[Resolved]  TAFE Reach, Anna Salai, Chennai — Poor sales, service and responses

Address:

Chennai, Tamil Nadu

FROM:

N.T.GOPALAKRISHNAN
(Vehicle Number: TN 07 BF 2854; TATA Indigo Manza; Grey Noir color), delivery taken at your show room in Anna Salai, Chennai -2.


TO:

TAFE Reach, Anna Salai, Chennai - 2.

CC TO:

Mr. Krishnan, AGM, TAFE Reach &
Customer Care Support Manager, TAFE Reach


It has been 4 months since I started dealing with TAFE Reach, Anna Salai, Chennai and has been nothing but poor response, bad service, apathy and all negative salesmanship and customer service shown by you.

You have caused me mental agony and anguish on several fronts (which are listed below) and it has been proved so far that there has been no effort to mitigate that.

I am providing all the aspects of your poor sales and service effort below to summarize what you have done and also to serve this as a formal notice before I proceed for legal options in the civil or consumer court/forum. I will provide them with appropriate proof docs/call records as they would suggest.

Sequence of events (and problems):

On Feb 1, 2010, I booked for TATA Indigo Manza - Petrol - Grey Noir color. The booking was assisted by Mr. Boobalan who bought a test drive vehicle the week before. It was promised to me that the vehicle will be delievered in the 3rd week. I gave the booking advance of Rs. 10000/-.

I told TAFE Reach that I want to opt for a car loan. You said you have tie up with HDFC bank and bought Mr. Murugan into picture.

In the 3rd week, I enquired with Boobalan on the status of my vehicle delivery. He directed me to Mr. Venkatesh, the sales executive for Manza. Every day during the 3rd week, I would call Venkatesh to know the status. The reply I would get is that he will get back to me the next day. Fed up of his poor response (he never called me, it is me who used to call him every day, even though he would promise me to speak to me), I told him that because of his poor response, I want cancel my booking. Even without thinking of holding a potential customer, all he said was to write a small letter that I want to get the booking advance back and TAFE will give a cheque to the refund.

I wrote a full-page letter stating all the poor service/response Venkatesh gave and slated that it is because of this reason, I am cancelling my booking. At this time, Mr. Srinivasan (Sales Manager) came to me and apologized for what has happened. He promised me that the vehicle will be delivered on 2-March-2010. This was given in writing on a copy of the letter that I gave. He also promised me that the vehicle's tank will be fully loaded with petrol along with items like car fresher etc.

The vehicle was delivered on 5-March-2010, but without body cover. The petrol tank was not filled up fully. I called Mr. Srinivasan and Mr. Venkatesh to complain about this, but all I got was a simple refutal that this is what they can give. And you gave me a car fresher (which I still have "preserved") that does not give me a hint of smell even when smeared close to the nose!

Unfortunately, my vehicle was involved in a small accident on 5-March-2010 where the antenna came off and the front bumper got damaged. The ERS was called and Mr. Jacob came and took the vehicle. He did a temporary solution for the bumper and I paid Rs. 1660/- for the same. But this temporary fix has started giving problems with the low-front portion of the bumper (on the left side) coming off when the vehicle goes through road bumps.

During my 1st service (5-April-2010), I had mentioned that I require antenna and bumper. But till this time, both have not been provided.

After 2 months of vehicle delivery, there was no information from you on my RC book. I called you to know that it has been ready, but it is just that you decided not to inform on the same. I came to your show room to collect the RC. But again as per "TAFE Reach Standards", you goofed up on that as well. My initials were wrong, even though the Ration Card that I gave as proof had correct initials. The response from the lady who was in charge of RC was that it will be rectified in a week. But I got a copy of the smart card and in that, got it acknowledged (through signature and TAFE Reach seal) that the initials are wrong and the original will be corrected. Again, there was a silence for 1 month and I had to call you. I am a frequent business traveller and I will be in Chennai only occasionally. At that point of time, I was not in Chennai, so I asked my friend to collect the same. The lady at the Delivery section (I think it is Mrs. Mallika - she comes from Nanganallur) had apparently told that since this is a smart card, the name in the card cannot be changed but there is a letter from RTO to this change and this will be couriered to my house address. It has been more than 2 months now and still I have not got the letter couriered. I have been following it up with Mr. Venkatesh very frequently on this issue and all I get a reply is that "Sir, I will do this tomorrow". And that tomorrow has not dawned upon Mr. Venkatesh yet.

Every now and then, I used to call TAFE Reach Service Center (Greams Road) to check on Antenna and Bumper. All the time the reply would be that TATA Motors are not giving them the parts. One day (during April), I got a call from TAFE Reach Service (the person who called me was Jayanthi - she is not working in TAFE Reach now) saying that the body cover and antenna are ready. I went all the way from Velachery to Greams Road (around 15 kms) to get that. There she told me that only body cover is available and not antenna. When I confronted her about what she told me over phone, she promised me that the antenna will be given in a week and a person from TAFE Reach will come to my home to fix it. Till now that has not been done. The body cover that was given to me was not the original TATA Motors body cover, but was sold to me at Rs. 1500/-. I suspect that TAFE Reach has bought it from near-by shop and sold to me at premium. But since I am in a location where my car can get dirty easily, I had no other choice but to buy it. It shows TAFE Reach's cheap tactics and ridiculous/frivilous methods of being hand-in-glove with local vendors to push their products.

I registered for Manza Free Check Up camp that was conducted at TAFE Reach Service (Greams Road) on 12-June-2010. On that day, I realized that I have not got my car insurance original and when I checked the file that was given to me at the time of delivery, it did not contain the cover note as well. In the TAFE Reach Service Center, I met Mr. Venkatesh and I told him about the same. Guess what, he told me the same repeated, recorded message - that he will take care of this the next day. But after that, it was Mr. Venkatesh's worst (but original) way of not looking into it and not responding to my calls.

On that day, executives from TATA Motors, Pune met me and I told them about the parts. They told me that parts are always available and it is TAFE Reach who are not ordering it. They called up the manager in charge of parts procurement in front of me and asked them about the same. They verified my first service job sheet in which I had mentioned about the parts. The manager did not answer any of their questions on parts. They told me that they will take care of this problem. But they too showed that they are no different from what TAFE Reach is and nothing has been done yet by them. But the fact is that they had noted down my name, vehicle number and the complaints I made about TAFE Reach. I could get this from TATA Motors.

On 21-June-2010, I called up Mr. Venkatesh to know what happened to the car insurance. The call was made in the morning. He told me that he will check with the insurance dept and get back to me in 1 hour. But 2 hours passed, no calls from him and since I know about him, I called him again. He again said that he will get back to me in 1 hour (and said person in insurance dept was on leave, which was a bluff as explained in next paragraph). I waited till evening and any calls made to him met with no response.

I called TAFE Reach show room and asked them to connect to insurance dept. I was connected to that dept and I was able to speak to the person in that dept. This clearly shows that Mr. Venkatesh was lying when he said people in that dept was on leave. I asked them about my car insurace details and they said it is done with Bajaj Allianz. They said it was me who has personally opted for Bajaj Allianz and they are not dealing with that company. I told them that I have not opted for it. The story goes that I got introduced to Mr. Murugan from HDFC for car loan by Mr. Venkatesh (which means TAFE Reach). Before I signed on the loan papers, I called Mr. Srinivasan about the different cheques that I should give. Mr. Srinivasan told me to give a cheque for the down payment (2 lacs), one for insurance (I was asked to enter only the amount) and other crossed cheques as required by HDFC. This happened on 25-Feb-2010. He told me that if I do not sign it by that day, the new car rates (hiked) will apply. I did as per what he said and it was the loan agent who opted for Bajaj Allianz. But as the executive in charge of Manza delivery, Mr. Venkatesh failed to apply standard procedures of checking whether the insurance has been done and if it is, what was the company. The failure on this part lead to other problems in insurance as described below.

On 22-June-2010, Mr. Ganapathy Subramaniam from TAFE Reach called me and introduced himself as the person in charge of insurance dept. He told me that he will ask Mr. Venkatesh to check with Bajaj Allianz on why the car insurance has not been delivered yet. He promised me to make Mr. Venkatesh speak to me on this the next day, even though I had a friendly bet that he will never call me. And that turned out to be true.

In the meanwhile, I called Bajaj Allianz Customer Care and gave them the cover note number to know about the insurance details. They in turn sent me a soft copy of the insurance next day. It took 4 months for me to get the insurance and again all through my effort. TAFE Reach was useless in this regard.

There were 2 major errors in the insurance. (1) Vehicle number was wrongly mentioned - Instead of TN 07 BF 2854, it was mentioned as CN 07 BF 2854. (2) Again, as like RC, even in insurance the initials were wrong. If Mr. Venkatesh had done due diligence of the insurance before the vehicle was delivered, these errors would have been corrected immediately.

I spoke to customer care to change the vehicle number as well as my initials and both were done. Lot of roaming call charges were incurred during this phase. This involved speaking to Venkatesh, TAFE Reach show room and Bajaj Allianz.

After waiting for 2 days without any response from Mr. Venkatesh, I made a written complaint to TATA Motors through their web site. Subsequently, I also called their customer care number to make a vocal complaint on 25-June-2010 afternoon. The customer care executive immediately arranged for a conference call between me, Venkatesh and the executive herself. I asked him about the insurance goo[censored]ps. Mr. Venkatesh came up with a brilliant statement - "Insurance copy will not contain vehicle number"!!

I made this to be noted by the customer care executive of how poor a car salesman can be, when he says the above statement. In front of the customer care executive, he told me that he will get back to me by 5PM. He called by 5PM (first and last time he honoured his word) and asked why he is complaining to TATA motors instead of speaking to him directly!!

And suddenly, he stopped the conversation abruptly saying that he is driving and he will call me once he reaches his destination. And that call never happened, as usual.

On 30-June-2010, Mr. Krishnan called me introducing himself as the AGM of TAFE Reach. He asked me about the complaint I made to TATA Motors and that he is concerned about the reputation of TAFE Reach, so he wanted to solve all my problems immediately. Again I had to go through explaining all the things that have happened. He was more concerned about "tell me what you want now". I had to ask him whether he is interested in what TAFE Reach has done/is doing to me or just about the parts that my car require. And he agreed to know the entire terrible story of mine in dealing with TAFE Reach.

I told Mr. Krishnan about the parts, the duplicate body cover, the RTO letter and finally, I asked him to give me a monetary compensation of all the mental agony they caused to me. He said all of the things will be taken care and everything will be solved by 2-July. On 2-July, somebody else called me saying that he was from Customer Care dept and he wanted to know about the complaint I made to TATA motors!! I told him that I am not a Video Recorder/Playback machine to repeat everything whenever somebody wanted and he has to know this from Mr. Krishnan. Again on 2-July, Mr. Krishnan called me saying that he was on leave for 2 days and he need one more day to solve the issue. I was OK with that. He also told that he has talked to the higher management on my monetary compensation issue and that he will get back to me on that too.

Till 6-July, I did not get any call from Mr. Krishnan. So on 6-July evening, I called Krishnan asking what has happened to his promise to resolve problems. I thought that being an AGM, there would be some credibility in what he was saying but he just behaved as others in TAFE Reach. No prizes for guessing as to where the junior level employees (like Venkatesh) are learning this kind of attitude from.

He said he has spoken to some Customer Care manager and he should have called me on 05-July itself. I told him that nobody had called me but he kept insisting that the person would have called me. I asked him to get this clarified from that person itself and disconnected the call.

Then the Customer Care Manager called me and apologized for not calling me on 5-July itself as asked by Mr. Krishnan. He told me that he will give a new body cover, antenna and the RTO letter at my house itself. When I asked about the monetary compensation as promised, the reply was that I will be given a tank full of petrol as compensation. When I asked him whether this is what he means "monetary" compensation, he told me that generally when there are complaints, they will give only 10 liters of fuel but this is a special concession for me!! I told him that I am rejecting this kind of compensation which is literally like giving a 50p chocolate to a kid.

So, to summarize, the following are the list of problems given to me by TAFE Reach (Sales and Service):

1. No response from the sales executive for any of the problems whatsoever. It has always been one-way conversation from my side. (Call records)
2. Failing to deliver car on time. Failing to respond to repeated calls on the status of delivery.
3. Failing to address why I wanted to cancel my booking and it was just like "I dont care about the problem. If you want to cancel, go ahead". (I have the letter addressed to TAFE Reach, acknowledged by Srinivasan with sign and TAFE Reach stamp).
4. Failing to put correct names in RC, in spite of what was there in the Ration Card. (Smart Card will tell that story which can be checked against the Ration Card proof I gave)
5. Failing to give me information on RC, even after 2 months from the delivery of the car. (Call records)
6. Failing to send me the RTO letter which endorses name change, even after 2 months from the name change was requested. (I got a letter from TAFE Reach acknowledging on the error and also the fact that it will be sent to RTO for change, which sign and TAFE Reach Seal).
7. Failing to fix the bumper problem even after paying Rs. 1660/- towards service charges. (Service Bill). Failing to address on the antenna part (Job Sheet copy of my first service).
8. Failing to give me antenna even after 4 months of asking the same (this was acknowledged by TATA Motors as a problem with TAFE Reach).
9. Failing to give me the insurance cover note during delivery (Delivery file).
10. The vehicle number and my name had mistakes. This would have been avoided if simple checks were done before delivery. I was lucky that goo[censored]p was made in those which I can immediately verify. Imagine what would have happened if the Engine or Chassis number had been wrongly entered. (The first insurance soft copy sent to me by Bajaj Allianz through email).
11. Failing to follow up on providing me the insurance copy even after 4 months from the date of delivery of the car. (No records from TAFE Reach proving that they have made available insurance copy on time or they solved this at any point of time, whereas there are call records as well as email records from Bajaj Allianz to me sending different soft copies of original insurance and modified insurance copies after vehicle number/initial changes).
12. Failing to respond to my calls regarding insurance. (call records)
13. Forcing me to directly deal with Bajaj Allianz for insurance and doing nothing to help me on that part. (Call records and email conversations)
14. Failing to understand basic sales facts (like Insurance will not contain Vehicle number)
15. Right from Venkatesh (Sales Executive) to Krishnan (AGM), failing to address problems on time, but promising sky and earth.
16. Forcing me to call TAFE Reach staff everytime for all the above errors on TAFE Reach part, resulting in loss of money, time and giving me tense moments during all through the 4 months.