Reason for Visit: Service
I recommend this dealer: No
My Review of Autobahn Motors:
Dear Mercedez Benz (USA); Better Business Bureau; et. al:
Per our two conversation now (with ‘customer care’), the first quite extensive with a woman who said she would take care of the problem, yet never called me back, nor emailed me, as promised, the second (as I am writing this), the individual telling me that they have “no record” of that first call, here again is what happened – now in writing:
After rushing in to take my leased Mercedes E320 to Autobahn Motors for apparently a ‘B’ service, and getting an estimate of service, the next thing I get is a call telling me that I need an additional service for $300! (this is on a brand new 25k Mercedes!); I said unless Mercedes was going to pick up that, absolutely not – his response was that Mercedes “doesn’t pick up anything re maintenance”. Then he said, “I’ll write down you decline!”.
Thinking that something is wrong here, i.e., if the additional service had to do with brakes (which it did apparently) – how can they just allow me to decline without saying “this is important; if you don’t fix this it will be dangerous to drive…”. Further, how can something which is not normal be required on a new car and the dealership or Mercedes wouldn’t pick up the charges, I said to myself.
With that, I called the Service manager to complain; his name was Mark something. I explained that the Service guy acted like a used car salesman, or someone on commission, and everything he said seemed highly suspicious for the above reasons; it was like I was dealing with someone trying a scam, that is, he was doing his best to get me to agree to add an additional and unnecessary $300s worth of work on the job. If not, then it would be even more outrageous not to explain the seriousness of what needed to be fixed – but instead he just said “ok..I’ll write declined”.
When all this was explained to the Service manager, there was no argument at all; in fact, he was quite understanding; we then talked about the last time I was there for my A service, and why (I received a coupon in the mail); he then explained that I could go to the net and they’d match any coupon rate (as stated on Autobahn’s website), but that he would also offer me the same coupon rate from June (something like $395). I said fine; and he said when I came to pick up my car, although he was leaving before then, he’d change the invoice to that price.
When I got there later that evening, nothing was changed (it was still around $600); the women said, no problem that it would be fixed tomorrow “but to get your car keys, she would need to run the AMEX card through, “but don’t worry, it will be destroyed and changed when Mark is in the next day”. I said fine, gave my credit card, and signed it and fortunately, wrote “will be changed….” On it .
Amazingly, the next day I got a call from Mark who said everything was correct on the invoice, “that I misunderstood”; of course, that was outrageous, and furthermore, a lie – I came in for a B service, that was all that was ever discussed, or, in my mind, and per my initial discussion, very brief, authorized.
Lastly, I got a call from Mercedes Benz corporate (customer care), who said they’d take care of this; the next thing I get, was a second invoice (this time with a ‘bogus’ unsigned, and unauthorized, copy of the “customer copy” of the AMEX receipt! For $579.34.
Please open a fraud investigation and reverse this charge. The agreed upon price was about $395 (someone should really go to jail for credit card fraud!).
Best,
p
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