On Friday, December 18, while driving the Sienna 2010 that I bought about a month and a half ago to my newborn's doctor, with my husband and my 8-year-old daughter, we all felt jolts from the brand new Toyota Sienna. The jolts continued throughout our journey to the doctor's office. At around 4:00 PM on the same day, I had my husband bring the Toyota Sienna to be checked by service and found a problem with the transmission. "A brand new Toyota Sianna with a transmission problem!" I told myself. I must say, I felt cheated and insulted because the car was not even two months old and only had about 2,400 miles on it.
The real scam started way back in October 2009 when my husband, daughter and I first bought the car from Toyota Autoland on route 22 in Springfield, NJ. Below is the complaint I filed with the manager, Mark Montenero.
Dear Mr. Montenero,
This is to file a complaint about your dealership and also to keep a log on any repair done to the Sienna Toyota 2010 that I bought from your dealership. My husband and I have had an excellent relationship with Honda for six years and have never had any problem with the two different dealerships we dealt with. We leased brand new CRV-Honda (1997) and a brand new Civic Honda (2000) in my husband's name. Nevertheless, our experience with Toyota Autoland dealership has been one disappointment after another since we bought Sienna 2010 on October 21, 2009.
On October 21, 2009, Rafik Shami, one of your financial service person signed me up for GAP insurance but then added life and disability insurance, towbuster service and a service contract which were not explained to my husband and me. Mr. Shami was also fully aware that the disability insurance he intended to sign me up for was useless for me who was eight months pregnant at the time.
On November 20, 2009, I had stopped by Mr. Shami's office to ask him to cancel the unauthorized insurance and service he signed me up for but he was not there. I returned on Nov. 24th, and Mr. Shami cancelled the Gap, Towbuster and the service contract, but he told me he could not cancel the life and disability insurance until he checks to make sure he is able to do so. It is ironic that a capable financial service person like him had no idea that all insurances could be canceled. He had me wait for almost a month for him to find out that he could cancel it.
On Monday, November 30th, Mr. Shami initially told me he was going to call me, but he did not call.
On Thursday, December 3rd I left him a message on his answering machine. Mr. Shami called me on Friday, December 4 and left me a message on my home phone, while I was in labor at the St. Barnabas hospital.
Furthermore, I did a research on the price of the car that was sold to me and the price of the DVD that was installed in my mini van. I found that Mr. Eric Zagadou, the sales person, quoted me a price that was $1000 more than the actual price. As a result, Mr. Orin was able to give us a discount of $1000 on the car since I did not get the exact color (light green) I wanted. In other words, Mr. Orin's $1000 discount he gave us was in essence, Mr. Zagadou's over priced DVD. This means we did not receive any discount that was promised.
When I confronted Toyota sales people, Mr. Shami said the stress I was causing myself was not good for my unborn baby and me. Mr. Orin McKay also told me that I should not stress myself too much. Even though this was a good advice from both gentlemen, I did not find such statements helpful. However, Mr. Orin McKay was willing to listen, and he said to call him on Wednesday, November 25 at 11AM. When I called him around 1PM on Wednesday, the 25th, Mr. McKay said he was about to pull my information and will call back after he reviews it. He failed to call on that day, but he had Mr. Zagadou call on Saturday, November 28 instead. Mr. Zagadou and I did not come to any conclusion on what to do. He also said he'd talk to his manager and try to see what they could do to make it up to me.
What your sales and financial personnel do not realize is that your reputation as a company is extremely important in the tri-state area and that they must learn to deal with their customers with tact and sensitivity. In other words, they must learn to act in a professional manner all the time.
I have spoken to Paula on several occasions at the dealership since the letter to Mr. Montenero. Paula referred me to Joe whose solution is that they have canceled what is to be canceled and returned my balance to the bank financing my car and can't do anything more than that. While he was a gentleman throughout our conversation he was not listening to me or my husband. He said he had given us the best deal on both the car and the DVD player and had made up his mind not to do anything beyond that. (That is an overstatement.) Joe said he is sorry for all the trouble I went through but to let it go; it has been since December 2009 I have been pursuing this matter.
I want to talk to Mark Montenero, the manager, to find out whether he is aware of the hoax of sales and financial service people that is going on in the autoland dealership on rt 22 at Springfield, NJ.
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