchange bonus is still very very low.

There is corporate bonus also given by few manufacturers if someone works in certain companies. I found that bonus really funny. But as the amount is small (5K to 10K) most of the customers tend to ignore it, but if someone is really keen I am more than 100% sure, the dealers can also help you workaround with that. IIRC all you need a visiting card from that company.

IMHO if someone likes to buy Aria which is available with 1 Lac Exchange bonus and prefers to forego the exchange bonus as he/she is not having an exchange vehicle, I feel the chances of him/her doing so due to ignorance/laziness are more rather than being honest or ethical. No offense meant as I have used the word 'chances'.

One more interesting point to note that generally the higher exchange bonus is offered for cars that are sales dud. In those cases, the customer anyway expects the best deal as he/she generally knows how desperate the company is in pushing the sale. I am saying this after going through numerous posts on T-BHP.

To all who think Tata Motors (and other manufacturers) are not aware or not reading this thread, let me assure you 110% this thread must be keenly followed by TML (and other manufacturers) by now.

Originally Posted by Lukeskywalker

Why is Tata Motors to be blamed? Any car manufacturer is in the business of selling cars, so what's the harm in them trying to push for a sale? By offering a bigger discount does not mean that they are employing unethical means.