Phillips Toyota Leesburg beware of this dealership under new GM
 

Tony Viero
Phillips Toyota
8629 US HWY 441
Leesburg, FL 34788
April 11, 2021
Dear Mr. Viero,
My husband and I have been a client of this dealership since 2008. I currently own a 2013 Prius and was looking to upgrade I searched online and found a limited at your dealership. Soon a man named Al called and told me all about it, he emailed a price to me and we made an appointment to come into the dealership to look at the car.
We were in the middle of yard work stopped took a shower and went 30 minutes’ drive to the dealership. Asked for Al, he had assigned a salesperson to us the man said he would look for him.
We waited.
We waited and then I finally called Al and said, “Al I came here to look at the Prius and there is no one to help me. “by then I was outside looking at cars, my husband was out in the parking lot. A couple sales guys came up, but I said Al had hooked us up with a salesperson, still no one.
Finally, the “manager” came out and said this guy could help me, I said great we came to look at the 2021 Prius Limited. Ok he will get the keys. They both walked into the building.
They came out a few minutes later and said the car was sold 2 hours ago.
Really?
Is this the way you handle sales? Not only was the “manager” rude, telling me you sell 40-60 cars a day and that they cannot keep track of what they sell. “Yeah, we are human we make mistakes” he told us sarcastically. I told him that he should have a system to tell Al in internet sales so we would not have made the trip. Over an hour of wasted time.
He asked us if we wanted to drive a new Prius because they are all the same and I could order the car.
Seriously do you think I would ever spend $35,000 at your dealership after this fiasco?
I called to complain to Al, oh he was really sorry about that, but it was still in his system as available. You have some serious problems when one hand does not know what the other is doing. Al said the sales department and he make hundreds of calls a day. Obviously not one to each other.
I am the client; I am not even sure if I want to get my car serviced there after this kind of treatment. I really like the new Mustang Mach E. maybe I will give a Ford Dealership a try. Wonder if they know what they have in inventory.
Your commercials make you look like you are on life support, with this kind of treatment it is no wonder.
I would suggest if you hired people in sales that they have more people skills then what we witnessed on Saturday.
Sincerely
Nancy Jordan Blackmore

Cc: Brandon J Phillips
12550 Castlemain Tr
Orlando, Fl 32828
Takeshi Uchiyamada
Toyota Motor North America
6565 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

General Manager Reply 4/11/21

Hello Nancy,

I am overly aware of your visit to our dealership as it will be the very last one. The way you and your husband spoke too and treated several employees is abhorrent.

Let me be extremely clear. You are not welcome at our dealership for anything for any reason ever again.

We also have nothing to do with Japanese whaling so stop sending us emails in regards to such matters.

Sincerely,

Tony Viero
General Manager
Phillips Toyota

Sent from my iPhone

Waiting on Paul Harvey.

Lmao

That is the way I would handle sales. The first person with the money gets the car.

We bought a RAV4 from Phillips a couple years ago and it was a very enjoyable experience. We saw the car, made an offer, they accepted, we wrote a check, and drove the new car home.

Boom!!

For a dealership to tell a person not to come back is , Well I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR THE REST OF THE STORY

I love it. "He was rude to me." Uh, are you sure that he was the rude one?

Something happened here but seems it was not good either way. Anyway the thing that sticks out the most is who in their right mind would pay $35,000 for a Prius.

"Hello Nancy,

I am overly aware of your visit to our dealership as it will be the very last one. The way you and your husband spoke too and treated several employees is abhorrent.

Let me be extremely clear. You are not welcome at our dealership for anything for any reason ever again.

We also have nothing to do with Japanese whaling so stop sending us emails in regards to such matters.

Sincerely,

Tony Viero
General Manager
Phillips Toyota"

Judging by the letter the GM sent to a customer of 13 years, all I can say is res ipsa loquitur. (the thing speaks for itself). But just in case the OP thinks this means that the dealership was rude, well, think again.

PS: Some one who is upset over Japanese whaling wants to own a Prius-----gee, what a surprise!

Not a big deal, there are lots of Toyota dealers but next time be careful what you say and your tone when you say it. I had a very similar thing happen to me at the Chevy dealer on 44 in Wildwood. Went to see a car that was supposed to be in stock and it was not even delivered to them yet. I simply left and asked them to call me when it arrives which they did but I had already bought a different car elsewhere.

Having had many experiences dealing with car dealerships over many decades I can honestly say that I recall only one, or possibly two good experiences!
In my opinion their negative reputation is well earned!
God bless you all!

And now for the rest of the story...

Priceless. Lol

You just can't make this stuff up...������

Dealerships bait and switch all the time. I have NO sympathy for any dealership. They are there to please me not the other way around.

Aren't we all!!!:1rotfl:

Yes, I glad you finely can around:coolsmiley:

YUP...BAIT and SWITCH. Notify the BBB and make a formal complaint. Might not do anything, but you never know. Hit all the social media platforms. It those platforms can fool millions and cause folks to think like a lemming then it couldn't hurt.

:bigbow:

Car dealers are awful, they're out to take every dollar possible out of your pocket.
It's to be expected and no big surprise.

I had a bad experience at Philips Toyota some years back, I won't go there again.
But, life is short and I'd suggest you just get over it. I hope the rant made you feel better

A lot of dealerships have tried "firm pricing"......they discount the sticker and say no negotiations. Customers don't like it. Customer still want to play the games.

No one to blame but the customers................that B U.

:popcorn:

:popcorn:

:popcorn:

Research and knowledge about the true value of the car and being extremely polite and honest with the dealer will get you the best price. They hate that. Most car dealers are not honest and they want to prey on your emotions and get you excited, so that you will stoop to their level and play their games. You will never win that way. But, I am really mystified as to why the general manager would send such a negative letter to the OP. I think it was a mistake regardless of what the OP may have said.

Very strange.

Can we all say...ENTITLED

The only truly unique car is a used car. There are never any two alike. New cars are all alike. This is not a rare new Corvette, this is a run of the mill Toyota. Go to Sam's Club, True Car, BJ's, Costco and get a price, go to the the dealership and trade cars. This is not rocket science.

You only heard one side of the story. For the manager to tell a long time customer to never come back again says a whole lot about what happened. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

Car Dealerships
 

I had something a bit similar happen at Ocala Ford / Lincoln, on the service side. The service was complete but no one told us, so we sat there for oven an hour, while the car sat in the "completed " area. Yes, we ask about it and were told it would be done ASAP. Finally after an hour I walked outside and saw the vehicle waiting there for us, with completed service.
We complained to the manager who promised nothing like this would ever happen again, but the repair they did was not complete, so, back to the dealership.
Bottom line, I wrote a letter to the owner, and that really got results. I find writing a letter is so much better than a phone call, and I mean a "snail mail" letter, not e mail.
Just my experience.

I think you over-reacted on this. Mistakes happen. It’s annoying that the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing, but it happens all the time. For example, in real estate here at The Villages, I’m sure it’s very common for a sales agreement to be signed an hour before an advertised open house that is then cancelled. (Oh, wait, I did that a year ago when I bought my house here.)

And before you rush to the Ford dealer to buy a Mustang instead of a Prius, let me tell you about my girlfriend taking her Ford F-250 to the Ford dealer for an oil change and finding out three hours later that it hadn’t yet been taken in for the service. (That one was comped.) Then they needed to install new weatherstripping on a door, and they ordered the wrong piece—which was installed! The torn piece was pinned together! It will be replaced tomorrow. She’s annoyed, but she’s not saying she’ll never buy another Ford.

There are some annoyances that don’t deserve people trying to damage a business’s reputation or get a person fired. Things go wrong on occasion.

Sadly, nasty and denigrating comments like this - are not a surprise.

What is whaling and why's it controversial? - CBBC Newsround

"It was banned in 1986 by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) - a group whose job it is to look after whale conservation - after some species became almost extinct."

I prefer to think of it as a truism

Getting the ‘Run Around ‘ by any business today is unacceptable. The days where the ‘ Customer is always right ‘ is long gone. The response from the dealership is proof. I think if you or anyone else sees a car on-line that interests them, call the dealership and have them verify that it is definitely in stock, make a specific appointment with a salesman there, get his name, then before you leave your house, call and verify that that person is available within the time you both agreed on. For myself, I only buy Chevy’s.

I’m a Chevy guy too - my dad always said it was the poor man’s Cadillac -
BTW I have my first oil change scheduled next week at autonation... I’ll be sure to let everyone know how it went.....

Just about every dealership blah blah blah
 

Well obviously you haven't shopped in a car in about 7 years but that's how just about every dealership works. Whether or not they knew the car was available they want you to come in the door to talk to you and make a deal on the spot. It's pretty obvious you both had heated words when you went to the dealer. But if you can't get upset about one whole hour of your time I would hate to be your servicer when you need to bring the car in for a tune-up or a brake job. I can tell you pretty much from experience that most dealerships take one to two days to actually take inventory off their website, and even if you do call Joe shimo salesperson doesn't know what Mr Smith's salesperson knows about the car that was just sold. I would suggest in the future there are three places to go just to make this a positive comment. Carvana CarMax and Vroom. All three websites have at least 10 to 20,000 cars on them they all say whether the cars are being sold or have deposits pending and you all get three to seven days to try your car and return. Big caution flag here they will keep your money and insist on you buying another car off their website carvana has a two-car try policy and then you must keep the third car. I don't know about the other two but I will tell you that if you do any or you search whatsoever you will see that these three sites gave you an average of $2,000 off of dealer prices without any hassle of negotiation and also knowing exactly what you going to pay as they do not have a $699 to $999 dealer fee and other fake fees.

I know you wrote the letter to get it off your chest so to speak but these are multi-million dollar businesses that do very well without your business selling probably 1,000 cars used and new every single month

Yes, car dealerships take advantage of women in particular, one happen to my wife as well, and I have similar reactions about the dealership, however, I also know that taking the higher road always results in better outcomes and feels better, unless I am entitled. But the Villages in retirement does create a bubble belief environment from both age and reduced awareness of the larger, quicker non retired environment we all came from while working. . .

Vehicle assembly lines have been shut down or at reduced capacity for semi conductor shortages, which means that car supply is dwindling, and people have been buying at a much quicker pace, like houses, and its going to get worse before it gets better. Now, that isn't an excuse for rude behavior, but just brings to the forefront that we are in a very upside down economic world right now, and so these type of issues will persist.

I bought a used F250 diesel for camper towing and working around the house, now that my commuting days are over, and I bought it on line at the asking price, because of the very, very limited supply of exactly for what i was looking. So we bought without regard to haggling, as its a seller's market. . . and that was in December. Car sales have been getting more difficult since.

Awareness of the economic environment outside the retirement bubble happens to everyone, same with my dad as he got farther into retirement. But taking the higher road with politeness usually results in a better and unexpected outcome, if you are willing to control your emotions. Political emails will definitely not help the situations, but is a cowardly way to harass an individual.

If Phillips sells “40-60 cars a day” they would have the most sales of any dealership of any brand in America, by a wide margin. That would make them the largest car dealer in the world They’re a good-sized dealership, but certainly not that big!

So not only did you experience bad customer service you were also lied to.

I was also lied to at Plaza Lincoln a few years ago, after being a loyal customer for many years. The sales manager should have known that I had knowledge that he was lying. I immediately told him that in the U.S. we have to wait four years to deal with lying politicians, but lying car dealers can be dealt with immediately. I told them to remove my name from all their mailing lists and walked out the front door, never to return.

Bought a CH-R from DeLuca in Ocala @ $3K less than what Phillips wanted.

Exactly. Ive had bad experiences at dealerships and other businesses and have gotten extremely annoyed with my time being wasted BUT I have never had any business ban me from ever entering their place again. There is way more to this story. Regardless of how lousy a service is, you have the option of taking your business elsewhere. Obviously the OP was rude and received rude treatment in return. Yes, the customer is always right but no business has to tolerate a rude attitude. No, I wasnt there and no, I dont know the real story but being banned from a business speaks volumes

Ohiobuckeye
 

Yea, I kinda was thinking there’s always 2 sides to every story. All you had to do is if they didn’t have what you wanted you could of very politely left. Also I’m partial to Fords but some people aren’t but if your not don’t go there.

Some years ago I part exchanged and old-ish Buick Le Sabre for a used Rendezvous at this dealership ...I quite enjoyed the experience and the people were quite fun and professional ... I drove away in my new-ish Rendezvous quite happy and I still have it (albeit laid up in my garage as I can't travel to the USA due to Covid ( I'm a Brit )) I would be happy to use them again to buy something very sexy to take back to the UK !!

A good friend of mine, from whom I bought all of my music gear for 20 years, told me horror stories about some customers.

He credo was, "The customer is always right... Except when they're wrong!"... ;)

He finally had to ban a certain customer from ordering expensive guitars, having them delivered and returning them, a week later, over and over again.

He would sell them anything they had in stock, but no more "special orders".

The customer went ballistic, insisting that he's take his business elsewhere, only to find he was also banned from two of the other dealers who were major sellers of that particular brand of guitar...

Word gets around about bad customers, just as it does about bad dealers...

:welcome: I wonder if the OP refused to wear a mask? chilout