[Resolved]  Ford — Unethical Marketing and Sales

Address:

Kottayam, Kerala

Dear Sirs,

I am Deepak Thomas Kurian, one of the few unfortunate people who have tried to book a car through your showroom Kairali Ford in Kottayam. I am an Asst.Manager(legal) with Star India Private Ltd in Mumbai and had come down for a short holiday to my home town Changancherry. Let me tell you what happened to me.

I had approached one of your executives named Joseph (Mobile No:[protected] ) for purchasing a FORD LXI Diesel car and came down to the showroom in Kottayam to take a test drive. During the said meeting at your show room i expressed my interest in buying the LXI model and the said they dont have the same in stock. They said both LXI and EXI model are not in stock and they had only the ZXI and the titanium model in stock. Since i insisted on buying LXI model, they said they will have to confirm with the Cochin branch. After checking with the Cochin branch they assured me that they have sea grey color of the LXI model is available at present(in fact two of them!!) . As this sounded good to me, i said i can arrange for the loan within a day or two and get the final DD done within 2 days and Joseph along with his colleague Benoy agreed and told me to call them as soon as the DD is done. The issued me the proforma invoice dated 21/12/2012 to process the bank documents.

The bank officials processed the loan documents on priority and just before the issuance of the DD i called Joesph to confirmed the availability and he said that the the LXI is still available and to call him once the DD is ready. Basis on this confirmation i proceeded with process of the bank loan. In the meanwhile i was surprised to receive a call from Benoy (Mobile No:[protected]) asking me to consider the EXI model again,which i flatly refused. He said thats fine and he will have to confirm the availability of LXI model again.

Then to much shock and surprise i got a call from Joseph again stating that he have to confirm the availability again with the Cochin branch and said he will call me back in a hour once he receives a certain report. Since he dint call me back as promised,i called him again and he replied saying that he would call me back again in ten minutes. After some time Benoy called back to confirm that the said LXI model is not available with them and i should consider EXI model seriously. He said he has checked with his manager regarding the situation and graciously offered me a six thousand rupees cash discount for the EXI model, given my situation. I was totally appalled by the callousness and ease in which he was saying that i could just buy the EXI model for a additional sum of 40k, which seems to be petty sum to him.

I informed him that i need only the LXI version, since i didnt see any value for money (40K extra) for the extra features which came with the EXI version. After much discussions he agreed that his colleagues (Joseph) was at fault to have confirmed the availability of the LXI model and in fact thats why he was offering the above cash discount of Rs.6000/-. I refused to buy the EXI version which they said they have in stock. This is all after the bank had processed the loan and issued the DD for the final amount. Another interesting fact about the gracious six thousand cash discount offered, was that it was already an existing offer with EXI models which i double checked with your cochin branch.

Now that they were only willing to sell me all other models except the LXI model, i refused to give into any of their promises. I was actually being lured and tricked into buy a model of their choice rather than mine. If they had told me clearly initially that they dont have the LXI model in stock then i would have not gone with ahead with loan application and thereby could have avoided wasting time and incurring expenses. This has caused me considerable hardships and embarrassment before the bank officials who have provided me the loan at such short notice My dream to buy a figo car still reamins unfulffilled due the fraudulent and unethical conduct of your sales personnel.

The question is simple why cant i buy a model of the car which i like and why cant they confirm honestly the whether the same is available or not. In fact i was ready to wait to till next Jaunary 2012 if the same is not available by December and this was also communicated the above sale personnels.

This is was an attempt by me to buy my first car in life and this was the experience which i had to go through. This is totally unbecoming of an organisation of your repute and stature and i am ashamed and disheartened by the above experience.

Regards,


Deepak
[protected]