Saturday May 12, 2:17
PM
SINGAPORE : The Consumers Association of Singapore says the car
industry is among the top three businesses receiving the most
complaints for the past three years, besides timeshare and
contractors.
CASE receives an average of 1,426 complaints about the car industry
every year.
Most complaints are about problems in getting car loans
approved.
Some car buyers also tell Channel NewsAsia about their bad
experience with parallel importers, or PIs.
They choose to get their cars from PIs hoping to get different
models and at lower prices.
But some consumers end up with late delivery and poor after-sale
service.
One said, the parallel importer failed to deliver his car, `three
times over three months'.
What's worse, the buyer felt threatened when the agent told him "I
know where you stay and work, so be careful".
Another told Channel NewsAsia he was asked for a S$2,000
compensation when he cancelled his contract after months of
waiting.
He was also told that he had to forfeit the deposit of S$3,000 he
had placed for his car.
The buyer said eventually he did not have to pay the compensation
but lost his deposit.
Another buyer told Channel NewsAsia that having booked his car in
January, he had put down a deposit.
He was promised delivery before the Chinese New Year but till
today, the buyer is still waiting.
So a new organisation is aiming to change that bad image.
It is called Symbol That Assures Reliability and Trust, or START,
and it wants to regulate parallel importers.
It is asking parallel importers who sign the contractual agreements
to follow guidelines.
Melvin Lee, Founder, START, said: "Those dealers who want to become
START members, they will have to give certain commitments like a
banker's guarantee, and to sign a draft agreement from the lawyers
to make sure that they are of the same mindset to provide the
services according to our guidelines."
We asked Vin Cars, which says most of its customers are happy with
its service, what it thought about being regulated by
guidelines.
Mike Teo, Senior Manager, Finance and Administration, Vin Cars,
said: "It should clear up the misconceptions of the public in the
view of the wrong ideas about parallel importers. So I think it
should work."
And if START members break the guidelines provided?
"If they break these guidelines, action will be taken against them
and we will remove them as members straight away and announce it to
the public," said Mr Teo.
Even so, START admits it can't do much for customers who have
fallen victim to unscrupulous parallel importers.
So the aims are noble but the challenge is to get more PI's to
follow the guidelines that can help clean up their image. -
CNA/ch