Ford India's Exclusive Mega May Miffer..errr. offer

[anachronix]

Posting here on behalf of my friend about his delivery woes with Ford India for a brand new Ford Fiesta, yep Ford India and its not a Ford dealer!

Need your thoughts on how we proceed here folks!

This is my painful experience of booking Ford Fiesta through employee scheme.
I took the bait of the Mega may Offer (Read it as Miffer) introduced by Ford, exclusively for its employees and their extended families.
I unfortunately happened to be a Ford employee's brother.

It was 5.5 lac on road for Ford Fiesta EXI 1.4 DuraTec Petro (Yes, its not a typo. This is the model that they had withdrawn sometime back) upgraded with some ZXI features.It was inviting, though I had no interest in Petrol. Thats the beginning of my woes.

Having made full payment two months back; having made countless calls to the dealer and Ford HR; having sent reminder mails repeatedly has left me battered and bruised.Over last two months, delivery date had been committed so many times, with the only objective of missing it yet another time. I have had unpleasant memories of passing the same lame excuses to the financier.
I had taken the loan from a public sector bank and not through the dealer. (I will save that woeful story for another day)

Am absolutely annoyed by the audacity of the Ford Team. After I had booked, I got reminder after reminder for the payment.
But once its done, they just dont seem to respond. My mails are directed to some abyss from where they apparently can't retrieve it.
If I ever meet those people (Thakur, Gaurav (T.); Rajaram, K (.) ), I would like to ask, if they realise they are working in a service Industry.
More importantly they seem to be unaware that they are in Auto-Industry which has still not limped back to normalcy.

Unless the Ford Team, have a wonderful plan of sending their employees out by making them feel like insects, I fail to rationalise their action.
I pity my brother who has been serving Ford proudly for close to 10 years and he wears the Ford logo not just in his sleeves, but in his heart. Now he had to suffer the ignominy for having referred me into this.

After having felt like not taking Ford Fiesta even if its given to me for free,
I advice you people to think multiple times before going for such schemes.

I wish I could see where Ford Stands in the Employee Satisfaction survey.

Cheers,

Krishna Prasad

[deepakchiniwal]

Looks like they are running short of the EXI models after they launched the offer.

If you brother works there still, its better you get the email ID's of concerned and shoot emails.

5.5 is a steal I guess.

May be wait for a week or so and ask them to cancel and pay your money back with interest. Also ask them to give in writing about their inability to deliver the vehicle.

[GTO]

Unfortunate situation! Clearly Ford has bitten off more than it could chew. The question is : If the close relative of a Ford employee finds himself deserted after full payment, what's to say of a layman customer?

WAKE UP, Ford.

Recommendation : Send one simple legal notice to the dealer and CC it to Ford. Usually works wonders. After all, they haven't yet delivered the goods that they have accepted full payment for.

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by GTO

Recommendation : Send one simple legal notice to the dealer and CC it to Ford. Usually works wonders. After all, they haven't yet delivered the goods that they have accepted full payment for.

For all you know, the employee must be their last concern. So he would have to wait till there are leftover stocks to get his discounted car.

[cargirl]

Hi,
What has worked with me is sending emails to the top person/s in the organisation, such as CEO, Country Head, Chairman, MD etc. Use strong language, make it kinda emotional, but nothing abusive and no threat of legal action.

It's simple to get the email address- since his brother works there.

This has worked with me with two companies earlier (not auto companies).

[quickdraw]

Incidentally if I remember correctly Ford came out tops in the J.D. Power survey, but lets leave that for another day.

My honest advice for your friend would be to obviously ask his brother to help him out with this and find out where the problem is happening, its usually the dealers who try as much as they can to bottleneck customers who they arnt going to earn anything on. Maybe he is just delivering all his stock cars to other customers.

[funkydude]

Hey anachronix!! Sorry to hear of such an incident with Ford.

I own a all new Ford Ikon diesel and had teething issues. Dealers were absolutely helpless and not even friendly. Searched a lot to get out of the mess and found a link and email address.

Trust me, shoot one email to this address and you will get a call back from the team within 24-48hours. Well! worked for me.

Everytime I had any issues with my car, wrote an email and within 48hours I would get a call back with the GM (Services) for the showroom, in conference.

Hope this helps you get out of the dilemma and you get your car ASAP.

Below is the link:

Ford - Service Pledge

[devarshi84]

Just take the route of a normal customer and email FORD India. Dont tell them who or what you are. Keep updates regularly for 3 weeks. At the end of the 3rd week send Ford India a legal notice along with the dealer.

Ford Fiesta is not a car that's produced on order and is available off the shelf most of the time. Ford India must wake up.

[Mission_Safari]

Originally Posted by devarshi84

Ford Fiesta is not a car that's produced on order and is available off the shelf most of the time. Ford India must wake up.

The trouble here is the model that was offered to the employees is phased out now (AFAIK) . So i am not sure how this situation is going to be handled in ford if they had ran out of stock of the old model.

[devarshi84]

It's the lookout of the company. If they have stopped producing the same model, they should offer another equivalent model after paying more price or refunding some money.

Doesnt this happen all the time at the dealers?

[greenh0rn]

Originally Posted by cargirl

Hi,
What has worked with me is sending emails to the top person/s in the organisation, such as CEO, Country Head, Chairman, MD etc. Use strong language, make it kinda emotional, but nothing abusive and no threat of legal action.

It's simple to get the email address- since his brother works there.

This has worked with me with two companies earlier (not auto companies).

^ +1. Precisely this method helped me sort out my credit card mess with a big private sector bank (Hum Hain na), which had lingered on for almost 1.5 years. One email to the top boss and everything got sorted in 4 days flat! Really I couldn't believe my eyes and ears, and felt foolish later why I hadn't thought of sending this email earlier.

[MaserQ]

Any updates on your friend's situation anachronix? Three months have passed since the May offer. If your friend has received any further correspondence from Ford India, please do post it here.

Sad state of affairs. If Ford treat employees in such a manner, one can imagine the response a customer would get. Your friend should forget his brother's commitment to the company and take them to task.

[anachronix]

Till this moment there has been no progress from Ford. His calling/mailing Ford people is still going on!

[musicmanaman]

Very bad on Ford India's part to not deliver a car after receving payment for the same, that too from an employee's relative. I hope Ford India get's their act together soon, and this particular issue is resolved.

[greenhorn]

I dont think how a co treats its customers will bear a direct relation with how it treats its employees.

Not too sure of initiating legal action against your CEO/Company would be a good idea if you wish to stay employed...