I left a bad review for a local blue oval dealership's service department. Service manager is now emailing me and explaining all the fixes they will make blah blah. Whatever, already lost my business going forward.

The next paragraph says this:
I would like to refund your deductible that you paid while here ($100) if you would be willing to take a follow up survey and fill it out with all 5's. And to sweeten the deal, I see you are an active Ford Pass member. I would like to gift an additional $100 on Ford Pass. Would you be willing to do that?

I know all dealerships and service departments want 5's on everything. I don't really care about the $100 refund, they did try to rectify (albeit poorly) and did some PCM reprogramming.

I'm thinking of telling them to pound sand or ignoring altogether. Mind you, it wasn't a single service advisor that dropped the ball it was all 4 I dealt with over the course of 5 days.

WWYD?

Integrity would say no I think. If they're no longer getting your business, the potential for it to 1) really change their business processes and 2) provide a modicum of warning to other possible customers outweighs the pittance of a reimbursement.

The parent company may even provide you with similar remediation if notified to which you wouldn't even have to deal with this dealership again. Who knows.

Email them back and tell them you'll do it for $500 dollars. If it means that much to them they'll pay up.

Option A: Leave a nice review with 5 stars that says in it, After initially having a terrible experience and leaving a bad review because of (explain the original issue). The service manager called me up and told me that if I fix my review, They'd pay me x amount. I highly recommend this dealership for all of your service needs! They'll even pay you back if you are not satisfied!

Option B: Take the money and leave a bad review with a sock account.

If this is just an internal survey that only ford sees, I'd tell them to pound sand.

I had a terrible service experience at Subaru West Houston last year. Couldn't get any updates. Warranty case where Subaru Corp had to get involved. We still had to push and push to get anything resolved at the local level The service manager would not call me back or return any emails.

When we picked it up there was still one part that was not repaired correctly. When the satisfaction survey came to me it was a public Google review. I let the service manager have it and wouldn't you know I get a response from him within an hour

It's scary and sad that it takes that kind of action to get a dealership to step up and do the right thing. Going forward it will be SOP anytime something isn't 100% to my satisfaction

So off the wall question spawned by the Keating Dealership thread the other day, but how close is this to wire fraud? Basically paying a dissatisfied customer to falsely provide a positive review online to influence potential new customers? I guess it would depend on if they gave the new customers ****ty service too in a way that could have a monetary damage value placed on it?

yeah that's a good question. I'm not even gonna venture a guess on the legalities. My ethics aren't for sale I'm just trying to figure out if I should be an ass or just let it go.

FightinTAC08 said:

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yeah that's a good question. I'm not even gonna venture a guess on the legalities. My ethics aren't for sale I'm just trying to figure out if I should be an ass or just let it go.

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To me, anything grossly unethical should be exposed.

Covering up wrong doing by paying off customers, while not criminal, should be called out as often as possible.

you aren't being an ass, you are being honest.

I can def understand by if you don't give na honest response they may never change.

I'll give my last experience with them in purchasing a vehicle. During the process I mentioned to them if the numbers are not the same as we discussed when I went in that I would walk away. Of course they were not and the discussion went a little south. Rather than walking away totally from the deal we came to an agreeable solution.

At the end of it of course he says that he has to have all fives to get paid. Told him my perspective and that I would not take money out of his pocket but that I will chalk it up to the start of a business relationship. He understood so only time will tell.

Only my experience.