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Buying experience at Florida Fine Cars
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UPDATE TO MY ORIGINAL EXPERIENCE AS POSTED BELOW:
After posting up my story, filing complaints with various organizations including the BBB (of which FFC was not a member at the time of my complaint), I am pleased to say that Jamie Suid, Marketing Director / Customer Relations Manager at Florida Fine Cars was the first person to actually express a genuine interest in resolving the issues of my negative purchasing experience. Based on multiple e-mails back and forth I am comfortable telling everyone that FFC appears to have rounded a corner in terms of customer service. Jamie has not only addressed my concerns but has also reimbursed me for the Recall Letter that I had actually paid for as well as a missing owner's manual that I was promised upon delivery of my vehicle.
In Jamie's own words: We are in the process of improving exactly what you talked about. We have recently hired an outside professional to assist in not only building a new dedicated customer service team but also to re-instill the positive nature of our brand that our ownership has built over the last 20 years we've been in business. To be quite frank with you we recently had a rapid expansion and seemingly some core training was lost in the process. When situations like yours arise we attack them very seriously, some of the folks you worked with are no longer with our team.
The above was taken word for word from an e-mail sent to me in response to my concerns and I am pleased that some of the individuals that I had worked with during the course of my vehicle purchase are no longer employed by FFC and lying to other customers. For anyone that has concerns about purchasing a vehicle through FFC I would say that the new individuals at the firm are working very hard in order to move their business into a positive direction and suffice it to say that if you have realistic expections when purchasing a used car (I have nothing negative to say about the quality of vehicles they sell - mine was strictly a service-related issue) you will be taken care of especially with Jamie Suid at the healm.
Thank you again Jamie for all of your help! I very much appreciate it!
MY ORIGINAL EXPERIENCE PRIOR TO JAMIE SUID ADDRESSING MY CONCERNS (Note, some of the individuals I dealt with are no longer there so you may expect to receive completely different service than what I did!!!)
This dealership is an absolute joke and I don't know how they stay in business! NOTE: for links on how to file a complaint against this dealer, refer to the bottom of my story!
First off I would like to preface this by saying that I have a history of purchasing used cars (have owned over 30 in the past 11 years and the majority of those were purchased sight unseen via E-bay, regular dealers, etc.) from everywhere including mutliple US states and even Europe. I fully understand that used cars come with knicks, dings and scratches and the odd problem...so that is not the issue here. What is the issue is that this dealer is as crooked and sleezy as they come!!! At first they will be super nice to you, telling you whatever you want to hear until such time that they have received a signed bill of sale and their money. After that WATCH OUT!!! Not returning calls, brushing off customer questions and concerns seems to be a standard operating procedure at this firm and excuses to not take your call include (and this applies to everyone from the GM - Chase, to the Sales Manager - Barbara, to the sales person - Freddie) the following: we were experiencing issues with our telephone, I was in a training session, I was in court (go figure), it was my day off, etc. You get the idea....
Here's my story:
This past summer I purchased a BMW. My initial questions included the usual things: Is there service history included with the car? A navigation DVD? How much tread is left on the tires? Does the car come with a temporary tag/plate? Of course Freddie's answers to those were that everything is included and all is good when in fact the only thing he was right on was the tires, they turned out to be decent. What really started turning everything sour was the fact that "Freddie" promised me he could obtain a Recall Letter from BMW USA for an extra $280 (this letter is required to import a vehicle into Canada). So I agreed to pay this extra amount and they would simply add it to the total on my Bill of Sale. BIG MISTAKE!!!! Freddie never bothered obtaining this letter or even trying for that matter. Not having this letter meant one of two things: Exporting the vehicle back to the US at considerable expense (can you imagine owning a vehicle a in a foreign country and having to store and try to sell it at the same time?) or paying an exorbitant amount of money ($3K) to a BMW dealer in Canada so as to allow the vehicle to be imported. Had I known this letter would become such an issue I would NOT have purchased this car!!!
Anyway, not thinking anything was amiss and agreeing to purchase the vehicle I did some research on it and determined that it had the BMW Extended Maintenance Package until Sept. 2011. This meant free oil changes, wiper blades, brakes, brake fluid, spark plugs, etc. at the dealer. I mentioned this to Freddie and he volunteered to take the car to the dealer for me so that I could get $1,000 of maintenance work done for free - I was really excited and told him how happy I was that he was adding so much value to my transaction. Little did I know that NONE of my requests were being dealt with honestly. I had asked Freddie if it was easier if I made the appointment and he told me no that he would take care of everything in the coming days. I found out, after spending over 30 minutes on the phone with two BMW locations over the next few days that my car was never dropped off to get serviced as it had been promised by Freddie it would be. I immediately called Freddie and left him three voicemails throughout the course of the day. No calls were returned. Little did I know this was going to be the standard operating procedure at this firm.
As a result, I attempted to call him the following Monday (July 2011) but was also not able to reach him. As a result, I called Barbara (the Sales Manager) on the following day explaining the situation and asked for a call back. She must have spoken with him because Freddie called me right back and informed me that he had been in court dealing with a personal matter on Monday which was why I was not able to reach him (and yet another warning flag pops up). Again, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. I asked him if he was still willing to take the car in for me and he said, "Yes, Mr. Chris, no problem." I asked if it would make it easier if I would make the appointment and he said yes. I asked where (to make sure it was close by) and he said Vista BMW is fine. I searched online for the closest location, made an appointment and called Freddie back. As soon as I told him he said that it was too far and that he would find another dealer and call me back in 20 minutes. 4 hours later I was still waiting for the call back.
After some more research, I found the closest dealer was actually Braman so I made an appointment there for Wednesday, July 20 at 9 a.m. as per Freddie's request. Of course on that Wednesday I called my Service Rep. at the dealer and he told me the car was not there. At this point neither Barbara or Freddie would bother talking to me or calling me back. The excuses I had from Barbara on why she couldn't call me back or talk ranged from her voicemail not working, to being in a job interview meeting to doing an appraisal on car. Obviously all excuses to avoid speaking with me. At this point I was extremely upset, not because I wasn't getting a $1,000 of free maintenance done but rather because I was told it would all not be a problem. IF YOU CAN'T PROVIDE THE SERVICE, THEN DON'T PROMISE IT!!!!!
Being self-employed in the automotive industry myself I cannot fathom how it is that people can be hired that willingly destroy business opportunities and future referrals by treating their customers this way.
In any case, by the time the vehicle finally arrived in Canada, I still had outstanding issues and immediately called Chase Sattler the GM to discuss my concerns (this was within 5 minutes of receiving the car). I wanted the following that had been PROMISED to me!!!
- Official Recall Letter from BMW showing no outstanding recalls (I had paid $280 for this and without this letter I will be forced to export the vehicle back to the US at considerable expense and loss)
- Navigation DVD
- Owners Manuals
- 30-Day Temporary Tag
Needless to say, nothing was ever done!!! I even have e-mail correspondence from Mr. Sattler (the GM) himself saying he would look into this and get it resolved for me yet here we are today and nothing has changed. Florida Fine Cars simply DOES NOT CARE!
FOR ANYONE THAT HAS GOTTEN RIPPED OFF BY THIS DEALER, CONTACT:
Bureau of Motor Vehicle Field Operations, Region X
Region X
7795 West Flagler Street Suite 82C
Miami, Florida 33144
Telephone = (305) 265-3003
FAX = (305) 265-3060
Submit this form: www.flhsmv.gov/dmv/forms/BRE/84901.pdf
Note: This department cannot help you if you do not have something in writing from the dealer on the Bill of Sale (this is my problem and my lesson learned). They can however note the complaint and if everyone gets on board and submits their complaint this will have an impact! People like this do not deserve to be in business!
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