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Oh, you're NOT going to believe what just happened to me..

200K views 1K replies 264 participants last post by  Boraxo 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
So, I take my car to Flow BMW (the one that's on Peters Creek Pkwy, in Winston-Salem) to have my tire looked at. Sitting in the lounge, reading my book. A pleasant looking fellow comes out.

- Hi, I'm the general manager, please come with me.

I'm a little apprehensive but follow anyway. Racking my brain, trying to figure out what I did wrong. I don't have a chip in my car or anything, everything is stock... Walk into his office. Dimly lit, there's another dour-looking dude sitting in the corner. He's not smiling, kind of gives me a menacing stare.

- Have a seat.

Ookay then. I sit down.

- Is your alias c-o-o-n-t-i-e on bimmerfest?

I go, "HUH?"

- ARE YOU COONTIE?

I stammer, "Uh.. no." (OK, I wasn't gonna crack on the first question! Once the cattleprods were to come out, maybe then but surely not immediately. Plus, I think I'd be less flabbergasted if he had said, "We have a new M3 we don't need, it's your to keep.")

- Well, we have a reason to believe you are.

Then, he takes out a manila folder and (looking at it upside-down), it's full of my bimmerfest print-outs, certain passages highlighted. He takes a page out.

- It says here you once referred to buying a car at our dealership as "like being sodomized with a broomstick."

I squirm a little and go, "So, you have your own little Gestapo research unit, is that it?"

The sullen-looking dude in the corner (at this point they got the whole good cop/bad cop production thing going on here) says, "We don't like it when people maliciously slander our dealership."

I kinda stammer.. "Well, it wasn't slander, really, I just told people the truth. I didn't like being treated like an idiot by your saleswoman, it just wasn't a pleasant experience. Especially that when I offered $1k over ED invoice to your sales lady over there, she laughed in my face and said she's worked for 15 years and never did ED and no way would I get a 3yr lease for less than $700/month. I then went to Ricki in NY @ DiFeo and leased my car in 10 mins! For the price I wanted! AND! She didn't laugh in my face! So, how about that?!"

The good cop says, "So, you like Dunkin Donuts?"

I go, "what?!"

He says (taking another post from the folder) - right here, you said, "There's a Dunkin Donuts across the street, you can wait there during service."

I'm like, "Ok. SO?" (trying to see if these two really, REALLY hate Dunkin Donuts for some reason. They didn't look like it though.)

(cue in the bad cop)

- Well, when you go buy a donut that costs $3.50, do you offer them three dollars?!

I go, "A car is not a donut, first of all. Second of all, if you're so concerned about good image, why not just offer people fair prices, instead of putting on a whole dog & pony show?"

He says, "Because buying a car is like buying a horse. People have been doing it for centuries. It's called, 'NEGOTIATION.'"

I'm like, "Well, why would you waste my time in the name of this 'negotiation' instead of just selling it for a fair price and be done with it?"

Anyway, this "Waiting for Godot"-like back & forth theater continues for a little bit. Then the bad cop says, "OK, if you hate us so much, you can't come here any longer" or some such thing. I took my book and left, basically.
___

Thinking about it for a bit, I'm sure they were gunning for me for a while. I'm stunned that a dealership would have this Stasi-like group of people, trying to flush out whoever's posting bad reviews about them.

What do you guys think? Incredible, eh?

[Note from Moderator: The owner of the dealership, Mr. Don Flow, first replies to the OP in post #835.]
 
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#272 ·
Watch it! BMWBabe may choose to unleash her rapier wit and, knowing already that she is a 'babe', we will all be similarly impressed with her intellect.

In reality, she is helping to fan the flames. How many views on this thread now?
 
#285 ·
Yeah, okay okay, I get it. The entirety of satisfied customers could show up here and dispute the word of this solitary poster. But, they would all be liars and trolls. The only one with any credibility is the one who is familiar with broomsticks. The disaffected lynchmob rules on bimmerfest. It's a shame. I thought this type of childish behavior was confined to lessor mortals who drive Kias.
 
#290 ·
Is that how you spell lessor?

More than one gender-bending higher educated troll might help. One with BF credibility. Come on Flow... We need another shill. Chewing BMWTroll up and spitting it out left us deeply unsatisfied.

BTW we love bimmers here. No disaffection there.
 
#293 ·
They'll never learn. A hundred bucks says the next poster from Flow actually represents his true identity and continues to bollocks up the issue and fan the flames.
 
#317 ·
sam, please post an image or link
 
#318 ·
I just read this whole thread. Wow. I'm amazed, flat out amazed.

First, it sounds like coontie was no angel, as others have said. But I'm continually surprised at what people in the service industry will do to avoid having to provide good service. Hauling someone into an office to get on them about something they said 6 months ago, man, that's ridiculous. These guys need to learn that the best way to approach a customer who had a complaint is to say "sorry you weren't happy with that one aspect of our business, what can we do to ensure your other experiences are good?" Isn't that the goal, to keep business?

It's a shame that some businesses would rather go after people who could be loyal customers and treat them poorly, on the assumption that there is always another sucker out there who they can rip off. Most businesses just can't work like that anymore - but in a smaller city with a captive customer base, evidently these guys can. I hope they get what's coming to them from this type of negative attention.
 
#320 ·
They are both wrong now, but coontie was wrong too. The dealership does need to take a few lessons in customer service for their most recent dealings with him.
Dealer was not wrong talking privately to him. The abuser did this thread out of revenge and to get attention.

If there is a lesson for the dealer; never underestimate what whiny consumers will do and this should not keep them from doing it again if they were in their right.
 
#321 · (Edited)
13 Pages? Geez. And to think, we used to use the BBB to file a complaint. Now the internet allows a small voice to become ginormous! I still stand by what I said. Even if i were to walk into a retail store and start a sh*t storm, I would expect that the business had enough common sense not to retaliate and make the situation worse. Now that the store argued back, all the other customers are starting to notice. I feel horrible when I get no response, not when someone argues back. This is a psychological note. Thats my point.
 
#327 ·
I just spent 90 minutes of my life reading this thread, and in no way do I regret it.
 
#328 ·
What a fun thread, I think the Flow BMW customer who joined today to tell us the we are lynching Flow BMW was a really nice touch.

To the Flow BMW employees out there, getting into a Internet pissing contest with a customer is not a winning strategy. This thread was starting to die out until you made the incredible mistake issuing a reply.

I hope you are paying attention and know not what to do in the future.
 
#341 ·
This thread is awesome. :thumbup:

I've had some experience with Flow BMW too. Since I was in Winston-Salem, went there to test drive a new car and was looking for a good deal. When I was quoted just a few hundered below MSRP, I told them that I would take up the offer that I was getting from the dealer in Charlotte. (few hundred over invoice)

The CA told me that they would beat that offer if I could prove to them that the offer I was getting was legit. I signed on my email from their computer and showed them the email detailing that. The guy even printed that and took it to the GM and made me wait 2 hours before he came back and told me that they had changed their mind and couldn't make a deal after all. Even though my CA was pretty decent, I found the whole sales process weird and strange. Not sure why they made me wait 2 hours before telling me they couldn't do it.

That said, I do like their service dept. I have been to bmw dealerships in various states and their service dept (wifi, water/coffee, food) is one of the best in that respect.
 
#346 ·
That is flat out BS. I'm amazed you stayed. There's no way I wait more than 20 minutes at a dealer for something like that. It doesn't take two hours to see if they can beat an offer, that's just them being disrespectful and treating you poorly for the hell of it.

I really hope Flow BMW is reading this stuff still, because this type of "service" is pretty pathetic.
 
#342 ·
#343 ·
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