You may now have to pay the dealer to maintain their records of their repairs on your car…
I just had the annual State Inspection, an Oil Change, and the Tires Rotated on my 2019 Toyota Corolla. Luckily I get State Inspections and Oil changes for life. And before we donated the wife’s 1985 Toyota Corolla, it received 40 Free State Inspections and about 75 Free Oil changes in its 250,000 miles of driving over 40-years (every 5,000 miles or 6-months…) from this same dealership. The only charge I had today was $30 for the Tire Rotations.
Over the years it became common practice for garages and dealerships to also charge “Shop Fees” in addition to the Labor Rate and Parts and again, there are no complaints there…
But today, I was charge a $3.98 “Digital Archiving, Safeguarding, and Retrieval Fee” a Fee for the dealer to maintain their records of their repairs on my car… They are now charging the customer to use their “cloud…”
Hey, once again, I am not complaining, we also have a Honda and that dealership also offer these freebies, but if you pay for any repairs with a credit card, they charge you 5% extra… We pay them by check…
I wonder what the members know and feel about this and what other surprises we might find down the pike.
I presume that the dealer is charged by Toyota for the hardware and software package they use daily, and they seem to be passing that onward to the consumer. Most other businesses wrap these costs into the price of their goods sold. My personal feeling is that this is the game playing that so many dealers do to get $$$ out of the customer’s wallet. I also think the free inspections/oil changes is part of that game, because it brings you to the dealership regularly, and is likely to result in you being upsold into unnecessary products or work.
After quoting me for a price on an oil change, my dealer charged a $12 shop fee for who knows what. I am not going back.
My dealership just started charging 3% fee if a credit card is used including the CC promoted by the auto manufacturer, no charge for debit card. Three percent is what the CC company charges the merchant, so I understand, some restaurants are adding a charge to the bill too.
Yup!
As long as the added fee is revealed up front–before the customer decides to patronize that business–I have no problem with this fee.
I protested at the dentist’s office a few months ago, when they suddenly decided to add a 3.5% fee for the use of credit cards. They certainly could have notified patients ahead of time, in view of the fact that I am constantly bombarded with e-mails from them for teeth whitening, Invisalign, and other procedures in which I’m not interested.
Instead, there is a small sign next to the receptionist’s desk, stating that this new fee exists. It also states that payment is required before leaving the office. I had to assure them that I (a patient of theirs for 12 years) would return very quickly with a check before they would allow me to leave, and I also informed my dentist that their failure to notify patients ahead of time left a bad taste in my mouth (no pun intended).
Sure would be interesting to see what is included in their OH numbers because I suspect they are double dipping. It started with hazardous waste disposal fees and now progressed to this. I can see why I may not be able to opt out of HWD fees but why should I be forced to pay for this if I don’t want it? Why not break out costs for using the customer waiting room while you’re at it…This stuff is getting ridiculous in my opinion.
In my case, I observed this trend before hazardous waste disposal was a consideration. I can recall taking my father’s '66 Ford Galaxie 500 to the local Mercury dealership because I had lost faith in the Ford dealer’s service department.
When I got the bill, it included a buck or two for “shop supplies”. This was circa 1968.
You’re right, I forgot about the ubiquitous “shop supplies”. That was a fair chunk of change back then. Again, this is part and parcel of the cost of doing business and should be captured in the OH numbers. Probably still are but if we call it a “digital storage fee” it sounds official and something I can pass off to everyone. There’s really no way to fight these trends- once they get wind, they’ll all be doing it.
I shopped for a merchant account once. Fees were different from different providers. I’m sure that giants, such as Mallwart, can negotiate their own contracts. The state of NM charges 1.55% when paid by CC. My CC rebates 2% in cash, so that’s still a good deal for me.
Rebates transfer money from the half who don’t pay their bills off monthly to those who do, which is to say from careless or ignorant people to the better-off, so they seem wrong.
My credit union offers a “Cash Back +” Visa Credit Card and I get 3% cash back on gas purchases, 2% on in-store grocery and wholesale club purchases, and 1% on all other purchases. And once each month, I get cash back on the category of my choice.
And to keep this car oriented, we shop at Kroger and they give 1-point for each dollar purchase and when you accumulate 100-points, you get 10-cents off each gallon of gas. The maximum accumulation of points is 1,000, for up to $1.00 off each gallon. This is good for a one time purchase, and you do not have to take all the points at one time. If you have two vehicles, you can split the points between all the vehicles…
Repair order storage can take up a lot of space, digital archiving allows for quick retrieval of information when documents are stored off-site.
Safeguarding: Because car dealers offer financial services (mainly through the sales dept.), they are subjected to the same data security standards as financial institutions (banks).
I have received basic data security training each year for the last 15 years. Service writers must place/keep repair orders in a drawer before leaving their desk, computer must be locked, etc. Customers cannot be permitted to see nonpublic information of other customers.
Data breaches can be very costly due to Federal penalties and civil suits.
I wonder if that dealer has faced increasing insurance rates of if they suffered a financial loss due to a data breach.
Toyota Financial Services was involved in a data breach earlier this year which included names and Social Security numbers, that might have been a wakeup call for some dealers to take more care with customer data.
Most companies are held to these same standards and have been for a long time. Welcome to the 21st century. Try doing business in Europe regarding the rules/regulations/laws regarding safeguarding of personal data. Digital storage of manufacturing traceability, sales & repair information (device history records) is an expense of doing business. Most places don’t spike that out in a separate charge to customers. It’s embedded in your overhead numbers. I think it would be a significant challenge for the business accounting folks to segregate out the cost of customer service records from those required by the overall business. They’re linked to the overall IT systems in place. My suspicion is that this is a form of double dipping…
A dealer can store every single repair order they ever did going back 100 years digitally on a $75 1TB hard-drive or SSD. Most if not all large companies keep digital records of all sales/service. It’s not that difficult or expensive. It’s called the paperless business model which many smaller companies have been extremely reluctant to get on board with.
