[idea]

Originally Posted by hemantbsutar

Why do we want even to pay a single rupee more? There is a process to register on own, i even saw a thread here. With that in mind, i think paying even an agent is promoting bribe and corruption. A little time and effort is all what is needed to do away with any extra charges etc.

It is easier said than done. but surely not impossibe.

Recently it took me 2 days and 5 visits (Both were working days and i was jumping between my meetings and Pune RTO) just to get my RC card which got bounced back by speed post as my house was locked on working day in mid noon - So much for nuclear family. But i did it on my own.

Originally Posted by Sahil

Well that's a matter of personal choice. I rather use an agent a fee to do the running around for me. Our time is worth a lot more than that man.

+1.

[hemantbsutar]

Originally Posted by idea

It is easier said than done. but surely not impossibe.

Recently it took me 2 days and 5 visits (Both were working days and i was jumping between my meetings and Pune RTO) just to get my RC card which got bounced back by speed post as my house was locked on working day in mid noon - So much for nuclear family. But i did it on my own.


+1.

The RIGHT way is never easy, "the road less travelled!"
Anyways corruption will probably never end cause systems are there to delay and people want the "easier way out"
Sad but true and as mentioned before, a personal choice.

[patelhemals]

I checked out rates with other Maruti dealers in Mumbai. Word to word same thing and ditto handling charges of Rs. 6840/-. And each dealer sales guys are arrogant enough to claim u can try any maruti dealership in Mumbai sir... No one will waive off this charge.

Which means Buy it or Leave it.

After 20 years plus of Maruti loyalty time to shift.
Its not a matter of Rs 7000/- odd but lately i have been conned of money during servicing (Rs 4000 per normal service paid by me)
Feel cheated and dejected already
It seems there is a dealer mafia in mumbai

[tanwaramit]

Originally Posted by patelhemals

After 20 years plus of Maruti loyalty time to shift.
Its not a matter of Rs 7000/- odd but lately i have been conned of money during servicing (Rs 4000 per normal service paid by me)
Feel cheated and dejected already

tell them you will complain to transport department and indeed take a copy and go ahead and complain, the dealers will correct their actions.

[patelhemals]

Originally Posted by tanwaramit

tell them you will complain to transport department and indeed take a copy and go ahead and complain, the dealers will correct their actions.

I had raised this issue on their Facebook page. i received a message to call their customer service number and report it. When i called them and raised this issue. I asked the guy to explain to me what is this Depot charges of Rs. 6840/- . He starts of by explaining to me that this handling and logistics charges which are borne by the dealer on your behalf to ensure that you receive your new car in top condition and sparkling clean. They have to store ur car in godown and bring it to you.

I could not believe it. I asked him "I have to pay the dealer extra over and above the MRP and registration charges, just to ensure that i get my new vehicle in top condition and sparkling clean. Isn't it a given that this is the least i will expect from the dealer. The dealer has to be paid extra for this basic thing? - NO answer from the other end.

Then i raised the issue that dealer is not agreeing the provide me a bill for this? i was asked to be kept on hold, and after some 5 mins of the hold, i was told that if the dealer does not give you a proper invoice for this, i can raise an official complaint to Maruti for this.

So the whole idea is Buy the Car.. if the dealer does not give you an invoice... HEY... try pushing us.. we might kick butt of the dealer.

So Maruti is hand in glove with the dealers and are emphatetic with them so that we can get our new cars delivered to us Sparkling clean and in top condition.

This is what happens when a brand starts taking its customer for granted and forgets the reason of the leadership. Too bad and too sad. and I am sure this is the case with all manufacturers and all dealers across brands and geographies.

Also The biggest reason that this happens is there is no transparency in costs (uniform cost) of purchase, Taxation costs, Octroi etc. and our attitude as customers to say... what the hell i am spending 8 lacs for a car, what is 6800/- .. might as well spend it and get things going.

[Vijayraj1890]

Originally Posted by idea

Something most of us aware - dealers charge us extra for administration charges/handelling charge. But what can be done?

Originally Posted by blackfire_9

Hi sahil,

I personally don't think that the "handling charges" are in any way justified. To put it quite simply in the form of an analogy, why would you want to pay anything extra to a grocery store owner on account of similar handling charges which could be attributed to something like the electricity consumed by the refrigerator used for storage.

When a customer walks into a showroom to buy a car, he is only liable to pay for the price of the car & nothing else. Any sort of inventory management & the associated costs are the dealer's responsibility; it is certainly wrong to ask a customer for some money on this account.

The thing is that no matter how many people you contact they will give you some justification. They are all taking advantage of loopholes in the system.

Fact 1:- There is no effective mechanism in place to deal with these cases.

Why?

Fact 2:- Because nowhere does it say that it is illegal, we only presume it as illegal because the law says that they cannot charge anything above the required amount. What the law does not say, is what to do if they actually DO charge above the required amount.

Fact 3:- in the PIL Judgment, the court said that if anyone is made to pay extra can easily complain to the Authorities. Fair enough, but wait, which authority will you go to first? or last?. Who will handle you grievances?, who fixes punishment?. There is no mechanism in place, so there is no accountability. This Red Tape confusion is what has brought our country to its knees today.

Originally Posted by GT500

Nice initiative Vijay, appreciate the effort!

A car is being bought in the family and I was also doubtful of this, I sent a mail to maruti , and here is the reply. It can be seen from this, that MSIL itself supports these charges.

I am about to pay Rs.6000 as handling charges to the dealer from whom I'm taking the delivery. I feel since the manufacturer is backing the dealer as is evident from the mail below I don't have a chance, but since the mahindra dealer ^^ has waived it off, I am having second thoughts.

Here is the excerpt from the reply :-

I havent received any response from them as mentioned by them above.

As per the judgement attached by you, it is indeed sad to see the non compliance of the same by my dealer, I shall discuss the same while taking delivery.

Cheers

GT 500

They are usually scared of Lawyers and are extra cautious if a lawyer is purchasing a car from them. Even in the judgment the party involved is an eminent lawyer. You can try taking a friend who is a lawyer, you'll be amused to see the change in their behavior when a lawyer is around, unless the showroom is one of those ignorant types who tend to overlook who they're dealing with. Its a sad truth about Delhi, i know you will already know this but i still say it for the benefit of other members that quite a few people in Delhi generally try and take advantage of you if you seem "ordinary" to them.

I say this with a risk of sounding elitist but i've seen it with my own eyes.

In my uncle's case the dealer was Bhasin Motors near Sarita Vihar. My uncle is not a lawyer though; he just showed them the judgment and they waived the charge rather than take any chances. Take the judgment along with you when you visit.

I would have loved to help you myself but i am still some time away from my Law Degree. It would be unethical for me to pose as a Lawyer.
On the brighter side. Keep those e-mails. You now have corroborative evidence that can be submitted in court.

Cheers.


[small]
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[/small]

[Vijayraj1890]

Sorry for the disclaimer at the end, was posted by mistake and could'nt figure out how to delete it as the edit button vanished. Mods if you could please delete the content within the [small] and [/small] tags in the post above this one.

Seems like our car dealers are not the only ones, our neighbors are doing this as well. Check this out. Little OT but cannot be missed.
What goes around, comes around i guess.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/in...harges/942502/

[mkpiyengar]

Why is this restricted to Delhi alone ? Should it not be applicable to all states ?
Or is it required to have PIL in every state against this..

Also, I was told during the purchase that cost of shipping/warehousing is included in this or charged separately. They meant Handling charges is for handling the car from factory to dealership. Is it not mandatory for the customer to get the car from his dealership.

It was hard for me to digest that I need to pay for the cost of transportation from the factory to dealer and then his warehousing charges.

Not applicable with all car brands, but some dealers do charge this under some guise of other.

Cheers
MKPI

[blackfire_9]

Agreed with Fact-1 & Fact-3 as presented in your post, however, I differ w.r.t Fact-2. For me, anything that's outside the guidelines of law is illegal.
Now with the SC judgement out, I think this practice needs to be stopped & it is the buyers who would have to take a stand first.

While at it, I have also been pondering over the fact that why this judgement from the SC never got any steam from the media. Most people in my vicinity were not aware of any such ruling until I told them.

Originally Posted by Vijayraj1890

The thing is that no matter how many people you contact they will give you some justification. They are all taking advantage of loopholes in the system.

Fact 1:- There is no effective mechanism in place to deal with these cases.

Why?

Fact 2:- Because nowhere does it say that it is illegal, we only presume it as illegal because the law says that they cannot charge anything above the required amount. What the law does not say, is what to do if they actually DO charge above the required amount.

Fact 3:- in the PIL Judgment, the court said that if anyone is made to pay extra can easily complain to the Authorities. Fair enough, but wait, which authority will you go to first? or last?. Who will handle you grievances?, who fixes punishment?. There is no mechanism in place, so there is no accountability. This Red Tape confusion is what has brought our country to its knees today.

[GT500]

Originally Posted by Vijayraj1890

Fact 2:- Because nowhere does it say that it is illegal, we only presume it as illegal because the law says that they cannot charge anything above the required amount. What the law does not say, is what to do if they actually DO charge above the required amount.
I would have loved to help you myself but i am still some time away from my Law Degree. It would be unethical for me to pose as a Lawyer.
On the brighter side. Keep those e-mails. You now have corroborative evidence that can be submitted in court.

Thanks for the reply Vijay, I am no lawyer , but I have to study various judgments in the line of profession I am pursuing.

So, I received a response from the dealer.

Now there seems to be a loophole that they are exploiting.

These charges charged by them are for "extra services " provided by them and are not related to the registration charges is what their argument is.

Further, they claim to the benefit of the para no.9 of the judgement.
I have reproduced the same below:-

You may read the highlighted portion to reasonably interpret.

9. The position which emerges is that while the petitioner avers that the ‘extras’ so charged by the dealers are for providing the services of registration and which the dealers are not entitled to charge, the dealers deny the extras to be on account of providing the services of registration and claim the same to be on other accounts. The respondents No.1&2 as aforesaid have no authority to intervene in the charge by the dealers even if illegal of the said extras so long as they are not on account of commission or for providing service of registration. The said question thus becomes a question of fact to be adjudicated on a case to case basis and no general direction with respect thereto can be issued in this public interest litigation.

The petitioners who are themselves advocates have of course demonstrated that upon the petitioners issuing legal notice in this regard a particular dealer has refunded the amount so claimed but the same cannot be indicative of any illegal practice being followed and cannot lead to a general direction.>>>>( I think this is what happened in your case.)

It is well nigh possible that considering the meager amount involved, that particular dealer may not have wanted to battle with an advocate and chose to refund the amount.

The highlighted portion is being used by the dealers to enable them to charge these "extra" charges for these so called "services other than registration" provided by them.

The same portion was highlighted by the dealer.

Also, I am reproducing the 10th para of the judgment for further clarity on the matter :-

10. The undertakings aforesaid obtained by the respondents No.1&2 Licencing Authority from the dealers though being widely worded, cannot come in the way of the dealers charging the extras for extra services rendered in connection with sale and which the respondents No.1&2 are not empowered to control / regulate. Notice may also be taken of the fact that in today’s day of aggressive marketing of vehicles and multifarious choicesavailable to the purchasers / consumers, the vehicle dealers giving discounts are not unknown (as also evident from the respondents No.1&2 making a provision (supra) to that effect) and it is generally seen that the purchasers of vehicles are in a bargaining position with the dealers. If the vehicle dealers are providing any extras in terms of services, goods, fuel etc. to the purchasers and the purchasers agree to pay therefor, in the absence of any law to control the same, this Court cannot issue any direction with respect thereto.

Now this is the crux of the judgment. It seems to provide a loophole to the dealers for charging the same.

I also received a scan copy of the letter issued by Maruti to its dealers that clarifies that these so called handling charges are not in any way related to the registration, clever method in my opinion.

I would again point out here, that the charges so collected are collected in the disguise of extra services and which are not for registration.

So all in all, leaving all legal language aside, in average joe's terms, it seems to be in line with law to collect such extra charges as long as these are not in relation to the registration.


Note: This is my reasonable interpretation of the judgment, I may be wrong, so there might be two interpretations of this judgment , any criticism is welcome!




Cheers

GT500

[tanwaramit]

Originally Posted by GT500

Thanks for the reply Vijay, I am no lawyer , but I have to study various judgments in the line of profession I am pursuing.

So, I received a response from the dealer.

Now there seems to be a loophole that they are exploiting.

Pls see if you can approach transport department of govt of Delhi, the one giving notice to all as carried on post 1. ? Shuffling between Maruti and dealers is not helping as is evident.

[idea]

Recently baught a CNG wagonR in pune. As per overall cost break up, Rs 27513/- was towards RTO Charges. I have debit note from dealer for the same.

But as figures were not matching (For CNG , Registration cost is just 5% of Ex Showroom cost.). On further investigation dealer has given me following breakup of 27513/-. This break up was no where explicitely mentioned/explained.

So dealer is charging me 4495/- for handelling charges.

I have given dealer prints of new papers and Court ruling stating handelling charges cant be charged. However they are not saying anything on that as of now but after 3 days they have issued debit note with break up.

I have asked dealer to elaborate on handelling and administrative charges on mail.

Based on their reply, i will raise concern with MSIL.


What next. Pls advice.

It is not about money, but not liking fact of being cheated. Forgot to mention, they have screwed my delivery experience also..

[idea]

Originally Posted by idea

Recently baught a CNG wagonR in pune. As per overall cost break up, Rs 27513/- was towards RTO Charges. I have debit note from dealer for the same.

But as figures were not matching (For CNG , Registration cost is just 5% of Ex Showroom cost.). On further investigation dealer has given me following breakup of 27513/-. This break up was no where explicitely mentioned/explained.

So dealer is charging me 4495/- for handelling charges.

I have given dealer prints of new papers and Court ruling stating handelling charges cant be charged. However they are not saying anything on that as of now but after 3 days they have issued debit note with break up.

I have asked dealer to elaborate on handelling and administrative charges on mail.

Based on their reply, i will raise concern with MSIL.


What next. Pls advice.

It is not about money, but not liking fact of being cheated. Forgot to mention, they have screwed my delivery experience also..

All.. Here is some update in my case.

I have been constantly following up with dealer through calls and mails for last 3 weeks. I also met their sales manager, customer care manager to put my case and asked for resolution.

But dealer was not relenting.

Today i met their MD and had heated exchange too. Though my primary goal is to prove my point that they should not fleece customers by hiding these charges under head of ""RTO"

Mr MD was not able to answer not even single logical query raised by me against their mal-practices.

At one level of duscussion, MD started baiming me for being a "Nauisance creating customer" and these are trick to take out money. (I was patiently listening to him and at end told him this is MY OWN MONEY which you have wrongly collected !!). After all he also has right to express :-)

He also went to the level that he runs business in crores and 4K is nothing for him. He can give away just like it. And He will also Sue me for defamation and i can complaint whoever i want. He is fine with that...

I didnt loose my cool and raised my counter concerns. He also said "It is Indusry Practice, every dealer is doing this" And there is nothing wrong..

But i stood my ground.

[Zappo]

There is something intriguing about this handling charges thing that I do not get at all. When I bought my car recently I dealt directly with the GM and he was instrumental in arranging a quick delivery. I told him his Insurance rates are stratospheric and that I can get one outside at less than half of what he is asking for. He relented on that and agreed to let me get my own insurance. Ditto with accessories that were apparently minimal that I needed to buy (in case you are wondering the car is XUV for which 100s were after them and were even willing to pay premium for). Again I managed to make them agree not to force me to pick any accessories. The nice man agreed to everything though he said to his XUV marketing head, jocularly, that "there is no fun in selling the car to sir". However, when it came to the handling charges he just dug in his heels for that small 5k. He said thats simply not waivable. I was stumped. Here the man agreed to forego many thousands more when he could have easily charged those premia and yet he just stood steadfast on that paltry 5k! I agreed to pay that as by then I had already negotiated a very good deal on a car which was (still is) running in black across the country.

But then the question remains, what is so special about this handling charges that the dealers just absolutely refuse to budge out of?

[nettooran]

I was charged 10K by popular hyundai at kochi as handling charges . They said it included, registration charge, handling, transportation, transit insurance etc. I tried to fight it off , bur hardly succeeded.