Ace Finish Avis 

Réponse de Ace Finish

11 août 2022

Unpleasant and unreasonable customer
It is often said that you learn a lot about a customer by their previous Trust Pilot reviews. Mr Osler is one of those customers who does nothing but complain terrorising local businesses. 95% of his Trust Pilot reviews are 1 star complaints and now Ace Finish has fallen foul to his unreasonable attitude.

So background to Mr Osler, his wife’s Mercedes has been to us for its alloy wheels to be refurbished, a full machine polish, ceramic coating and some mirror paint repairs. All told over £1000s worth of work on an aging car. The car transformation was amazing, and all was happy on collection. Note, NO positive review was made even though we offer £10 off your next repair if we receive a review.

6 months later I receive an email stating that the ceramic coating we have applied to the car is causing the paint to bubble on the front wings. I have politely suggested that this is not because of the ceramic coating but looks like rust coming through from the back of the wings or a stone chip. Mr Osler was quick to state there was no such damage and he expected us to rectify the issue no charge. We asked Mr Osler to swing by for an inspection.

After visiting Ace Finish my painter in the bodyshop confirmed that the lifting paint was rust related. You can’t tell the severity of rust until you start work on the panel. We verbally gave Mr Osler 2/3 possible options for repair all subject to us starting work on the vehicle. Most of the repair options would of meant the cost would have changed once we had started the work depending on what we find. One option and the costliest was to replace the wings altogether. Mr Osler wasn’t happy with the options from my painter, so came back again for me to talk him through the same options. At this stage I thought we had a good relationship and he felt confident after speaking to me, the owner to make an informed decision. 20 plus emails later, he decided after speaking to his wife to go for the best option to replace the wings. Note at this point my painter hadn’t mentioned the badges and nor had I, it was overlooked, plus myself and my painter hadn’t spoken about the job.

So, at this point Mr Osler had left the car with us for over 2 weeks while he was deciding and after he gave us the go ahead, he was on holiday.

On collection the car, from memory I saw Mr Osler and his wife in the car park prior to paying for the job and they both seemed very happy.

About ten minutes later Tracy, my front of house receptionist, came out to tell me Mr Osler is very unhappy at the price change due to the badges, £117. I explained to Tracy the badges weren’t transferable from the old wings to the new and I had made an executive decision to replace them, as I thought as a repeat customer and the amount he was spending he would be understanding. BOY WAS I WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tracy said that when Mr Osler did indeed drop his dummy his poor wife rolled her eyes and looked awkward as if to say oh no here we go again. Mr Osler left after writing on his receipt he would be taking the matter further and paid under protest. (Don’t stop reading, we are only half way through!)

5 days later the inevitable email turns up with Mr Osler stating that Ace Finish gave a “fixed price”, words no Bodyshop would ever use. I attempted to explain to Mr Osler that all costs are quotes / estimates, he even used the terminology in his emails. The very definition of an Estimate allows for cost changes and all of this is clearly stated in our T&Cs. I’ve asked Mr Osler to provide me with the email that stated “fixed price“ and he has never produced it. Funny that. So now Mr Osler expects me to refund the money for his badges and that we cover the cost to fix his wife’s car.
So now about 10 emails back and forth ensue, I’ve done my best to explain to Mr Osler that even when he came in and saw two different people for the estimates and dozens of emails back and for multiple options for the repairs that even if we had not mentioned the badges, we have now explained they couldn’t be reused but he was adamant this was our problem. Short story long I offered Mr Osler a full refund when he returned the car to us to remove the badges he didn’t want to pay for.

The next letter I get is from HMRC. Mr Osler is suing Ace Finish for £117 plus court costs and John Lewis his credit card provider. Once I stopped laughing, I did indeed reply to the court defending the claim and in fact counter suing Mr Osler for more than he was suing me for, for wasting my time. I received a phone call from John Lewis legal team after an explanation of what was going on. We both agreed Mr Osler was a “job’s worth“ and John Lewis said this claim wasn’t worth their time and they would cover the cost to Mr Osler just to get him to go away.

They put in writing to Mr Osler that they would settle the claim in full based on standard settlement T&Cs but low and behold Mr Osler wasn’t happy. He wanted the settlement on his terms only and proceeded to kick off with the John Lewis legal department. The best bit was a very very long email sent very late at night from Mr Osler challenging John Lewis to a battle in court. Mr Osler took offence that John Lewis had hinted his case might be a waste of the court’s time.

And there we have it finally! Mr Osler has got his way and clearly been itching to leave his 1 star review. I would like to thank Mr Osler for this entertaining experience, I’m just not sure your wife feels the same way.

Réponse de Ace Finish

8 juin 2022

Why do bitter customers have to lie and make up stories? Its not a good trait to have and says a lot about the type of person you really are.

Paul indeed brought his car to us for a wheel refurb. We have a show room with our most popular colours and fill in paperwork on the customers arrival. We take HD photos of the wheels on arrival which get added to our paperwork for reference on design and colour.

The day after Paul collected (I was not on site) he did indeed question the colour of his wheels, insisting we had painted them the wrong colour. (This would be a first). My manager’s response was to apologise and offer to redo them free of charge so straight away your statement about customer service have made you look a liar. Once I was told we had painted a set of wheels the wrong colour I investigated. On closer inspection of the photos, it was clear to me that we hadn’t painted them the wrong colour and all the evidence in the form of photos was emailed to Paul to confirm. The wheels were an anthracite colour as per the refurb and Paul insisted, they were BMW orbital grey which is practically black with a hit of metallic. He disagreed with the photos, and we came to a mutual agreement that we would redo his wheel half price and offer a free loan car. I had to order the powder in especially for the wheels. Again, I’m not seeing any lack of customer service at this point!

So on to the cracks. The cracks were repaired on the 2nd of Feb. cracks and buckles are very common on alloy wheels especially with the state of the roads. On average we do 5 cracks a week and 10 plus buckles. Paul (Mr honest) contacted us at the end of April 3 months after the initial repair to say the wheels were leaking. We explained to Paul that cracks are not guaranteed as per what he would have been told and as per out T&C on line. Cracks are MOT failures so need to be repaired or replaced. In true fashion, Paul now claims that if we had told him there was no guarantee he would have bought new wheels! So, I called his bluff and said ok no worries I would get the cost of new wheels and would sell them to him at trade price and refund the cost of the cracks. We emailed paul with the cost 1380 pounds.

Needless to say, 6 weeks later the next we hear from Paul is a glorious account of his experience of Ace Finish. Now the public have both sides of the story ill let them make up their own mind as to the sort of business we are and the sort of customer you were!