Worth a chuckle - Euro car prats

For the last year of being a self employed mobile mechanic, I've sourced most of my parts from my local Euro Car Parts. One monday afternoon about a month ago, I went in and ordered £800 of diesel injectors. I was told I couldn't have them until wednesday, but as I was subcontracting to another garage, I couldn't get in to get the parts so asked them to deliver the parts to my workshop, as usual, on thursday morning. Thursday morning comes, I order an oil filter at 10.30 (after being given the wrong one) as the customer needed the car back from me servicing it by 12, and at 1 I had to be 10 miles away fitting said injectors. FOUR HOURS LATER, my parts have completed the 4 mile journey!!

Needless to say, I was fuming. I'd let down 2 customers for no reason other than lack of communication. If they'd told me during one of the 5 or 6 phonecalls I made to find out where they were, I could have made alternative arrangements.

The next day, the accounts department ring and ask if I can go and settle up in branch. I explained the situation and told them I was going to make the branch wait as many weeks as I did hours for their money, just to see if they like people shouting down the phone to them asking why £1200 was outstanding. A week later, another phonecall asking me to pay, to which they were told "We crashed a van, then we were 2 drivers down because they were picking up the poole van, but oh no we've crashed it!!" That was one of the excuses I got when enquiring where my parts were.

Anywho, yesterday, I decided I'd go and get a random £260 from the bank, take the injectors back to relieve the £300 surcharge for them and pay a little bit off, but not all of it as that seemed far too easy. I wandered in, put the injectors on the counter, and said "I've got a bit of money here for you, but not the full amount, as I've lost 2 very important customers, no customers means no work, no work means no money".... dumped my Sainsbury's bag for life with £260.15p, in denominations of 1p up to £1, in on the counter with a bit of a clunk...."so I've emptied my piggy bank! Can you count it?? I'll wait!"

The managers face was a complete picture. The accounts woman who'd previously been a little bit rude to me on the phone realised she'd have to count it, and looked as if she was about to cry, yet the showroom full of other mechanics collecting parts found it highly amusing. The manager said "I know you're just proving a point, which you've done, but I just haven't got time to count this now," to which I replied, "I haven't got time to wait 4 hours for an oil filter, but I've done that!!"

Eventually, he concluded that I had £260.02, 15 euro cents, 2 swedish whatever it is and a couple of yen!

Thought I'd upset 'em a little bit more and asked for my 35p bag for life back, and then told them I'm waiting for a cheque to clear, I'll be back next week to settle up.

I know this is very, very childish, BUT, I think I taught them a very valuable lesson in not wasting peoples time, and maybe a little bit of communication is required when poop hits the fan, because everyone elses time is just as important as Euro Car Parts' time.

This has made me chuckle I'll give you that

I doff my cap to you Sir!

Best thing is, they tried their hardest to show no emotion, but are CLEARLY upset as I've had phonecall after phonecall calling me a legend! They've obviously been slagging me off for it. THAT made me chuckle!

Stick it too the man.

Stick it too the man.

Or the little fat woman in the corner that had to count it all lol

They deserve it! I was in college waiting for a bmw exhaust and it turns up late as usual - Oh and guess what?....it was the wrong exhaust

Hero

my hats off to you fella i cant stand time waster and would have done the same

Nicely done sir.

nice, ill be showing this to my mechanic lol

Thanks chaps. Wondering whether to just send a cheque for the rest, or enclose it in a letter. By that I mean send a letter... "Dear Euro Car Prats, please dind enclosed a cheque..." but laminate said letter AND the cheque together. Lol

Absolute LAD. My hero!!!

Good work!

I've never understood why some companies think its no longer important to keep the customer happy. If you read all their usual blurb that they use for advertising etc. then it will nearly always say how important we all are as customers and how we can rely on their service. But the reality is usually the sales staff bend over backwards until the cheque has cleared and then you are in the usual company 'washing machine' as when things don't go as advertised you just get tumbled around and taken to the cleaners.

Enjoyed that.

good for you but i hate to say what goes around comes around,they could well do the same back to you again if you really upset them. by saying stock is not there and the likes,

Great stuff!

It would have been better if you'd have taken it in in a normal plastic bag and slashed the bag as you put it on the counter, then as they picked it up, the change fell all over the floor on their side of the counter so they had to pick it up

Well done. I always find that a few negative reviews with carefully worded explanations for why you are giving the negative review on qype or local consumer type sites really upsets them too. They rely heavily on Joe public searching on the internet for locally available stuff and if someone searchs and sees justifiable negative reviews where the customer has been jerked about like you were it really puts prospective customers off. I had a PM from a local factor Co. I had used and had a really bad experience with which they refused to sort out over the counter, saying if I would remove my review they would give me a refund plus a gift voucher.

good for you but i hate to say what goes around comes around,they could well do the same back to you again if you really upset them. by saying stock is not there and the likes,

All that's left is to pay their money. I won't ever be using them again so not much chance of repercussions.

I dont think anything I have ordered from them has been right, or delivered on time.

Excellent

best part was you saying ill wait

All that's left is to pay their money. I won't ever be using them again so not much chance of repercussions.

haha that does make it the best come back ever then

Classic.