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The honest truth is that the first shop is extremely unlikely to refund any of your money. Period.
If you take them to small claims court, and even if you can prove they were at fault for this, it's still ultimately up to you to collect the money from them.
Any way you cut it, I don't think you're going to get your money back. I would, however, suggest writing some negative reviews on any format necessary.
The way I look at it, this fell under a **** happens situation; much like the one I outlined.
So, truly, since there was no real and/or catastrophic harm, shop number one really doesn't owe anyone anything.
Except, in interest of customer service and goodwill, wouldn't it be much better for the shop to comp Mary, to give her coupons for free service, or something? I'm self-employed in the home improvement business and if somebody was seriously unhappy and/or inconvenienced by anything I or one of my employees did, I'd be falling over myself backwards to make them whole.
So I guess I do not understand shops that don't do the same...aren't they killing a whole lot of goodwill and potential future business by not taking care of righteously aggrieved customers?
Atleast filewith BBB and often they wiolldecide to refund rahter than the hit on their file.B will contsct them ;at least here.
Actually, the BBB is a worse-than-worthless organization.
You are led to believe what you read on their site, but you cannot. As long as a business pays their BBB dues, and unless BBB has arbitrated against them, they'll get an A+ rating. If you're like me, and tell the BBB to take a hike, they'll give you a bad rating. Fortunately for me, we have a great base of satisfied customers, and don't even bother advertising. The BBB can rot in hell.
The way I look at it, this fell under a **** happens situation; much like the one I outlined.
So, truly, since there was no real and/or catastrophic harm, shop number one really doesn't owe anyone anything.
Except, in interest of customer service and goodwill, wouldn't it be much better for the shop to comp Mary, to give her coupons for free service, or something? I'm self-employed in the home improvement business and if somebody was seriously unhappy and/or inconvenienced by anything I or one of my employees did, I'd be falling over myself backwards to make them whole.
So I guess I do not understand shops that don't do the same...aren't they killing a whole lot of goodwill and potential future business by not taking care of righteously aggrieved customers?
You're right. They really should make it right. I would. However, I'd be FAR more inclined to fix the problem, rather than just refund money.
Unfortunately, there are not enough businessmen, like you, around.
You're right. They really should make it right. I would. However, I'd be FAR more inclined to fix the problem, rather than just refund money.
Unfortunately, there are not enough businessmen, like you, around.
Thanks and yes, yes, fixing is better than refunding! I guess I only meant refunding if the fix was already done. As a gesture of goodwill for inconvenience, and also to ensure the client returns (and tells others how well you dealt with a screw-up.)
Businesswoman. And yes, what is the saying...satisfy a client with a good job as expected, few will hear about it. Screw a client, 1000 people will know about within a week.
Man...where do you guys go? The shop I work at, if we leave a wheel loose we catch hell. All hell. Just the other day one was left loose and messed up this escalades custom wheel. (just one.) We replaced it, and replaced the bearing and realigned it. Free. This kind of reputation however means we get just about everyone with custom wheels in the 4-state area, to come in for anything. Don't get me started on loose center caps. But I guess I work for a good one. I just didn't know there were so many bad ones out there. My advice is, find one tire shop. Local. Become a regular. Even if their tires aren't the cheapest, or the services. Sometimes it helps to be a repeat customer.
Another anecdote, today a man came in with a tire another shop told him was out of round. He was driving back home to colorado. Nope, just counter-balanced, and out of road force balance(A handy way of measuring a tires vibration) Fixed the road forced, balanced correctly. No charge. (he did have cooper tires and we're a cooper tire dealer, he didn't buy them here though.)
It really does help to have a regular mechanic. There is a trust built up. Since we spend so much of our time and money in our vehicles it helps to have a good relationship with a good mechanic. So cut out the bad one. Ask for recompense, if they refuse, simply tell them Letter to the editor of the paper, never will be back again, and all my coworkers will know too. Walk away. Simple truth of the business; they'll run out of people to screw over. Close up shop like so many other shoddy mechanics.
^ You're spot on right. The good shops stay in business, while the crappy ones come and go. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who do not - initially anyway - which ones are which. And sometimes a person doesn't have a choice. They're broken down out in the middle of nowhere, and can become easy prey.
Whatever the causation of having left the fasteners loose on your vehicle in that first shop, your state may have statutes requiring that you take your vehicle back (even if it means the inconvenience/expense/downtime of a tow or a simple return trip) to the shop to give them an opportunity to make their work "right" before incurring any other expense or loss. That was the law in the state where I had my shop, and it's an automatic looser for the complainer in small claims or in court if you didn't give the shop the opportunity to make things right, even if an accident resulted where you ignored an obvious mechanical problem ... such as a violently shaking loose wheel and you continued to drive the vehicle.
In your case, no accident resulted and an expense was incurred at another shop to repair the improper workmanship from the first shop. You may be able to pursue recovery in small claims, but what is your time worth to get a possible judgement and then attempt to collect on it?
You may be able to get some satisfaction by posting your bad experience with the shop, but that doesn't put money back into your pocket. Nor will a complaint to the BBB ... which is ineffective in my experience ... but more significantly, their first question will be did you give the 1st shop the opportunity to make it right? If you didn't, then the BBB won't be much help because they understand that mistakes can be made and the key issue is what the shop does after a problem is discovered.
I'd also observe that while many good shops last in this industry, there's a lot of very poor ones that stay in the biz for a long time, too. Franchise quick lube places and chain store shops readily come to mind ... and I've seen the work of some prominent independents that are high dollar operations with a large market share in their community/niche that are outright thieves and incompetents operated by folk with excellent sales/marketing skills; they've been ripping people off for years and folk just keep coming on back and never have a bad word to say about the experience. As well, I've seen a lot of dealership shops that have a way with overselling work or providing unneeded work under the guise of needing to do a "complete job" so that they can stand behind their work ... and yet, when it doesn't properly repair the original problem, the customer gets charged for yet more parts/labor without any adjustment from the first unneeded parts/labor.
Write a negative review about them on yelp & ripoffreport.com.
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And yes, what is the saying...satisfy a client with a good job as expected, few will hear about it. Screw a client, 1000 people will know about within a week.
