Auto service providers struggle with scammers

This is a story about rip-offs at the car service shop.

About lost money and questionable repairs. About scam artists and the flim-flams they run against unsuspecting people.

By now, you're probably expecting a litany of complaints from car owners who say they were hustled out of a proper brake job or robbed of a fair price for routine service.

But the complaints come this time from the auto mechanics themselves, who say too many consumers weasel their way out of paying their repair bills. Some local shop owners estimate that as many as 5 percent of their clients bail out on invoices or lie about needed repairs to avoid charges.

"There's a certain percentage of people out there who are always looking for something for nothing," said Jodi Bolan, administrator of George's Alignment on Meade Avenue. "They just think they can come in and, because they have consumer-protection agencies on their side, they'll have no problem getting what they want."

It might be tough to sympathize with car mechanics. You can't swing a slide hammer without hitting a consumer who believes he's been had down at the garage.

High-profile cases such as the Nevada attorney general's ongoing fraud investigation of Purrfect Auto Service also puts a negative spin on the car service industry.

Before thoughts of just desserts bring a smug little smirk to your face, though, mechanics want you to consider this: Every time they get conned, the costs of your car repairs jump as they look to offset the losses.

"It doesn't help anybody when consumers take advantage of businesses operating in good faith," said Trish Serratore, senior vice president of the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence, a Virginia trade group that tests and certifies car technicians. "If a shop is doing its best to give you service and effect a good-quality repair, taking advantage of them will make them a little more gun-shy with the next customer, and it makes things cost more. Shops have to get those (fraud) costs back somehow."

RAISING PRICES FOR EVERYONE

Hyundais Only, a garage on Spring Mountain Road, loses between $600 and $700 a month to customer deceit, said co-owner Kelly Collins. Until roughly three months ago, when the company's owners began refusing credit card payments via phone, customer schemes pared as much as $2,000 a month from the shop's bottom line, Collins estimated.

"It's like theft in a department store," Collins said. "It just raises the prices for everybody."

Loren Kiner, owner of Imperial Auto and Truck Service Centers, said consumer fraud costs him about $3,000 a year, and that's despite measures such as accepting only referred business and requiring rigid administrative checklists.

Customer deception yields other expenses for the industry as well. Bounced checks and canceled credit cards impose collections burdens on businesses, and each patron who files a frivolous lawsuit claims time that mechanics could otherwise spend on fixing cars. In addition, it can cost $250 to $300 to conduct a lien sale of a repaired car whose owner never returned to pick up the vehicle.

Worse still, shop owners say, is the long-term effect rogue customers could have on the industry. Customer gyps have become so commonplace, and the hassles of dealing with such chicanery so hefty, that Collins and her husband, Hyundais Only co-owner S.A. Abkar, have thought about selling the business.

"It's making people shy away from the industry, and there's already a shortage of qualified technicians," Kiner said. "If someone works on a car and the customer comes back and complains about it, the technician has to work on the car again for free.

"How long is it going to be before someone is completely burnt and says, 'I'm not doing this anymore'?"

BLAMED FOR EVERYTHING

The scams go well beyond cadging a free service here or there..

Car owners have asked to take a test drive after a service is completed to make sure their vehicle is running well -- and never returned to pay their bill, Collins said. Others have shown up in the middle of the night with a second set of keys to take their cars home after repairs are complete but before they've paid for the service.

Consumers have come in for brake jobs or oil changes and returned a week or two later to complain that their radio has stopped working or the car is overheating.

They've accused repair shops of creating the additional problems and demanded free fixes, only to threaten lawsuits when shop owners explain the garage is not responsible for the unrelated breakdowns.

One customer of George's Alignment demanded a $300 detail to make up for a small, virtually invisible scratch the shop didn't cause, Bolan said. Another client, a used-car dealer, brought in a Chevrolet Blazer that didn't have a reverse gear on its transmission and tried to blame the alignment garage for "breaking" the backup mechanism.

Customers have accused employees of stealing everything from blank $500 money orders to $10,000 rings, Collins said. And they try to pass off old dents and dings, some even caked with rust, as the fault of mechanics.

Even taking payment from customers is no guarantee a shop will be compensated. One client of Hyundais Only put a stop on a $490 money order just before she gave it to Collins. And countless car owners who paid for repairs over the phone with credit cards have called their banks to reverse the charges after their statements came in.

"They'll pretend they have no idea who we are," Collins said, and credit companies often void without question over-the-phone transactions that are contested.

Still other customers will "forget" to sign off on a work order when busy shop attendants are distracted, and they'll insist later that they didn't approve the scope of the work because their signature wasn't on the papers.

THE ROOTS OF THE PROBLEMS

Mechanics credit consumer fraud to two factors.

First, some customers simply can't afford their repair bills, so they try to wriggle their way out of paying the full amount.

More important, though, is the reputation that often precedes the car repair industry.

"I think the public just has this idea that auto repair shops are dishonest and screwing the public so some people figure, 'We might as well get them before they get us,' " Collins said.

Shop owners are working hard to stem the double-dealing.

In addition to declining checks and refusing credit card payments over the phone, Hyundais Only installed a fence around its yard to prevent motorists from driving off with their cars in the middle of the night.

Hyundais Only also no longer works on cars made before 1992, because older models have frequent problems, and it's too easy for an owner to blame an age-related cascade of mechanical failures on the shop, Collins said.

At Imperial Auto and Truck Service Centers, Kiner has developed an exhaustive checklist that his technicians use on every car that comes into the shop.

The list catalogs every nick, crack and dent on a car. Mechanics also take cars on test drives before and after service to listen for problems. Shop managers simply consult their original "symptoms" sheet for customers who return to complain about pre-existing issues.

SEEKING 'BETTER' CUSTOMERS

Shop owners also try to screen customers who might have troubling histories with repair businesses.

Certain drivers raise red flags. Some might call for an estimate and mention that no one else has been able to fix a problem. Others say they can't go to a nearby auto shop because they're involved in a lawsuit with the company.

Some shops find that it also helps to limit most business to existing or referred customers.

With longtime clients, mechanics can develop mutual trust and resolve issues more easily, Bolan said.

Serratore, of the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence, said consumer vetting could become more common among repair shops if garages continue to grapple with dishonest patrons.

"Repair facilities are going to get savvy and start checking out their customers a little more," Serratore said. "Consumers might have to shop around a little more before they find a shop that will take them, and it could take longer to find people who will work on their cars."

Mechanics' garages are also working with consumer advocates to help protect their reputations, and to assure prospective customers that they strive to be ethical.

The owners of Hyundais Only are card-carrying members of the Better Business Bureau, and they've spent eight years on the consumer trade group's honor roll, Collins said.

But trying to do everything right still hasn't spared Hyundais Only from regular run-ins with scheming consumers.

"I wish," said Collins, "that there was a 'Better Customer Bureau.' "