[svsantosh]

Spam+Scam - Scpam!

I was bombarded by the Hosur Renault showroom saying the insurance must be renewed only via their authorized agent conveniently sitting inside the showroom. Never took them seriously and went ahead with policy bazar/online.

The spam issue is outside home country as well. During Oct23-Jan24 when I was sure of getting a Dubai driving license I had made a few enquiries. Few kept calling me a few times a month then it died out.

One particular Desi chap, Enthu-cutlet, kept calling me every few days, weekends, 'sir did you get license, did you get license, when is your next test, have you saved enough for the next test' - this was Gajab-Beijati (emotional damage). First of all the tension of clearing the test, next thing is to tell you failed to this dude. I was more scared to tell this dude than my wife and kids back home.

Well, he was giving a 100% on-road funding @ 0.99% P.a car loan with a huge cash discount; So did not want to block him out.

[Mitadru]

I don't know if it's spam or not, but here are my experiences.
Back in 2015, our Santro had suffered a massive accident, causing the bill to almost touch the IDV. On knowing this, the people from Hyundai service centre started calling up my father , literally pestering him to exchange the car, and upgrade to Hyundai Grand i10, citing better safety,and attractive pricing. My father had repeatedly told them he was not interested, but still they were adamant. Ultimately father stopped receiving the calls. Being a doctor by profession ,he knows which calls to ignore, so that was a boon. After those incidents, my father stopped giving the car to the SVC, and it is in the hands of a very knowledgeable and capable roadside mechanic.This mechanic has greater knowledge about cars , than the SVC guys ever had.. Five years down the line, we are still messaged by the Hyundai service centre every 6months for our service being due.

Also today I received a call from a guy of VW, saying that I had raised an enquiry regarding their Virtus. They told that they have some attractive discount on MY23 stocks. I politely said that I had raised the enquiry almost a year ago. He acknowledged it, and said that if I was looking for a car I could contact him. I told him that my father has taken the delivery of a Slavia,this January. He was disappointed,and disconnected the call. Now my question is, what were they doing throughout the year? Why did they suddenly remember me? It's just a way to push their sales, which seems to be tanking at the moment.

Plus every 2 months or so, I get a call from the SKODA guys, asking me how my experience with them for car service was . I had called their national helpline number, and had firmly said that we own a different vehicle, and the particular vehicle they were talking about, weren't ever delivered to us. But still every 6 months I recieve a call, and every time I politely state that the vehicle doesn't belong to us . But it doesn't seem to register in their brain, and they continue calling. The only solution currently is to block their numbers, so that they can't disturb us.

[furyrider]

My experience with Hyundai / Kia has been the same. I would rate Kia 10/10 in terms of the sheer number of "reminders" I receive while Hyundai 5/10.

Hyundai: I owned a Grand i10 between 2018-2022. I still get calls / WhatsApp messages asking to renew insurance or to get the service done. On one particular occasion, the dealer representative asked me to share the details of the guy who purchased the vehicle. I told her it was exchanged with a dealer and have no idea who purchased it. She had the audacity to ask me to get the details from the Kia dealer.

Kia: My local dealers would give Bajaj Finance a run for their money in terms of spamming me. I get either a WhatsApp message or call at least once a week from the 3 dealers my vehicle had been to so far. The dealer I purchased the vehicle from (let us call them D1) had a service centre 25 Km from where I live. Since this was the only available ASC at that time, I got the first service and a software upgrade as part of a recall done by them. Since a new ASC (D2) opened just 4 Km from where I live, I started visiting them for periodic service. There is another dealer in my native place (D3, another state) which I visited for some minor running repairs and a recall.
D1: still stuck at 7K Km on my ODO. They still call me asking to get the 10K Km service done. I lost count of how many times I've informed them that the car has covered 3 times as much and the service they are talking about was done 2 years ago. I tried informing them that it simply is not feasible for me to travel that far just for service. They insist on sending their driver for pick-up and drop. During my last visit (back in 2022), they brought an iPad and asked me to login to google and provide them a rating. Apparently, privacy is a joke for them, I guess!
D2: Although not as agressive as D1, I still get at least 10 calls after each service / visit. They keep asking me the same questions again and again.
D3: They try to woo me to get the vehicle serviced with them. I frequently travel between my current location and my native place. It depends on where the vehicle hits its milestone for service. On one instance, the SA kept calling me asking me to either forward the link to the survey I've received or the screenshot of the rating I've provided.

My vehicle is due for 30K service in around 700 Km. While the ODO was at 28.5K, I've visited D3 to get the plastic cladding on the left rear quarter panel replaced thanks to a careless biker. I was in and out of the body shop in may be 30 min. Looks like this visit has started ringing alarm bells for D2. They now call me daily asking for ODO reading and to bring the vehicle in since the service is 'Overdue'. D3 on the other hand calls me almost daily asking for ODO reading, messaging me with the numbers to book service appointment. Since I have to travel back to my work location, I will end up giving the vehicle for service at D2. However, looks like D2 and D3 are currently trying their best to retain the customer. I on the other hand am being spammed with service reminders daily for the last week or so both by ASCs and the vehicle itself

[cka]

A simple trick which I use is telling that I have sold the car. They ask for new buyer number and I tell that have sold to aggregator like olx, cars24 and they stop calling.

[potential_tuner]

Originally Posted by sharmanova

Also my dad had reminded them not to apply that 'sticky polish' on the car, but still they applied those on the dashboard and door trims.

That is the problem we faced when we took our Brezza 2023, went for the 2nd free service at Goyal Motors, Tara Devi Shimla. Was away from the detailing bay for one second and these guys despite saying no for that wax/polish, especially in the interior, applied it. Problem is that they are using the same cheap cloth / sponge to apply it on the the engine bay, the plastics outside and even the leather seats inside! And ofcourse, the same cloth is used for other muddy cars as well.

Fun fact is that they were not doing any pressure washing, just a dirty damp cloth
Got feedback calls and gave good actual feedback to them.

[It's Magic]

Isn't this normal these days for all manufacturers? I too receive multiple calls for both my car and bike as the service interval approaches. They want to know how many kilometres I have driven, when I will be sending my vehicle for servicing, and how important it is to service on time to avoid warranty issues, etc.

Once the servicing is done, they will call you for a 10 rating. Initially, I had a long discussion about how an 8 could be unacceptable or a 9 could be just fine. But I soon realized they are not going to change, so I just listen to them and ignore it. After servicing, I get a call from the service center demanding a 10 rating and requesting to give a 10 rating if I receive any call from the manufacturer.

I guess the rating you give when the manufacturer calls matters, while the rating you give for the service center call doesn't hold much value.

[dhanushs]

100% I'm getting spammed. And to add to it, I have had to service my cars in multiple service centers and now I keep getting calls from all of them.

It's a royal pain! How much ever I ask them to delete my number, I still keep getting them. I get calls from:
Tata (2 showrooms)
Ford: (4 showrooms)
VW (4 showrooms)
Toyota (1 Showroom)

Strangely enough, I've owned a Fiat and used to religiously maintain it from the showroom. I'm thankful that they are/were bad at even following it up with me..

[rajeevsulu]

Royal Enfield is horrible in this regard.The lady who keeps calling me does not even know the service intervals.I have resorted to blocking the numbers.

Mahindra does not harass too much.They just send a WhatsApp message.

Truecaller is a boon in this regard.

Cheers

[ScorpioAddict]

This practice of spamming is not limited to car brands only. Guess what, world's largest 2 wheeler seller Hero MotoCorp is also on the same page.

In 2022 I had bought a Hero Splendor for daily needs of family and house staff from Himgiri Hero showroom. As the first service was about to due I started getting daily calls and sms for booking service and for reviews after service is done.

Even worse is that the showroom Himgiri Hero has many different sub branches/partnered showroom (mine was also), so they all have my number across their database.

Now I receives multiple calls from multiple Himgiri Hero of different areas as soon as a service is about to get due and bunch of sms when there is some new offer/discount on service.

[nishsingh]

I have worked out a simple 3 word response to these spam callers from service centers, and believe me the spam calls have now reduced to near zero.

The magic words are "Car is sold"

[TorquePull]

Originally Posted by nishsingh

The magic words are "Car is sold"

This didn’t work for us with Tata Indica. Even after 6-7 years of selling the car, we were getting calls from Tata for insurance renewal and service reminder once in a while. It was weird because there was no such calls for Vista, which was the car we replaced Indica with.

[IC_Morningstar]

This happens with our Baleno and Swift as well. The Swift was bought from a showroom in Kolkata and they start calling us about an upcoming service a couple of months in advance. During service, they then try to add unnecessary items to inflate the bill by giving all kinds of baseless reasons. Once, they applied anti-rust coat without my permission, citing that the underbody is catching rust. For a year old car, I was sure nothing as such was happening.

But it is totally the opposite with Honda. My City was purchased in Ranchi and here the ASS calls a week before service is due and then forgets to call again. Even during service, they don't add any useless add-on, and neither do they try to convince me for one.

At the end of the day, the service cost for the City, which costs almost twice as the Swift, is almost half the service cost for the Swift.

[binand]

My current cars are Ford (PPS, Bangalore) and VW (Apple, Bangalore). I get ZERO spam calls/emails/messages from them. In a year I get on average three calls per car: one each for service reminder, EW renewal reminder and insurance renewal reminder (this I don't do through the dealer so can be classified as spam I suppose).

My previous cars were Honda (Sundaram, Chennai) and Hyundai (Modi, Mumbai). Both are inveterate spammers. I get calls/messages from Sundaram even today peddling stuff - despite having sold the car 6 years ago and its 15-year registration period having expired 2 years ago. As far as Hyundai is concerned - I get spam calls also from V3 in Chennai (purchase of a branded body cover) and KVR in Calicut (replacement of wiper blades). Evil.

Originally Posted by cka

A simple trick which I use is telling that I have sold the car.

Hasn't worked for me (Sundaram Honda).

[RollinWheels]

I can empathize with this. I used to own a i20 which I sold after getting the Kushaq but the Hyundai dealers like VTJ, Popular are still calling me reminding about the service. I thought after informing them that I sold the vehicle, they will stop calling but now they are calling me for the contact information of the person whom I sold the vehicle to! It's extremely infuriating to get these calls every now and then.

[drive.helios]

I haven't yet experienced this with the PPS VW in Bangalore. In fact I proactively book my service month in advance when possible. The same goes for KVR Tata in Kannur where we service our family car. The only vehicle related spam I get is for insurance and mostly TATA AIG. I report them using the TRAI DND App and 3 repeated offenses that get reported for one number will result in disconnection. I would have got atleast 5 of these spam numbers disconnected so far.