[diffsoft]

Harish:

Another instance of consumer redressal by the court towards a Skoda customer.

The court (district forum) upheld "fraudulent intent" which is unusual as per below:

"a person complained of fraudulent intent of a multi-national car company before the district consumer forum, which upheld his contention and ordered the erring company to return the money and take back the car."

Further it ordered Skoda to pay Rs 50,000.

Skoda's "fraudulent intent" upheld by court

Cheers,

[harishv]

Thanks for the info buddy.

However, I feel the ultimate lesson to Skoda can not come from our Courts.

............ till the day comes when 3 more zero's are added to that score.

[lamborghini]

The reason for the increase in sales is only due to the success and reliability of the Octavia. Harish, I wish you all the best!

[sudev]

hhmmm...does the RTI cover private companies vis public disclosures? Is there a way to know how many cases is SKODA facing and how many it has appealed?

[rishab.k]

RTI does not cover private companies but if you want you can get this information from the Courts under RTI.

[neoonwheels]

Well there is another Laura owner added in the Skoda lemon case (New thread on tbhp in Indian car scene). I guess Skoda must have achieved a good score on disappointed customers. The troubling thing is, its not only about service misery but defective pieces being pushed into the market.

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by diffsoft

Harish:

Another instance of consumer redressal by the court towards a Skoda customer.

The court (district forum) upheld "fraudulent intent" which is unusual as per below:

"a person complained of fraudulent intent of a multi-national car company before the district consumer forum, which upheld his contention and ordered the erring company to return the money and take back the car."

Further it ordered Skoda to pay Rs 50,000.

Skoda's "fraudulent intent" upheld by court

Cheers,

Prima facie it's the dealer who has cheated the customer here. No evidence to suggest Skoda India did anything wrong. All the activities mentioned in the case (temp registration, insurance, invoice documents etc) are usually done by the dealer and he could do so without the parent company knowing anything about it. So it would be incorrect to say Skoda had a fraudulent intent in this case.

Please note this is not to condone the activities carried out by the dealer. It's a fitting punishment the court has ordered the dealer to reimburse the full price of the vehicle and take the car back (see the last para of the detailed report).

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by neoonwheels

Well there is another Laura owner added in the Skoda lemon case (New thread on tbhp in Indian car scene). I guess Skoda must have achieved a good score on disappointed customers. The troubling thing is, its not only about service misery but defective pieces being pushed into the market.

I wonder if it's really the Skoda company or the Indian dealers of Skoda. I remember reading about a Skoda dealer who was involved in manufacturing fake Skoda parts and pushing them into the market as genuine. Even in the famous case of Harish vs Nummer Eins, it was primarily the dealership which was the culprit. Of course Skoda need to put in place better practices to monitor and check these malafide activities, but I am thinking of something else:

Premium product
Limited A.S.S.
Huge Margins
Owners unlikely to fuss over costly spares
Owners unlikely to verify genuineness of parts

Are these factors in any way contributing to some dealers resorting to malpractices? Getting duplicate spares is no big deal. If a dealer uses them in a customer's car that's under warranty, the customer is unlikely to question it and the company is unlikely to discover it unless the company has a very strong inventory and ordering system and some sharp minds overseeing the system.

Does anyone have any idea if any auto company tracks warranty / other repairs at their authorised service centres against the parts ordered by these centres? So if a Mercedes owner went to say Auto Hangar to get the ECM changed under warranty, Auto Hangar would have to order it from Mercedes Benz India. Does MB India check that the ECM was ordered by Auto Hanger and they have also sent in a report of changing an ECM under warranty? If this tracking is done and regularly audited, the dealers won't find it so easy to cheat customers by using spurious spares.

[SILVERWOOD]

Originally Posted by harishv

Dear Kapil.

I am fighting with Skoda for the last one year now. You may be aware their dealer in mumbai, Nummer Eins had replaced spurious parts in my car to the tune of around 4 lakhs. They had even stolen the 3rd injector and the steering rack and substituted them with fakes. They did not spare the battery either.
...

Harish Kanchan
+91-98331-38094
harishk63@gmail.com

More victims of Skoda India

5,Shyam Sundar Agrawal
Managing Director
(+91-94387-14404, +91-98538-58761)
M. R. Engineers Pvt. Limited
Jampali by Pass Road, Garvana
At- Rajgangpur, State- Orissa, Pin- 770017

6, Ashish Makharia
09811195252(Delhi)

Few More Victims,

1, JEEVAN (jeevanmp@yahoo.com) Cochin.
2, dr nevin <drnevin@rediffmail.com> trivandrum, kerala (india)
3, DR. HARISH KUKREJA <dr.hkukreja@hotmail.com> NEW DELHI, dELHI (iNDIA)
4, vikas passi <vikas_passi@yahoo.co.in>ludhiana, punjab (india)
5, Satish B N <satish.bn@dtz.com> Bangalore, Karnataka (India)
6, Deepak C Dhrangadharia <phototronic@yahoo.com> Rajkot, Gujarat (India)
7, Ash (ackyash@yahoo.com) Delhi, Delhi (INDIA

[diffsoft]

Originally Posted by honeybee

Prima facie it's the dealer who has cheated the customer here.

The dealer forged the dates to prevent the customer from enjoying the scheme but the court has also observed Skoda had indulged in this. Let me reproduce parts of it. Opponent no 1 is Skoda. Further both jointly or severally have been ordered to pay and not just the dealer.


------------------

"On examination it is very clear that the dates have been forged by the opponent No.2 (Ahmedabad dealer) which is not expected of a multinational company like Skoda," the forum observed in its judgment. It also further observed that when the car was delivered on September 2, 2008, the temporary registration number has been shown as September 8, 2008 by the dealer. "It is more than clear that there has been gross irregularity and manipulation on the part of the opponents. It is clear that the opponents wanted to delay the registration and we see no other reason but to take advantage of the scheme and not to transfer it to the complainant," the judgement said. It also further said, "It is more than clear to us that the opponent No.1 had fraudulent intention of not giving the benefit of the reduced rates scheme to the complainant," and passed the final ordered that "the opponents jointly and/or severally are ordered to pay the sum of Rs12,57,150 being the total expenditure of the car to the complainant. The complainant on receiving the aforesaid amount from the opponents shall hand over the car to the opponents and executive necessary documents of transfer of the vehicle.

--------------------------

In my case too the dealer arranged to forge my signature to register with RTO and pass off a lemon. Skoda was not directly involved. But Skoda knew all along that it was an old car but their Sales manager falsely told me that it was new.

Cheers,

[SILVERWOOD]

Post deleted by Team-BHP Support : Please do NOT post one-liners that add little or no informational value to the thread. We need your co-operation to maintain the overall quality of this forum.

Please read our rules before proceeding any further.

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by diffsoft

The dealer forged the dates to prevent the customer from enjoying the scheme but the court has also observed Skoda had indulged in this. Let me reproduce parts of it. Opponent no 1 is Skoda. Further both jointly or severally have been ordered to pay and not just the dealer.


------------------

"On examination it is very clear that the dates have been forged by the opponent No.2 (Ahmedabad dealer) which is not expected of a multinational company like Skoda," the forum observed in its judgment. It also further observed that when the car was delivered on September 2, 2008, the temporary registration number has been shown as September 8, 2008 by the dealer. "It is more than clear that there has been gross irregularity and manipulation on the part of the opponents. It is clear that the opponents wanted to delay the registration and we see no other reason but to take advantage of the scheme and not to transfer it to the complainant," the judgement said. It also further said, "It is more than clear to us that the opponent No.1 had fraudulent intention of not giving the benefit of the reduced rates scheme to the complainant," and passed the final ordered that "the opponents jointly and/or severally are ordered to pay the sum of Rs12,57,150 being the total expenditure of the car to the complainant. The complainant on receiving the aforesaid amount from the opponents shall hand over the car to the opponents and executive necessary documents of transfer of the vehicle.

--------------------------

In my case too the dealer arranged to forge my signature to register with RTO and pass off a lemon. Skoda was not directly involved. But Skoda knew all along that it was an old car but their Sales manager falsely told me that it was new.

Cheers,

Of course the company must have checks and balances in place to ensure the dealers can't/don't indulge in such malpractices. So the company is as much to blame as the dealer. But I still believe it's the dealers who are trying to make a fast buck here, not the company per se. Now it may also be possible that in your case the dealer managed to get the company representative to side with him (maybe for some consideration).

I am not trying to discount your or other people's horrible experiences at the dealerships. What I am trying to think about is if it's majorly the dealers who are playing these dirty games, could it also spread to other premium car brands?

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by lamborghini

The reason for the increase in sales is only due to the success and reliability of the Octavia. Harish, I wish you all the best!

Why do we keep saying that when we know instances (and there is a thread by our very own AjMat) - about parts failing frequently.

And no we are not talking about power windows and cigarette lighter.
We are talking about parts like turbo, water pump, fuel pump, AC etc

[The Saint]

All,

I have been reading the issues with the owner of SKoda car, I feel really sad for all of them as it is their hard earned money and we car enthusiasts wait for our dream cars and spend our hard earned money to buy them, if it results in such a fiasco then obviously we not only loose trust in the brand but we cry our heart out due to the money and time and mental tension that we go through.

My advice dont know worthwhile or not but I guess people in pain can try to arm twist them via this mode.

Our TV media has become very vocal now a days ( I hate them cos they would cover anything and everything which sometimes becomes a mental torture and unwanted publicity for some), while you are fighting it out in the court and we all know it can take ages to get a result, I suggest you try and make a contact with MD's of the dealer (which I am sure you've done but also with SKoda directly).

where I am trying to get is make them aware of the situation while making your intention clear that you are going to make this issue public and not limited to sites like team-bhp and car community people, If good marketing works well and as a sub-set word of mouth the most effective way, bad marketing or a complaint can damage at one go all the image. It will spread like a virus, I know you wont make all the people stop from buying Skoda but atleast you will affect their sale to a certain extent, use a formula while you write this to them. You can also go to the extent that now that you have lost so much you dont mind loosing more and take a it arounnd to big malls and display the car with your own money and create awareness of issues that you have had, trust me they will be scared. I see some hope here and trying to think out of the box.


I had some problem with the Civic, nothing major, a promise from salesman not been fullfiled and manufacturing date was old, I took it up with the MD of Linkway in Mumbai and also with the principal on their global website, you wont believe, got a call with in a week all the top management was pulled up to meet me and in the bargain, I got what was promised with 2 year extended warranty, I used the same tactics as mentioned above, no one wants that their brand gets negative marketing cos to recover from such a situation and the dent on their sales graph will make them spend more and more dollars until the come back to par with their image.

One more instance but this was Dubai, they washed my new Audi TT in a automatic car wash, and they have specifically said never was it in automatic, reason the shape of the car is such that the brush will put millions of lines in automatic car wash, but idiots did it in their own showroom, my car looked 4 years old while it was a week old, I took the above route, while the car got n number of polish treatment and believe me their are lots of them they bought the car close to how a new car looks, all free. When they agreed to do so they kept my car for some days, I was given a replacement car (they were giving me a VW Bora, i refused cos it was a cheaper car then what I was driving, so finally they gave me Audi A-6), I am not expecting this will happen in India but comparing the difference.

My thoughts completely and I think you should give it a try, nothing to loose after what you've lost until now.

All the best, I am with you all, I think Honda scores the most here and that is why we see so many of them on the Indian roads.

[cossack]

Originally Posted by sudev

hhmmm...does the RTI cover private companies vis public disclosures? Is there a way to know how many cases is SKODA facing and how many it has appealed?

No, it doesn't, however, the courts and registrar offices come under its ambit and you can try there.