Many dealers add handling charges to the total amount when you go to purchase a car or bike. These charges have been stated as illegal, but even then many dealers continue to charge these. The reason that dealers continue to charge handling fess could ell in fact be lack of awareness. Not many customers know that these charges have often been discussed and disputed.
When uninformed customers ask dealers, what are handling charges and why are they charged – dealer conveniently explains that these charges are necessary. When a customer argues further, the dealer explains that they have spent money out of their own pocket to get the car from the manufacturing plant to the dealer yard, and from there to the dealership for delivery. This is debatable. In reality, these costs are included in your car’s cost anyway, but still some dealers try to pass such costs onto customers by adding extra charges as handling cost.
Some customers agree, some don’t. Those who further argue, are simply told that without paying handling charges, they cannot buy a car / bike. Last month, we had posted a story about how a car buyer was made to run from dealer to dealer in order to waive off handling charges. But, every dealer said they cannot be waived off.
Then, this owner wrote a letter to Tata Motors customer care and CEO, Mr Guenter Butschek. Within a day he got a reply and the charges were waived off. The customer then went ahead and bought new Tata Nexon without paying handling charges.
This story was shared multiple times on social media. It was read by another Tata car owner who also was not happy with the fact that he had to pay Rs 5,000 as handling charge. But, he had already purchased his car. In spite of that, he wrote letter to Tata Motors CEO and their customer care. The result, the dealer refunded handling charges. Within a few days, this owner got Rs 5,000 credited to his bank account.
In a competitive auto industry like India, where every penny counts, Tata Motors is not only bringing together a portfolio of cars that customers are having a dialogue about, the manufacturer is also leading from the front as far as being responsible towards customers is concerned by acknowledging handling charge disputes.
