evileagletalon wrote:
Alright guys, I've noticed that over the years, many shops around my area have been ripping people off, selling crap as high-end equipment, overcharging for crap installs, frying people's own equipment on purpose(to sell them one to replace it) messing up people's cars, blowing out fuse boxes, deploying air bags, frying ECU's, programming (3) remotes to an alarm, and only giving the customer (2)....to later steal all their stuff. and a lot of other things. None of this has ever happened to me, but many customers have come to me to fix thier installations. I feel really bad for some of these people because they work really hard and save up money to have a little system and then they get shafted, and all thier hard work is down the drain. Does a shop need any type of licensing to be able to do installations? (A) Can a shop charge tax on the installation labor? (B)What kind of things should a shop be doing or not doing as far as installations? Should these shops be reported to anyone? (C)I have customers that are really wized and want to take action against these shady shops. (D) I'd like help my customers out so that these sort of things don't keep on happening to people. |
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A: This varies from location to location. Most states require that a business license is required to start up a shop, but no licensing is required to work there. The best thing to do would be to talk to the permit and licensing authorities for the area. In the case of big box companies many require the employee be at least mecp basic (bronze) before they can be hired.
B: Again this varies from location to location, but tax cannot be added on unless it is required by law to tax labor. Adding labor tax to a bill where it is not obligated by law to add tax constitutes fraud and is a VERY serious offense.
C: All problems with any shop (the trouble makers, yours, or even the one I work at) should be submitted to BBB (Better Business Bureau for those who don't already know) and have them involved as much as possible. That way a record of any shady business is retained and should a certain amount of problems occur, an audit and review can be commissioned to take action.
D: Have a record of all the problems you have encountered doing RRs (Restore/Repair) on vehicles that have come from shops in question. Ask that the customer keep an extra copy of the receipt somewhere safe and have a statement filled. Once you think you have enough statements and records filled, I would look for any patterns and report them to local authorities. Something else I would do is to have the customer say to the shop in question, "Show me how you found how the situation came about"
There are a lot of ways to help protect your customers and yourself. Just make sure you watch your back and keep your installs clean too. Not trying to make you feel threatened but what I mean is make sure your moves are legal and backed by local authorities.
Given some time (A few cases I am aware of took about 8-12 months to really have effect) shady shops will get the picture and start getting legitimate jobs on order and fewer shady ones. The shops may not like you after that, but the important thing is that the customers know you are about them, not just their wallet. Simply put, one good experience and a customer will tell 10 people about it. Give them a bad experience and they'll tell 100 people about it.
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