Your being a true gentleman about this, being the bigger man. But your friend is a putz.
I doubt they will send her a check. The link below is to the customer letter at www.safercar.gov, page 4 describes the reimbursement process.
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/cs/jaxrs/download/doc/UCM416856/RCONL-11V438-0123.pdf
Well, I slept on it, and here’s what I woke up with. The recall and the refund are separate. For the refund, the car, and who currently owns it is a red herring. Three years ago, I, along with thousands of other BMW owners were over-charged for a service. There was an organized class action and BMW decided to settle out of court. The recipients of the refund are the people who were illegally charged for the service in the first place.
The recall is all about the car and it’s current owner. Only a portion of the owners who were told about this problem actually decided to have it repaired. If I had ignored the issue and accepted the risk, then the current owner would have the right to get the repair for free, but would not have the right to accept the risk and get a $600 check to do with what she wants.
So, at the moment, I am comfortable that the refund clearly belongs to me, and I expect that’s why BMW wants to talk to me. What I do with the refund is still something I’ll think about over the weekend. I feel no obligation to share the refund, but I like the idea of helping her out. If it’s demanded by either her or her father I will say NO and accept the consequences.
The ethics are pretty clear - your friend has had an ethical lapse. BMW is issuing refunds to those who paid for a repair that is now covered under the recall they should have done in the first place. They are not giving free money away to anyone who happens to own a BMW. This is a reimbursement check for those who have been unfairly charged for a service. Your friend’s daughter was never charged for this service and is not entitled to a reimbursement.
For your friend’s daughter to demand money of BMW is unethical in the first place, because she is not entitled to that money. And your friend is teaching her an unfortunate lesson - it’s OK to take what is not yours as long as you need it more than the person who has rightful claim to it.
Young folks don’t always think things through completely. Girls mature more quickly than boys. It’s up to the adults in their lives to help them understand the ethical thing to do.
Well, technically speaking a “refund” is returning the funds. You can only “return” it someone who has turned it in. So case settled.
I find myself thinking differently than most of the other posters here. As far as I know, the car was sold without any conditions. The daughter purchased the car, including the repair. Put another way, the owner was paid the value of the repair as part of the selling price. The seller has no interest in the car after the deal is closed. The owner of the car should receive the refund from BMW.
I see this in real estate. A condo corporation (in BC we call them strata corporations for some reason) has to pay a bunch of money for repairs to the building. Each owner is has to pay an extra assessment beyond the normal strata fees. Later, the strata sues the builder and wins. If an individual owner sells his unit and moves away before the lawsuit ends, the new owner of the unit receives the refund.
Well according to the letter You are eligible for compensation, I changed my mind given more info. You paid for the repair and now have the option to be reimbursed for it. If you would not have made the repair the new owner would be eligible for a free repair. The repair has been done, and I was misled into thinking the new owner had pursued the compensation on your behalf. I see you must have gotten a letter to reimburse you for repair costs that should not have been assessed, and you are entitled to the compensation for your expenditure of dollars that should have been covered.
Barky - Just to be clear, BMW sent her the letter about the recall because she is the current registered owner. Because she had copies of the receipts, she submitted a claim for a refund on her behalf, not mine. Her assumption is that since someone already paid for the repairs, someone should be compensated, and it might as well be her, because she is the current owner. This would be consistent with macfisto’s argument. I am assuming that BMW called me because all of the receipts she submitted to support her claim had my name and contact information on them. I knew about the recall because I am a current BMW owner, and I stay pretty up to date on BMW news. This recall and the recent one on the batteries on 5 Series were pretty big news for BMW owners. Yes, I’m bringing my 535 in for the battery recall this week 
mac - I’m pondering the real estate analogy, but I’m not sure it applies. She certainly didn’t pay extra for working tail lights.
Also, my friendship with her father is worth more than $600.
You may have answered your own question. Unfortunately, raising this issue will put your friendship with her father at risk.
macfisto - I’ve thought about your real estate analogy. Let’s say I’ve agreed to buy your house for a fair price. Closing is in 2 weeks. 1 week out, your 15 year old air conditioner goes out and can’t be repaired (parts not available, too much wrong, freon won’t comply with new regulations…) It will cost $6,000 to replace. You could tell me at closing that you’re taking $6,000 off the selling price and that I need a new air conditioner (which would cause me to walk away from the deal), or you could get it replaced, and you now take the $6,000 hit, because there’s no incentive for me to pay you more for an air conditioner that’s working. But there’s a bright side - the AC manufacturer will send you a 10% rebate for purchasing before the end of their big selling drive AND the government will send a 5% rebate because you replaced an inefficient unit with a new energy efficient one. Under your scenario, when the $600 check from the manufacturer and the $300 check from the government come, they rightfully belong to me. By selling the house, you’ve relinquished responsibility for both future costs and future benefits. Whether the checks come to you or me in the mail is a different issue, as in this case, it looks like BMW is not going to send her a check unless I tell them to. (Of course, that’s speculation too. They may be calling to tell me that since she filed the claim before I did, they have to send her the check. They’re just calling to tell me that they “value” my business and want to send me a BMW baseball cap instead.)
This is my take. The reimbursement from BMW, if there is one, should go to the individual who paid for the repair. Your diligence allowed the new owner to purchase the car without that defect. If you hadn’t paid for the repair she would be entitled to have it done for free. Either way she wouldn’t get $600 cash. Since she has pursued the reimbursement on your behalf using your well kept records she is entitled, depending on your generosity, to some or all of the money. Her reported need for the money isn’t relevant and is IMO a cheap shot from you friend. Give her some or all of the money, but in a nice way make it clear it is a gift for her good works not something she is entitled to.
I feel no obligation to share the refund, but I like the idea of helping her out. If it’s demanded by either her or her father I will say NO and accept the consequences.
NOW, we’re talking !
The posts at the top of page 2 here (Beartracker and then shadowfax) explain the situation perfectly. He can say this VERBATIM to her and her dad. Since Beartracker is a fan of ethics, it’s is MORAL DUTY to not give her the money, and document her reaction to this situation. HE was overcharged, and HE gets the refund. The only stupid illogical thing that gets in the way is that SHE licked the 40 cent stamp, and knowing people, will feel now entitled to it, somehow (conveniently).
Beartracker MUST stand his ground in the name of human enlightenment everywhere.
I await the results with bated breath.
Among friends, split it in half.But remember the rule for BMW owners – if you need to ask, you can’t afford it.
I fail to see where the repair of the wiring was an overcharge or how it would be construed as an illegal act.
The repairs were done 3 years ago; the Recall was issued in August of 2011, well after the fact.
If the Recall had been issued prior to any customer pay repair then that might be a valid point.
A good friend would have said ’ Let’s split it’ they have no class and are rubbing your nose in it.
I would consider it to be an act of fraud for a person to seek reimbursement for a service the didn’t pay for.
BMW is offering to reimburse owners who paid for this repair, not reward the current owner of the car.
ok4450 - Declaring BMW’s actions illegal was probably a poor choice of words. However, BMW internal documentation showed that they were aware of the design defect in 2004, when they were building the 2005 models (the last year for the recall). In 2007, BMW issued a technical service bulletin to all US dealers telling them to specifically check for this condition during normal service. When I came in to pick up my car after an oil change, they showed me the burnt wires and wiring harness, and it was clear that I really needed to have this fixed. The dealer agreed that it was a bad design, that BMW told him how to fix it, but that I would have to pay for the repairs. There was nothing he could do. He had to order the parts, which I had to pay for in advance, and I brought it in the following week to complete the work.
This all may be moot, since I don’t know the exact date that I had the repairs done. In BMW’s official response to the NHTSA, they said that they would not reimburse owners who had repairs performed before Dec. 18, 2009. Asked why the reimbursements wouldn’t go through to those owners, Monty Roberts, a BMW spokesman, wrote in an e-mail: “BMWNA has complied with all regulatory and procedural requirements according to N.H.T.S.A. Defect Petition No. DP09-002 as agreed and is in full compliance, which includes the reimbursement process as agreed.”
No explanation was given for the cutoff. My friend’s daughter has the receipts, so I don’t know when the repair was done. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.
Well my opinion has not changed. You sold the car and all of the interest in it. Just because you paid for the repair three years ago doesn’t entitle you to the money. I think the house AC analogy is not the same. Spending $6000 15 days prior to the close of a sale to insure the sale, AND KNOWING there is a rebate and credit when you make the purchase, is much different than not knowing and three years later being surprised. Its a 10 year old car and I suspect BMW did not expect the current owner to be the original purchaser, or if they did, did not expect them to have receipts. You are probably getting the call because you are one of two people nation-wide that can produce the receipts on a ten year old car.
Put this in another perspective for the sake of discussion.
Your very casual neighbor across the street sells you his 10 year old BMW after going through the same procedure.
Some time afterwards you discover that BMW is offering a reimbursement of sorts and promptly ask for it. Said neighbor hears of this and wants in on this.
The neighbor wants the reimbursement because he or she is the one that paid for the repair and that brings up the question.
Are you going to cough up that reimbursement to the neighbor with no argument?
(As to when your repair was done that should be verifiable with the repair order copy and if it’s before 12/18/2009 then it’s a moot point. As to Recalls and Campaigns, there is a lot of politics involved in those. A lot.)