[ambarkhan]

Ever since I have bought Thar last year, I started receiving sales calls that are related to my purchase.
The first call, as I remember, was from Club Mahindra's local sales team, which I ignored considering it a cross-selling attempt as both companies carry the same name Mahindra.

After a couple of months, I started getting calls regarding RSA cards, which costs similar to buying RSA for the second year from Mahindra. The callers have all the details like my father's name, address, the month of purchase.
The trick they used to sell RSA was it is a free rasa and just membership card cost you 3500. Considering it as a scheme to upsell from the dealership, I just ignored it.


After service last week again I got the same call and I asked if they were from Mahindra or some 3rd party; they confirmed they are an independent service provider.

Recently saw on a FB group someone posted a similar experience. When we discussed in MPs that owners' group, many people shared the same experience. Previously, I used to think someone from my dealership has sold the data for some quick cash.
When discussed with Fellow BHPian Rajiv0909 he also said he had received similar calls. Me and Rajiv both have Thar's purchased from different dealers in different states. Which Raised a lot of concerns.


At the time of a new vehicle purchase, we give a copy of sensitive documents like PAN card, Adhar card, bank statements in case you are financing through dealers. Do manufacturers have any guidelines for the dealers to handle these documents? Is there any law to prevent this? I have signed no privacy policy agreement with the dealership; in no way I have allowed them to sell my confidential information.


As they leak the same sensitive data from multiple dealers which are not related, this raises a few questions?

1. Is Mahindra directly selling customers' sensitive data? I hope not.
2. Is there some data leak from Mahindra which is not detected/ not reported?
3. Is there some nexus operating that gets customers' sensitive data from all dealerships and aggregates them?
4. Is this problem prevalent across the brands? If yes, what we can do?

Disclaimer: My experience is just limited to Mahindra hence, the title contains Mahindra.
Few Screen Shots.

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the dealerships section. Thanks for sharing!

Related Thread (Beware of RSA scam calls)

They are 100% selling customer data, but sadly, it's not a new practice. I remember years ago when I was in the education abroad business, there were vendors selling reliable data of premium car owners for peanuts. IIRC, it was like 5 - 10 grand for a long list of Audi, BMW & Mercedes owners from Bombay. All sourced from inside dealerships.

[Shreyans_Jain]

All dealerships are guilty of selling customer data at some level or the other. Hard fact of the country is that only the top 10% or so of the population owns cars. Which means we car owners are the primary drivers of consumption in the market, especially the non essentials. That makes us prime targets for any and every kind of advertising. So, where do you get bulk data of car owners? From dealerships as well as from insurance providers.

[AutoNoob]

Originally Posted by ambarkhan

1. Is Mahindra directly selling customers' sensitive data? I hope not.
2. Is there some data leak from Mahindra which is not detected/ not reported?
3. Is there some nexus operating that gets customers' sensitive data from all dealerships and aggregates them?
4. Is this problem prevalent across the brands? If yes, what we can do?

Answer to last three questions is definitely yes. This is true for almost all the OEMs, saying from experience of self, family and friends.

Originally Posted by GTO

They are 100% selling customer data, but sadly, it's not a new practice. I remember years ago when I was in the education abroad business, there were vendors selling reliable data of premium car owners for peanuts. IIRC, it was like 5 - 10 grand for a long list of Audi, BMW & Mercedes owners from Bombay. All sourced from inside dealerships.

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

All dealerships are guilty of selling customer data at some level or the other... So, where do you get bulk data of car owners? From dealerships as well as from insurance providers.

As far as any OEM officially selling data, this is done in guise of fine print embedded deep in vehicle documentation. It's usually Yes/ No check box, accompanying text says something like "You agree to receive marketing promotion calls/ messages/ emails etc. from OEM and its business associates.

What I have noticed that most of these forms are filled by showroom staff and the buyer just signs at the bottom after checking name, contact details etc. This way the OEM is 'authorized' by buyer to sell their data. It's not informed consent, but then who has time to drag OEMs to invalidate such authorization. Moreover, even if one goes back to revoke such authorization, the data would have already been sold many times over.

[dr_TJ]

I too got multiple calls for Mahindra RSA of 15 years. They had my Aadhaar and PAN card details.
I did post it on the official Mahindra Thar review thread. I also asked the mods to move my post to a separate thread about this 15 years RSA scam and the Data leak.
Thanks for starting this thread.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/offic...ml#post5258850 (Mahindra Thar : Official Review)

Mahindra needs to put out an official statement to put an end to this 15 years of RSA scam.

[Kiran Joshi]

Me too got multiple calls for RSA for XUV 300. I have been asked to pay Rs 4500 for 10yrs RSA. I had complained to dealership and M & M also via email. But calls are still there. I could recognize that caller is not genuine as RSA offered was for 10 yrs.

[AjinkyaP]

One of my friend owns a Tata Nexon and he had received similar calls regarding RSA scams. He was absolutely clueless about from where the contact details leaked.
So this isn’t specific to OEM, rather dealerships and third party vendors.

I received handful of real estate marketing calls during my own car buying process.
They specifically segment and target customers who have purchased a car without loan.

[Raghu M]

Nothing new. Our data is all over the place, if not M&M directly, the dealers are sharing data freely (for money of course). Just use Truecaller premium services and you can block all these nos. and messages too. If not M&M, someone else has our data. I remember our finance minister (erstwhile) Pranab Mukherjee getting a call during a press meet. The lady was offering him a personal loan (just imagine) from some bank. Now, imagine where we all stand.

[mvadg]

Privacy and confidentiality has zero relevance to India. Anyone who believes in NDAs, privacy and confidentiality is being extremely naive. On top of this, in this era of digital everything, you can be sure that all your data (including the stuff you were not even aware of about yourself) is available to the people who run these digital systems.

[PaddleShifter]

Around last week of November 2021, I got a similar call from a so called Maruti dealership lady who told me that she needs to send me the road assistance card to my address. I had just renewed my insurance so I thought it must be related to that (many insurance policies come with RSA). I told her okay send it to my address and she hurriedly told me to payRs7000 something to the courier guy and disconnected the call before I could respond. I called back multiple times but no one picked up. As I didnt want any such courier guy asking for money, I sent her the following message (photo attached). I was sure I was being scammed. Luckily, no one came to me asking for money on the pretext of goving RSA. Looks like many other brand customers are also facing the same.

OT: I am sure Nexa dealership from where I bought my car is sharing/selling customer data to third party companies.

[MSC]

This is not limited to only metro or cosmopolitan cities or any one single manufacturer. It's a nation wide scam wherein almost every dealer is involved, if I am not wrong. I live in small district headquarter in Himachal Pradesh, and got my Hyundai in 2020. For atleast 14-15 months these calls kept coming.

[MarutiGuy1977]

I have just started my car hunt journey (some could say it's been on since a few years!) and what I've done is taken an extra SIM. Ad that's the number I am giving dealerships for any test drive. My plan is (if and when) when I get my new car, I would move this SIM to an older handset and use it for the connected car features as and when required (or maybe continue with this handset - remains to be seen). So on that particular handset I don't plan to have any banking / payment apps (you can call me paranoid).

That's just one step. It doesn't eliminate the risk of the documents - specially the mobile number connected to Aadhar.

[darthvader001]

I received lot of calls for the Ceramic coating and PPF from third party vendors based in Bangalore. I even asked how they got my contact info and they said their company got it. I purchased the MG Hector in Bangalore Electronic City. So the data selling/leak happens with other OEMs/Dealerships. Perhaps it may happen from RTOs as well where all our data is submitted.

[ruzbehxyz]

Digital privacy has no value in India. And it's not only limited to car manufacturers or their dealerships, it's everywhere. Even social media is to blame where all your data is leaked.

[sf71hvettel]

It happens with all brands and as per my understanding, it happens from the RTO end. Dealerships generally are very protective of the data since they can control the service calling and scheduling. If this data is out in the wild, other dealers and local garages would be able to call a dealers customers for service at a different outlet.