They’re Everywhere!

There is so much fraud out there it’s hard to blog solely about auto repair scams. A couple of my close friends have been looking for jobs and since I’ve been trying to help them, I’ve seen what people go though during a job hunt these days. There’s no way to sugarcoat it, it’s depressing and demoralizing. Not only do you send out 100′s of resumes that get no reply, let alone a phone call, but there are so many con artists out there, you just start to lose faith in the human race.

One of my friends, Liz, has been working out of my office, so I’ve been getting an up close and personal look at what is going on.
The first week Liz was looking she called me up in high spirits informing me she had been hired. Having just seen her, I questioned when she went on an interview and she said she hadn’t. Liz had been emailing back and forth with someone and he’d “hired” her this way without even meeting her. Huh?

I was rightly skeptical (well ok, I’m always skeptical) but this
particular job involved kids and I couldn’t understand who would hire someone
in this field without meeting them. When I read all the emails, there were so
many red flags I couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen them but Liz was so desperate
she had lost all good sense. Even though she had supplied her resume, this
emailer kept asking her for her personal information to be spelled out. He just thought she was perfect for the job, but “inconveniently” he was out of state and couldn’t meet her right away (oh please). He did, however, order some packages for the kids and wanted her to pay for them on their arrival. For her to complete this task he would need her checking account so he could wire her the funds to pay for it. Yeah right, I suppose he’s a wrongfully deposed Nigerian prince too.
She received a variation on this one countless times.

Then there were the series of emails that wanted her to click on some website to
fill out her personal info, either because they wanted to issue her a company credit
card or because they wanted her to fill out an employment application. All of
these hiring her via email, sight unseen.

My first instinct is to yell “who would fall for this?”.  But truth be told, Liz did. I’ve had to alert other job hunting friends to be careful and even after explaining the cons they still didn’t get how they could be “taken” and might have fallen for it as well. I guess it should be no surprise to me that there are scams in every facet of our society but it still irritates me each time I run into them.

Morale of this story: If by the 2nd email someone hasn’t made an appointment to meet with you, move on. (I’ve heard you should use same rule in online dating as well).

Good luck!

Questions: Dontgetwrenched@gmail.com

Horse of a Different Color

This story has shades of my last post. Another cautionary tale of why you need to research and choose your mechanic wisely. This story involves a 1961 Cadillac, which was minding it’s own business when a couple of my customers spotted it in the driveway of a home they went to a yard sale at. These 2 brothers thought they were very crafty when they offered the woman a pittance to haul it away for her so they could rebuild it and sell it.

At the time, these guys hadn’t met us yet and they searched online for someone who worked on classic cars. The brought it to a shop and were given an estimate and a request for $5,000 to start the job. In the 20+ years I’ve been in this business I have never, ever asked anyone for that amount of money to start a job but it did need body work as well as mechanical work, so I might be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. That is, until the shop called 2 weeks later and asked for another $5,000. Each time my customers went to the shop to hand over another check they could barely see any progress but figured the mechanic knew what he was doing. This same process went on 2 more times in which these guys handed over $18,000. Finally, the call came that the vehicle was finished and they owed a final payment of $7,000K. I’m assuming you, the reader, are as flabbergasted as I was on hearing this story. I had a million questions ; “why did you just keep handing it over?”, “did they show you where the money was being spent?”, “did you haggle over the prices at all?”. They really didn’t have a good answer, they just kept looking at each other and hung their heads.

Upon arrival that final day, they see the finished product. The body work was partially done, the engine and transmission rebuilt, a job that we could have easily done for $10,000. They weren’t thrilled with handing over another $7,000 and got into an argument. Ultimately they did though, in the form of a check which the shop owner did not want to accept, because they were just over it and wanted it to be done. They drove out, went a few blocks and the car broke down. They were beyond annoyed at this point and instead of going back to the shop they drove to an outdoor parking garage in another
part of town and left it there. They stopped payment on the check and pondered their next move.
About a week later they want back to the parking garage and the car was gone. When they questioned the lot personnel they were informed that the tow truck came to take it back to the shop. They were stupefied, this is New York City, how could the shop have known where they parked it. To this day they still don’t have an answer for that question but the shop came and took it because they had cancelled the last check. In the end the shop owner got the car running and they negotiated a smaller cash settlement.

Ultimately the car still never ran very well and it didn’t look that great either. They used it
a little to try to get some bang for their buck, but basically they wasted a huge amount
of money. Of course I had to berate them a little and they admitted they broke all my rules
for finding the right mechanic, staying on top of the situation and not using their instincts and now they’re very embarrassed by it. They brought the car to us recently to see if we knew anyone who might want to buy it. I had them post it online and I called around to see if anyone wanted it. In the end they did finally sell it…….for $6,000.
Even I couldn’t pick on them after that.

questions: dontgetwrenched@gmail.com

White Horse

This weeks crazy story involves a friend who lives just a little too far
for him to bring his car to me every time he has an issue. At least that’s what
he thought, but is now revising his misconception.

About a year ago he, Ken, drove his car down to us and we fixed a few of the
major issues he had and I gave him a list of a few other items that needed
tending to. I figured he’d eventually bring his car back to finish the job.
He found someone do to the work closer to his home and thought he was getting
a cheaper price.  “Ha!” – you say? Yeah you’re right.

The saga begins when Ken runs out of gas and a prince on a white horse
comes to his rescue and brings him some gas. After filling his car up, he informs
Ken that he’s a mechanic and does work out of his home, therefore he can
save Ken quite a bit of money. Ken decides that this is the way to go. 
Ken begins the process by giving “the prince” his car and $700 to get
the parts. Over the course of 2 weeks he gives him more and more, to
the tune of $2500.  Finally the vehicle is finished and
ready to be driven. Ken meets “the prince” in the center of their little
town where the hand off is made. Ken never gets a receipt, an address
where the work was done and best of all “the prince’s” last name. They
shake hands and Ken drives home. The next day Ken gets in the car and
doesn’t make it a mile down the road before he is broken down. He tries,
to no avail, to get “the prince” on the phone and finally tows the car to
a local garage.  The garage owner has quite the chuckle when he sees
all the spray painted parts on Ken’s car and informs him he’s been completely
ripped off.

 

Now you may all shake your heads and say, “oh, that would never happen
to me” but the best part of the story is that Ken is no country bumpkin,
he’s a New York City Lawyer (I know most of you are laughing and
thinking “good”). When I questioned Ken about why he would fall for such
an obvious scam he had no real answer. He frankly didn’t know, but knew
that he hadn’t used his own good instincts, admitted he was trying
to take the easy way out and save a few bucks.  Let’s just call it what
it is, Ken was being lazy and cheap, just what any good con is looking
for in a mark. Of course the most annoying part for me is that even if
he had gotten all that work done at my shop, it would have
been less than $2500, way less. 

Moral: Trust your instincts, if it sounds too good to be true…you know the rest.
Oh yes, and don’t be lazy.

Questions: dontgetwrenched@gmail.com

Here’s my Lifetime TV appearance!

In case you missed me on TV, here it is!

http://www.thebalancingact.com/story/?id=3670

 

 

Up and Down

I got a phone call from a friend of one of my customers this week. She had borrowed the car from my customer and the passenger side window wouldn’t go up. She brought the car in after I told her the most common repair for this issue would be a new window regulator. Without trying to get the window to go up we removed the door skin to investigate the problem. What my mechanic encountered was a perfectly good regulator with not even a broken plastic clip. At that point he tried the window switch only to discover that the window lock was engaged which would prevent the window from operating. After much discussion and a little mocking (oh we couldn’t help it) we determined that some of the heavy photo equipment she was moving around the vehicle must have engaged the window into the open position and then somehow the lock switch got engaged as well.

 

This discussion brought on another one about how many garages would have charged to change out that regulator anyway. One of my mechanics regaled us with a tale about how at a previous job he had, this exact same thing happened and the owner of that shop not only charged for one regulator but managed to convince the owner that they needed 3, with a bill of over $800. Clearly the morale of this story is to check everything you possibly can before bringing the car in for any repair and or back to my number one piece of advice, FIND A MECHANIC YOU CAN TRUST!

But certainly by now you’ve done that already, right?

Questions:dontgetwrenched@gmail.com

Walk On!

Ahhhh, another day and another dealer scam story. This one involves all that
incredibly generous 0%-2.9% interest they offer.
Last weekend one of my customers went into a dealer and found the perfect car.
They were offering 2.9% so he decided to bite. He sits down with the salesmen
and they commence with the paperwork. Now this customer of mine has a
successful business, a good credit rating and a checkbook in hand to leave a
deposit. After a few minutes he’s informed that even though he has all the right
stuff he doesn’t qualify for the rate. He can’t possibly understand who would
qualify if he can’t, so he grills them to find out why?  In the end he decided
it just wasn’t worth the 8% interest they wanted to give him so he walked.
Well wouldn’t you know it, the very next day the phone rings and lo and behold
they managed to get him approved and “would love for him to come back over
and take the car”. He tells them to “stuff it” (my favorite part of the story) and
calls another dealer.

 

So why does the dealer take this gamble you wonder?  Those interest rates
are supplied by the manufacturer not the individual dealers, so you’d think
they’d want to make a deal. The sad truth is, if they can jack up that rate
then they get to pocket most of that extra cash.
So go ahead and take that step into the dealership if you must but please
plan on walking out that door if you don’t get EVERYTHING you want.
I bet they call you right back in and give it all up. Oh and don’t forget to
write me and tell me about it, I just love that part of the story!

Questions: dontgetwrenched@gmail.com

Not Too Sunny!

Buying a new car can be a tricky experience, and I mean tricky in every sense of the word. It’s bad enough you have to check the prices from dealer to dealer to get the best deal, you also never feel like the salesmen are being honest with you. On top of that you’re not even sure what type of car you really want and figuring that out is very time consuming. Now I have more news for you that might make it even more confusing. You finally decide on that vehicle you want but you really want leather seats and a sunroof and they don’t have those in stock. The dealer informs you they can get it for you if you wait a week, so you decide to go for it, the bad news, DON’T DO IT!

Unless a vehicle comes from the factory with these options installed, the dealer will send the vehicle out to a local installer and have them put in. I had an SUV here last week with a leaky sunroof. Upon further investigation we came to find out that even though it was purchased new, the dealer had sent the vehicle out to have the sunroof installed and it was done incorrectly. According to my sunroof and upholstery technician, they installed the sunroof 1/2” off, which means that no matter what repairs we might do, it will never be right. This particular customer had previously taken it back to the dealer 3x for the leak  but the aftermarket installer that had originally installed it had gone out of business. The dealer, of course, didn’t have a clue of how to fix it and just made it worse.

 

Then there’s the issue of the leather seats. I’ve seen fairly new cars with the stitching coming loose and/or the cheapest leather and it’s wearing out. If you must, must, must have them, find a local installer to do it for you. Not only will it be a fraction of the price ($1000 vs $4000), but if something goes wrong you can go directly back to them. Point of this story is that if the extra’s aren’t installed at the factory then don’t bother. I know the idea of finding a local installer sounds overwhelming and just ridiculous to do to a new car but I promise you it’s what the dealer is doing and making a mint off you to do it. The best bet is to just do without it.

My new vehicle doesn’t have a sunroof and I thought I would miss it but I didn’t even remember that until I started to write this so I guess I’m doing just fine without it. Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking we MUST have something but really, we can get past it and still live, I promise you, I’m still alive and well.

 Questions: dontgetwrenched@gmail.com