A 2 year long fight with Hyundai has resulted in the company canceling handling charges at all showrooms across the country.
Mr. Ratan Grandhi, a techie working at Infosys in Hyderabad purchased a Hyundai Xcent in December 2014. Even after clearing the invoice amount, the showroom refused to give him the car’s release order and insisted him to pay Rs. 6950/- towards handling charges. The showroom somehow convinced that they are post sale charges which include fuel charges and labour charges and that the payment was mandatory before issuing the release order for any car.
Mr. Ratan paid the money and purchased the car, but vowed to get the money paid as handling charges back. He wrote a series of mails to Hyundai, from whom he got unsatisfactory replies and when he realised that this will not help him, he lodged a complaint with the Joint Transport Commissioner (JTC) about these charges.
Central Zone Transport Officer (RTO) G.P.N Prasad took on from there and started his investigation. They were successful in discovering that the handling charges were illegal and warned all the showrooms and also suspended licenses of two showrooms for these practices.
As a result of this, Hyundai started issuing circulars to all their showrooms across the country cancelling the handling charges. The behaviour of the showroom staff has also changed drastically. Mr. Ratan Grandhi also got his Rs.6950/- paid as handling charges back. Mr. Ratan was happy that he finally got back the amount. Transport officials are alerting the general public about these kind of hidden charges and have asked the public to be careful while purchasing a motor vehicle.
Hyundai Handling Charges
– Mr. Ratan Grandhi wins a two year long battle against Hyundai
– He was also reimbursed Rs. 3000/- towards registration charges collected before, along with the Rs. 6950/- collected as handling charges
– This has also resulted in a change in the behaviour of the showroom staff
