Believe it or not, a Hyderabad techie has managed to get Hyundai to drop handling charges. The company showroom has returned the INR 6,850 paid as handling charges and INR 3,000 towards registration fees collected with the invoice after Ratan Gandhi won the two year long legal battle.
Ratan Gandhi, an employee of Infosys, based in Hyderabad, purchased a Hyundai Xcent from the company showroom on 27th December 2014. He paid the amount mentioned in the Invoice but was surprised to note that the dealership refused to hand over the possession of the vehicle unless he also paid up INR 6,850 as handling charges.
On questioning, he was told that this charge along with INR 3,000 registration fee was mandatory prior to the release of the vehicle. The staff informed him that these charges were towards fuel and labor charges. With no other option, Gandhi paid up the additional amount at that time and took possession of his vehicle. But he was upset about the episode and decided to press charges. He sent mails to the company for which he received unsatisfactory replies forcing Gandhi to lodge complaints with the Joint Transport Commissioner.
The matter was taken up by G P N Prasad, Central Zone Road Transport Official who found that these additional charges were illegal. After a two year long battle, authorities have finally found the dealer guilty. Gandhi was not only returned his Rs 6,850 and Rs 3,000 towards registration charges which were collected, but a stern warning has been issued to all Hyundai showrooms across India and licenses of two showrooms have been suspended. Hyundai has even issued circulars to all its showrooms to abstain from such additional collections.
Hyderabad Joint Transport Commissioner J. Pandurang Naik said – “If showroom dealers ask for handling charges or any other hidden charges over and above the actual invoice, the customers can directly lodge a complaint with us. We’ll suspend the authorisation of the showrooms.”
Speaking about car prices, Hyundai Motors India Limited has announced a price hike of their models from the Eon to Santa Fe. This price hike is to come into effect from 1st January 2017. The company has revealed that the reason behind price hike are increase in input costs and higher costs of spares.
Hyundai Motors India Limited sell a wide range of models right from their entry level Eon which is priced from INR 3.28 lakh to the Santa Fe SUV which is priced from INR 28.85 lakh. This price hike is inevitable and follows similar price hikes announced by other auto manufacturers such as Tata Motors, Renault India, Nissan India, Datsun India and Toyota India.
Toyota and Renault have announced a price hike of up to 3% while Nissan, Datsun have announced hike of up to INR 30,000 while Tata has announced hike of up to INR 25,000. New prices will come into effect from 1st Jan 2017. All eyes are now on Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest car maker, who has not announced the price hike yet.
Commenting on the price hike, Mr. Rakesh Srivastava, Sr. Vice President, Sales and Marketing said, “In these challenging year end market conditions, we are constrained to consider price increase on account of factors like increased input costs, fluctuating exchange rates and increasing marketing expenses. The proposed price increase will be up to Rs. 1,00,000 and will be effective from January 2017 across all models from Eon to Santa Fe.”
via Deccan Chronicle
