[raghu.t.k]

Good to see the courts involving the manufaturer for the malpractises of the dealer.

As per the news article, an Indigo sold in may was resold by cargo motors as a new car again in October 2006.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/52101516.cms

To quote the article:

consumer court has pulled up Tata Motors Ltd and its city-based dealer Cargo Motors Pvt Ltd and fined them for fraudulently selling an used car to a customer as new.
While Tata Motors was held vicariously liable and asked to pay Rs1lakh to the customer, the dealer has been directed to return the price of the vehicle, Rs4.80 lakh, along with Rs60,000 towards compensation for harassment and litigation costs.

In this case, Bhavnagar's Prashant Vyas purchased a Tata Indigo car in October 2006 from Cargo Motors outlet on SG Road. Within two months, Vyas found multiple problems in the vehicle and it was not starting at all. A local mechanic informed him that the car was a second-hand vehicle. He later found out that the car had been sold first to one Deepak Shah in May 2006.

But sad to see Tata motors had challenged the lower court decision, rather than course correction. I had read Tata as an organisation valued ethics in business and would never succumb.

Anyway, I think its still a long way before the payment would actually reach the victim/second owner.

[biggrin]

Originally Posted by raghu.t.k

Good to see the courts involving the manufaturer for the malpractises of the dealer.

Anyway, I think its still a long way before the payment would actually reach the victim/second owner.

Sad for the customer as it took almost ten years for the judgement to roll out. Instead of challenging court's decision, Tata should have terminated the dealership/provided a replacement (and compensation) to the customer. Hope this is not one of the steps of their downfall.

I suspect it to be a case where the SA sells the car to his near-dear ones on trust (bharosa), who later returns the car due to lack of funds or some other reason, odometer is rolled back and sold as new to an unsuspecting customer. There were similar speculations on a member's Kizashi (which turned out to be a lemon) thread.

[WorkingGuru]

Thanks for bringing this to light.

I suspected Tata doesn't have the necessary influence on the dealers, but I was wrong, it's probably often that Tata Motors is in cahoots with it's dealers in cheating customers.

If I'm told I'm wrong & generalising, then please consider that this ruling proves that Tata Motors has cheated a customer.

If I'm told this is of 2006 era, then IMO it's worse because the company leadership changed twice & neither seems to have made amends to it's past misdeeds (not errors, misdeeds).

Going through the forum, it sometimes seems they track & prioritise the service for some members who complain here.

Many members have reported improved service, but there also it seems to be higher priority for the newer products.

It's sad that our legal system takes eons to solve cases, I'm pretty sure if the timeline was shorter, we would've seen more of such cases where car makers like Tata Motors have cheated customers.

[tsk1979]

I wonder how this is good news.
4.8L invested in 2006 would be worth 15L now.

So the moral is simple.
Cheat customer of 5L, 10 years later return 5L, and pocket the benefit!
It would have been good news if the court had awarded with the standard interest which is 18% odd in litigation cases.

[Chetan_Rao]

They're all as unscrupulous as anyone else. A few people in leadership positions having an aura of integrity means nothing to an end customer when the rest of the organisation is hell-bent on using every underhanded tactic in the book.

Returning just the principal after a decade is beyond ridiculous. Should have offered market-rate interest at the very least, if not heavy punitive damages. INR 60,000 doesn't even count as chump change for multi-billion dollar conglomerates. Then we wonder why common folk don't believe in law & justice. Bah!

[Lalvaz]

This is exactly why people do not trust the legal system in India. It is currently serving only those who have power and money, not the innocent victims.

This is why Indians prefer to cut their losses and move on, rather than spending decades and lakhs fighting for their rights.

Its a shame that Tata allowed this fraud, but its even more shocking that they have chosen to challenge this verdict. And its a grim reminder of how even companies that are commonly perceived to be ethical in conduct are far from ethical in reality.

I do wish that the current government focusses on reforming the judiciary and reducing the huge backlog there. Justice delayed is justice denied.

[vinit.merchant]

We all know the apathy of the legal system. Even the Legal system heads are unable to do anything about it. Few weeks back, we had it all over the news of how a request of requirement of 40,000 judges was put up decades back and even that is not been completed yet, with only 15,000 currently on board.

[raghu.t.k]

Ideally it should have been 4.8 lacs with interest plus the full cost borne by court and victim plus a penalty not less than the cost of the car, for all the mental trauma the new buyer had to undergo, and breach of trust. That would have sent a strong message to all the consumer manufacturers, not just the automobile industry. They tend to easily wash-off their responsibilities. Also the time the new buyer spend going around for this case, the loss he has had in his business/profession, etc, etc does not seem to be accounted for.


On the other hand the fact that Tata was made to pay for what a dealer has done, should send the right message for all the manufacturers to tidy their acts.

Looks like there is already a sad story from Cargo Motors here, though thats a fiat.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...ahmedabad.html

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...-4-emo-pk.html

[sakthishanmugam]

TATA should have settle this case out of court which would have saved the brand image. I think in the current digital era, it is very important to maintain a good brand image to improve market share as a small bad incident / experience can spread instantaneously and damage the brand value.

Whenever there is a new product launch from TATA a bad news / experience about TATA follows. For example, after NANO launch there was a fire incident which dented the sale of NANO. I hope this news doesn't impact the sale of Tiago.

[Tanmay K]

What bothers me about this is the minuscule magnitude of the compensation provided to the victim. This should have cost Tata crores to make a public display of their unethical business tactics by repeatedly denying any wrongdoing on their part in this case.

how even companies that are commonly perceived to be ethical in conduct are far from ethical in reality.

Having owned two Tata cars, I've lost count of the number of times multiple TASS's have tried to fleece me intentionally or not (read, misdiagnosis). As their customer, I've never considered them ethical. Perhaps the experience might be different for others, but I can speak for myself relative to my observations of certain other manufacturers.

[GTO]

Yes, it took a long time. Yes, the $$$ awarded at the end doesn't look like its worth it. Yes, it requires a lot of time & effort from the consumer to put up a fight like this.

But it's about setting a precedent . Try to cheat me and I will fight. I salute this car owner who fought tooth & nail after being wronged. It's cases like these that will scare companies / dealers of fleecing customers. Tata & the dealer would have together spent a lot more than 6.xx lakhs in time, lawyer fees etc.

The next time a customer is wronged, they'll think twice before entering the court.

[raghu.t.k]

Originally Posted by GTO

...
But it's about setting a precedent . Try to cheat me and I will fight. I salute this car owner who fought tooth & nail after being wronged. It's cases like these that will scare companies / dealers of fleecing customers. Tata & the dealer would have together spent a lot more than 6.xx lakhs in time, lawyer fees etc.

The next time a customer is wronged, they'll think twice before entering the court.

So true. To some extent we need consumer activism in India. If someone can sue McD for selling hot coffee and not warning, and win it, we at least need to have the genuine misdeeds by dealer/manufacturers brought to book. How many times have we actually heard of a pro-active recall, when the same model might have been re-called.

Our forum has umpteen examples where we cut losses and move on, simply because the process are still not consumer friendly nor is there a timeline for completion of the entire process where it makes sense. For that matter Im not sure if we have an equivalent of a class action suit - that would have been really interesting.