We finally got the truck back yesterday. I am so sickened and discouraged by all the events related to this whole incident that it is making it really hard for me to even continue on in this profession. Not only is the dealership in Laredo unprofessional, they have now proven to be nothing more than common crooks in my opinion. What else would you call it when they blatantly try to charge you for services and parts that you didn't get or they didn't provide?
I called them yesterday morning and they informed me that our part had finally arrived. This was at 11:30 and our motel checkout time was noon. I went down to the front desk to see if we could get a late checkout and was told no. They were expecting a lot of new arrivals and wanted everyone out of their rooms so they could get them ready for the new guests. After being there for over a week I can't believe they didn't even want to allow us one extra hour. We packed up and called a taxi and headed over to the dealership. We found our truck and saw that it was still being worked on. I talked to the service manager and he said the mechanics were at lunch so we would have to wait till they came back to find out what the status was. Finally after about 2 hours they told us it was ready.
The service guy started to print out our invoice and I was looking at it on the screen. I could see that they were charging us $12002 for the towing bill. When I asked why it was $200 higher than the towing company told us it would be, the guy had the nerve to tell me that they have to mark it up just like all their other services. But, I said, you didn't tow us. Yes, but as a service to you, we are paying the towing company and collecting from you. Excuse me? I can pay the towing company just as easily as I can pay you. And at a savings of $200 that is what I want to do. Then he says, well, we may have already paid them, so you're going to have to pay us. I said, please give me the phone number for the towing company. I called them up and asked if they had already been paid. No, the charge was still pending. Good. Can you accept my credit card as payment over the phone? Sure, no problem. I paid the bill and then let the service manager confirm with the tow company that they wouldn't be charged for the bill. How is it possibly acceptable to mark up a towing bill $200? And not even give us the option or all the information we need to make an informed decision?
This is criminal to me. But...they weren't done screwing with us yet. Now the guy is upset with me over the towing charge so he disappears for awhile. We waited him out and he finally comes back with our invoice. He briefly flashed it in front of us and then told us to go to the cashier and pay it. I said, I need to look at that bill. He lays it down and again tries to blow me off by saying a few things as if there's nothing there for me to be looking at. I ignore him and continue to study the bill. I see that we are being charged for 2 circuit breakers at $45 each. I say to him, how many circuit breakers were put on our truck? He asked the guy behind him and is told one. Okay, so why are you charging us for 2? Lots of Spanish being spoken between them and no good answer is given. I said fine. If we are paying for 2 then we want the other one to keep as a spare. They had to go on a hunt to find the other one, but finally it was given to us. Again, the nerve of these people!! So much corruption. Is it because of their location on the Mexican border? Is that just how business is done there? I don't know, but I do know that I will not go back there unless there is absolutely no other option available to me. I hope to goodness that we are never in that situation. I have to wonder how much they inflated their labor costs on the job, because unfortunately I don't know of any way of proving how many hours they actually worked on the truck. I'm sure we paid more than we should have. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that they actually fixed the truck. If it does break down, hopefully it will be far enough up the road so that we can go somewhere else for repairs.
The whole time we were in the motel waiting to get the truck back, our carrier called us nearly every day with a load hoping that we would be able to take it. I jokingly told John that just watch and see, when we get our truck back, they won't have any loads for us. We went back on the board last night and got a call this morning from a dispatcher with a load offer. It all sounded great till he got to the part about the discounted rate. They wanted us to do the load for about 17 cents a mile cheaper than our normal rate. I told him no thanks. We'll wait . I thought we were going to get lucky. They sent us another load which was even better, about 100 more total miles and paid our full rate. We happily accepted it. It was picking up tonight at 11 pm and delivering on Monday morning. Of course, I should've known better. They just called a little while ago and said the customer changed the load and doubled the weight so now it won't fit on our truck. Load cancelled.
I don't know what I've done to be earning all this bad luck, but I really hope it turns around soon! If not, we are going to have to go back to regular jobs. And we really do not want to do that.....
I called them yesterday morning and they informed me that our part had finally arrived. This was at 11:30 and our motel checkout time was noon. I went down to the front desk to see if we could get a late checkout and was told no. They were expecting a lot of new arrivals and wanted everyone out of their rooms so they could get them ready for the new guests. After being there for over a week I can't believe they didn't even want to allow us one extra hour. We packed up and called a taxi and headed over to the dealership. We found our truck and saw that it was still being worked on. I talked to the service manager and he said the mechanics were at lunch so we would have to wait till they came back to find out what the status was. Finally after about 2 hours they told us it was ready.
The service guy started to print out our invoice and I was looking at it on the screen. I could see that they were charging us $12002 for the towing bill. When I asked why it was $200 higher than the towing company told us it would be, the guy had the nerve to tell me that they have to mark it up just like all their other services. But, I said, you didn't tow us. Yes, but as a service to you, we are paying the towing company and collecting from you. Excuse me? I can pay the towing company just as easily as I can pay you. And at a savings of $200 that is what I want to do. Then he says, well, we may have already paid them, so you're going to have to pay us. I said, please give me the phone number for the towing company. I called them up and asked if they had already been paid. No, the charge was still pending. Good. Can you accept my credit card as payment over the phone? Sure, no problem. I paid the bill and then let the service manager confirm with the tow company that they wouldn't be charged for the bill. How is it possibly acceptable to mark up a towing bill $200? And not even give us the option or all the information we need to make an informed decision?
This is criminal to me. But...they weren't done screwing with us yet. Now the guy is upset with me over the towing charge so he disappears for awhile. We waited him out and he finally comes back with our invoice. He briefly flashed it in front of us and then told us to go to the cashier and pay it. I said, I need to look at that bill. He lays it down and again tries to blow me off by saying a few things as if there's nothing there for me to be looking at. I ignore him and continue to study the bill. I see that we are being charged for 2 circuit breakers at $45 each. I say to him, how many circuit breakers were put on our truck? He asked the guy behind him and is told one. Okay, so why are you charging us for 2? Lots of Spanish being spoken between them and no good answer is given. I said fine. If we are paying for 2 then we want the other one to keep as a spare. They had to go on a hunt to find the other one, but finally it was given to us. Again, the nerve of these people!! So much corruption. Is it because of their location on the Mexican border? Is that just how business is done there? I don't know, but I do know that I will not go back there unless there is absolutely no other option available to me. I hope to goodness that we are never in that situation. I have to wonder how much they inflated their labor costs on the job, because unfortunately I don't know of any way of proving how many hours they actually worked on the truck. I'm sure we paid more than we should have. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that they actually fixed the truck. If it does break down, hopefully it will be far enough up the road so that we can go somewhere else for repairs.
The whole time we were in the motel waiting to get the truck back, our carrier called us nearly every day with a load hoping that we would be able to take it. I jokingly told John that just watch and see, when we get our truck back, they won't have any loads for us. We went back on the board last night and got a call this morning from a dispatcher with a load offer. It all sounded great till he got to the part about the discounted rate. They wanted us to do the load for about 17 cents a mile cheaper than our normal rate. I told him no thanks. We'll wait . I thought we were going to get lucky. They sent us another load which was even better, about 100 more total miles and paid our full rate. We happily accepted it. It was picking up tonight at 11 pm and delivering on Monday morning. Of course, I should've known better. They just called a little while ago and said the customer changed the load and doubled the weight so now it won't fit on our truck. Load cancelled.
I don't know what I've done to be earning all this bad luck, but I really hope it turns around soon! If not, we are going to have to go back to regular jobs. And we really do not want to do that.....
Dealing with repairs is one of the most trying issues in the trucking business. People say, "develop relationships, get a team together that you trust." Sure, but what do you do when things happen on the road.
ReplyDeleteAnd we're on the road, not home that often. So we have been trying to develop relationships, but this last bunch of repairs/maintenance issues, at a dealership that we've now been to three times, were unfortunately typical.
We asked for a non-oil, dry PM. We returned to discover that they had removed our $350 reusable, washable Fleet air filter. Thankfully they kept the parts until we returned to pay the bill. My husband writes out all the issues we want addressed with contact information. Any questions, he says, call us. No one called.
The worst is overcharged AND the work is poor.
Best wishes for good freight to pay the bills.
This is a serious issue. Freight rates are not high enough to keep up with the skyrocketing repair/maintenance costs along with insurance qualcomm etc. I wonder if mechanics have always been this uneducated about the problems trucks are having or if this is a result of technology getting ahead of us. My dad was a mechanic but gave it up when computers started running everything. How I miss the simple days!
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