An update: It was successful!

As you know, I was fighting with the “inspecting mechanic” I’d hired to go over my van, a 1995 GMC Vandura Explorer Conversion, before I bought her because it was a long distance purchase.

He’d cleared the van as, “runs and drives great” then it literally immediately needed $700+ of work; we’d only made it 30 miles up the road. I had receipts, parts, pictures, etc. I’d sent him a physical letter initially which as returned as “attempted, not known.” I then emailed him and did get a response, but it was a response chiding me and claiming the repairs couldn’t have been needed solely due to the repairing shop being affiliated with a chain.

We went back and forth for a few weeks. He demanded the original shop report, which I didn’t have – but the repairing shop did. I called that shop and they said “Don’t worry ma’am” , that they would take care of it and to have him call in the next day and he could personally speak to the mechanic who fixed my van – who would be in that day.

I relayed this information on.

The inspecting mechanic refused! Oh, he didn’t say initially that he would refuse, he just ignored the information.

He eventually, when confronted a day or two later, claimed it “wasn’t his job to get the report he asked for and why should he”. I knew that he was not interested in actually finding out what went wrong, but simply trying to get out of providing a refund at this point. His tone employed bullying tactics. Well, I don’t like bullies and I don’t cave in to them.

The actual repairing shop was great. They really tried to provide customer service and they told me not to back down from this guy. When I told them what was going on, they typed up the mechanic’s words and faxed me his original handwritten intake form.

I sent these materials to the ‘inspection mechanic’ and told him if he gave me any further problems I would start filing complaints with whoever necessary to get this resolved. I told him while he was demanding all this proof out of me, he was holding my money as a leverage tool to keep demanding more and more while providing no proof of his own that he actually did the work. (I knew at this point no matter what I provided, he would find something wrong with it.)

He didn’t like that and he didn’t like getting the report. He angrily ranted and ranted, he complained the report now wasn’t good enough…but at the end of his email, he caved and said he’d provide a refund.

That was all I cared about, he could rant away until the cows came home and crapped on him! I checked my account later on and the refund did show up.

I did discover, upon inspection, that some of his positive reviews were provided by someone with the same last name as his business partner as named on the BBB website. His self-description on Yelp stated he thought “he was a superman, works too hard and people should tell him what a great job he’s doing.” UGH! I wish I’d paid more attention to that, it was a clue of the arrogant mentality of the person I was dealing with.

It was a bit of a saga and one I didn’t much enjoy, but I did get the inspection money returned out of that fiasco! In the Phoenix/Mesa area if you need to know the inspecting party (and dealership) I dealt with for avoidance purposes, send me a message and I’ll provide that information to save somebody else the grief!

We can take the inspection mechanic’s crap and the unethical dealer and turn it to something positive. That being a word of warning: Even though it’s 2015 and one would think this shouldn’t be such an issue, there are a number of people who will still try to take advantage of different genders. You can tell by the tactics they use and the tone they employ. Sadly, it still exists. People who perpetrate that are still stuck in the dark ages. Don’t let them get away with it. When I called the shop that repaired my van and I told him what was going on, the manager there said, “Excuse me ma’am for my language here, but that’s bullsh**. He’s trying to take advantage of you because you’re female. Don’t back off and don’t let him get away with it. We’ll help you however we can.” They did, and I won. So stand up for yourself! 🙂