Arnold Clark miss-sold Service Plan

[SilverFoxy]

Hi folks, i will try to keep this short,

 

i bought a 1 year old peugeot 307 petrol from arnold clark with extended warranty and a 2 service plan,

 

A couple of months later i enquired while the car was in for a warranty repair how i use the service plan to get my free services, and found out that my cars service schedule is 20,000 miles or every 2 years,

well i thought i had won a watch as the 2 service plan would cover year 2 and 4 and by the time the 3rd service was due at year 6 my warranty would be up and i could use a cheaper garage for servicing if i still had the car.

 

All was fine and i was happy with the car, then it was due it's first service and this is when i found out that the 2 service plan had to be used within 2 years, this is when i realised that i had been conned, i was told that this was set in stone and could not be extended to cover my 2nd service.

 

i spoke to the sales manager about this as the salesman was off with a long term illness and got absolutley nowhere everyone i spoke to quoted "Arnold Clark recomend yearly servicing" although no one said we will force you to carry out yearly servicing by selling you a service plan that your car dosn't need!

 

So i worked out that if i had not purchased a service plan the peugeot warranty services would have cost me £120 for first service and £240 for it's second service = £360 to keep my warranty active and the car serviced to peugeot recomended services.

 

Now with the service plan (Which i believe is supposed to save the customer money) £250+ 5years intrest for my first sevice and for the 1 they will carry out even though the car is not due a service, and £240 for the second service = £490+ the 5 years intrest.

 

To be honest i was really happy with my car but this really got me down,

i gave up trying to talk to anyone, the salesman was supposed to contact me but never did (funny that he spoke to me daily while i was intrested in buying the car) it's now a year later and i'm getting phone calls looking for me to book my car in for my special service, which has now got me thinking if they do another service like it's first service, which would have cost £120 then i will be getting £240 worth of servicing for my £250+ 5years intrest.

 

I dont suppose theres anything i can do about it, but i thought i would put it to you guys before i book it in for its service.

 

Thanks for any advice you can give me!

[Guest Arnold Clark Company Rep]

Hi, I have read your post and would like to help if I can. Please contact us by e-mailing on online.customer.services@arnoldclark.co.uk , or customer.services@arnoldclark.co.uk and we will help wherever possible.

 

Kind Regards

 

Alasdair

Customer Services

[Conniff]

Silverfoxy, if you should contact using the above email address, and I think you should, make sure you post what they say here as well. You've been conned once remember.

When companies have bad reputations, they will try and keep any further information from being made public so potential customers can't see how they operate and go elsewhere.

 

All, and without exception, sellers who offer an insurance (which a warranty is) must tell you that you have a choice to go elsewhere to get your cover. If this didn't happen, then you have been mis-sold and can claim it back including any interest you have paid.

Edited April 26, 2010 by Conniff

[SilverFoxy]

Thanks for your quick replys, i actually hadn't realized i could take it further than the garage i had purchased the car from.

 

so e-mail is away and i will post back with the outcome!

[scaniaman]

Report this to your local Trading Standards. You can mention that their counterparts in Glenrothes and Perth have had similar complaints recently.

[SilverFoxy]

Thanks for your advice scaniaman, i have had a reply from Alasdair and he is looking into the matter.

I will give him the chance to look into my complaint before i go to trading standards, but i now know where my next port of call will be if i get no joy.

Thanks

[scaniaman]

Aren't you the lucky one Silverfoxy!!!!!!!!

[Guest Arnold Clark Company Rep]

Dear All,

 

We at Customer Services are willing to look into any case brought to us, I do not normally personally take incoming calls etc day to day, but I am happy to be involved in a case if I am able to be, if not, one of the Customer Services team would be happy to look into things for you.

 

Please, if there is anything anyone has on the go, we may be able to help you, so e-mail on online.customer.services@arnoldclark.co.uk

 

Kind Regards

 

Alasdair

Customer Services Manager

[Conniff]

It's not looking into cases that is required, it's resolution.

 

The problems shouldn't be happening to start with and if your were to issue instructions to your staff that profit isn't the be all and end all of selling cars then there wouldn't be so many customers making complaints and having to fight for their rights.

 

It's not the single customer complaint that needs looking into, it is the sales method you employ and in some case the deliberately fraudulent way some of these sales are made.

 

Buying a car at one price and then being offered another at a higher price when a problem occurs is happening too often to be a coincidence.

[Guest Arnold Clark Company Rep]

I can assure you that we are trying hard to improve the service offered to our customers, any trends in complaints and comments are followed up and if necessary changes in training or policy are implemented. We take complaints seriously, we want to give our customers the best service we can.

Our policy of 'treating customers fairly' is regularly reviewed, if any problems are traced to a branch or individual, these are dealt with accordingly.

 

if anyone has a problem, contact me, we will try to help!

 

Regards

 

Alasdair

[Conniff]

The sentiments are very admirable Alasdair, we will trust you are a man of your word.

Ultimately it is the company that suffers from poor staff procedures and when trust is lost, it is very hard to get back.

[tattiedigger]

Conniff #9-SAYS IT ALL.

The hinmist two posts from Alasdair Craig@AC, appeals for disgruntled customers to contact him. Thats a bit queer as he hasn't tried to sort out a complaint sent him about six or seven weeks ago, or so i am led to understand. In this case where the complaint would need Clark to either lose MONEY or do a bit of graft for the punter they have gone back to their old ways of stonewalling the punter. Again conniff in another post-leopard and spots. What Clarks need to understand is that in this day and age the informed punters will not tolerate stonewalling which will not make the problem go away but only puts the punters back up. I know of at least one punter who is taking legal advice at the moment because their complaint is not being listened to.

[Conniff]

Don't poo pooh it until your have tried. The offer has been made and if there is no satisfaction then you come back here and say so, simple.

[heliosuk]

If Alasdair is true to his word and that of AC then he might like to say why they have an inability to look into Scaniamans problems. It only needs a proper technical investigation to say yes or no, something which the aftersales service seem incapable of.

 

I'll challenge Alasdair here.

 

Prove openly that scaniamans problems were correctly looked at, something they and the manufacturer seem to have difficulty with. If he can sort this one out then he can put the hairdrier away.

 

The reality is that AC are only interested in sales (aren't we all) and that when it comes to aftersales, I would alledge, are incompetent, amateurs and on a par with some Disney charateurs yet pupport to be professional.

 

Professional??? I doubt it and it's a wonder how the hell AC got a customer service award. Unless of course it's linked to advertising spend. ?

If they are that good then why all the complaints?

 

Quite outrageous in the real world.

 

Sir Arnold needs to do a bit more me thinks and take these issues on board, something which seems to have been convinienty ignored.

[lasertung]

SilverFoxy, when you get Palsy Walsy with Alisdair, ask him to send you the "Terms and Conditions" of their service plans. Ask for both pages, and post results here!!!!!!!!!!!

[tattiedigger]

one of the T&Cs in clarks service plans is that it is not transferrable to a new owner of the car.

You would think that a firm so focused on marketing would realise that if the plan was transferred to a (LUCKY) non clark customer, it would get them through the door for servicing then the sales vultures would get a go at otherwise unlikely punters.

[scaniaman]

Mr. Heliosuk,Thank you very much for "Throwing down the Gauntlet" to Alisdair Craig on my behalf. I really do appreciate that.

However, I thought you would have more sense, given that they have had over a year to verify my complaints.

Do you honestly expect people of Clark,s calibre to cross swords with someone with your experience in engine technology.

Alisdair is obviously cherry picking the complaints to tackle since he has not replied to your challenge. Out of their depth on this one???? or afraid of TS?

I am beginning to think that this is another one for the Sunday News Papers.

Edited May 4, 2010 by scaniaman
dippit

[heliosuk]

Well Scaniaman, Sir Alasdair hardly seems to be the Sir Lancelot of the Sir Arnold Clark kingdom does he. Perhaps he is more the Sir Percival Smoothie-Smoothie of Robert Bolts Baron Bollingrew which is worth a good read anyway and seemingly quite apt with AC.

 

The point is that despite frequent requests, the Kingdom of AC seem blinded by the Dragons of the Baron "The Computer Is Always Right" and if Baron computer says there is no fault, there is no fault.

 

However, as most of the professional engineers in this field know, it it possible that fault codes can be masked by software gliches, electronic tolerance stacks, let alone mechanical ones and the only way to prove it is to go back to basics and check leak off rates etc.

 

Unfortunately, Sir AC seems to employ Serfs who are incapable of realising this or even carrying out these basic checks necessary to confirm or deny that an issue exists.

 

I reckon it's more a case that Sir AC does not have competent staff to deal with the issue and as regards TS, well they would have to set up a quango just to understand the issue.

 

One thing for everyone to watch though is the current vulnerability of these DPF's to play up along with their associated paraphanalia. Generally they work well but go outside of the test procedures and boy does it get expensive to put right if it goes wrong and I would alledge the diagnostics and the people who have to fix them are not up to par as "it costs too much to train them".

[Conniff]

Time to bring this out of the cellar and back into the sunlight

[SilverFoxy]

oops i'm really sorry i never got back to you on this 1

 

Well as you have probibaly guessed by my lack of posting i got this sorted to my satisfaction.

 

My second warranty service will be carried out free of charge.

 

Well i have a letter from customer services stating that i will get the service free and i have to present the letter to the garage

to recieve the service free, hopfully all will go well when its due in 8 moths time.

 

I see from reading the above posts that not everyone is happy with Arnold Clark customer services,

i can only comment from my own experience and say i would rather deal with the customer service department than the Arnold Clark garage i bought the car from.

 

I can only appologies for how long it's taken me to get back and thanks for all the help and advice!

[scaniaman]

Well Silverfoxy you maybe got your service OK'd but your car will be lucky to get a lick and a promise. When i put my car in for it's last service, i enquired if they took the wheels off as part of the service. This question was prompted by my local garage who had problems removing wheels off cars over 3years old which had previously been main dealer serviced. Clarks said that the wheels did come off (brake work). When i took the car in i left a tin of copper grease and told them i wanted this put on all moving brake components and wheel bolts.

Obviously, when i collected the car i couldn't check if this had been done, but i know that they did not change the brake fluid as per Citroen service instructions.---another sad story.

Last week the car went for first MOT and got an advisory on a sticking brake. I took car to local garage for repair and they informed me that the brakes were partially seized and no copper grease had been used. This begs the question "how many Clark serviced cars are running around with faulty brakes???????????"

The mechanic told me that nearly all main dealers don't remove brake pads and clean mating surfaces, assembling with a heat resistant lubricant----and yet cars do 12,500mls between services???????? This is criminal, moreso on cars where servicing is two yearly.

From now on the cars that me and my extended family own, will be serviced by a proper garage who we can trust to do the job properly, and not how an accountant thinks they can get away with doing the very minimum.