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In an extremely unfortunate incident, a woman from Kerala, lost 12 lakh rupees after she booked a Skoda Slavia. The turn of events shows how irresponsible carmakers can sometimes become in dealing with critical situations and scenarios. In a video shared by the YouTuber Baiju N Nair on his channel, he explains further details of the event.
Before we take a deep dive into the details, we have a quick disclaimer to make. All details being discussed here are shared by the Youtuber in his video, and we haven’t been able to contact the victim or verify these from our end.
Deepika Susheelan, the victim here, decided to buy a Slavia in March 2022. She made the reservation in April 2022, by paying the booking amount. She used Skoda India’s official website to initiate the booking, on April 4th.
The lead generation was done through the website, which was then passed to her nearest Skoda dealer- Malayalam Skoda. She is from Trivandrum, Kerala, where Malayalam Motors used to handle the retail facility in 2022.
The Slavia would cost her around 16 lakh, which Deepika planned to pay as ‘8 in down payment and 8 in EMI (car loan).’ The booking amount was 25,000. Soon after receiving the reservation, folks from Malayalam Skoda reached out to the lady, making a strange remark.
There are people who have already paid the full amount and still waiting for deliveries. It would be great if you could pay an additional 5 lakh, on top of the 25K booking amount. Deepika grew sceptic and after conversing with the executive, paid another 3 lakh.
Her car loan (of 8 lakh) was sanctioned in no time. The sum was transferred to the dealer in a day’s time. There was, however, no word from the dealer on the tentative delivery timeline! So now, she had paid 11 lakh for a car that she would never receive! She would start paying EMIs for the sum after a couple of months.
In May, she lost her mom- who played a key role in the subplot of this story. Her mom was fighting cancer and sort of sinking when she first made the reservation. Deepika wanted her to see her daughter’s new car before she departed. Due to the unending waiting and ‘never to be done’ delivery, her mom couldn’t get to see the car.
One fine day, an executive from Malayalam Skoda called her and advised her to cancel the booking and take her money back as the ‘waiting period was shooting up’. She refused the offer as she found it ok to wait for the car. Things took a drastic turn from this moment. The bank (HDFC) soon started collecting the EMI ( around Rs 12081). It soon intimated to Deepika about some possible confusion/crisis with the dealer partner.
Deepika soon took it to Skoda. The brand responded saying that ‘ Malayalam Motors, our dealer partner would get your issue sorted’. But the dealer did not do a thing. She soon wrote to the dealer, asking to cancel the booking and issue a refund. The dealer later reassured to issue the refund by the end of August- something that never happened.
In September, the brand again reassured her saying Malayalam Motors is still the dealer partner and that they will get the issue sorted. She even contacted the owner of the dealership for her money, who could not (did not) help her either!
In February 2023, she took it to the consumer court, as Malayalam Motors had shut down by then and PPS Skoda took over. The legal battle between Deepika and Skoda / Malayalam is still going on. The brand stated before the court that the dealer partnership between Malayalam and Skoda ended in July 2022.
Since the transaction was done ‘principle-to-principle’, they wouldn’t be able to issue the refund. The court issued a stay to the bank EMI. By then, she had paid around 2 lakh in EMI. This takes the total loss amount to 14 odd lakh!
The host criticizes the brand and their attitude towards the customer’s grievance. It is unfortunate to see celebrated brands like Skoda dealing irresponsibly with customers. We are waiting to see how this legal battle would unfold in the forthcoming time.
CarToq