International Customer Care / Agency Control Needed

[intabli]

Dear All,
I have recently purchased a C350 from the local Mercedes-Benz dealer in Abu Dhabi City in the United Arab Emirates. The local dealer is called "Emirates Motor Company", and this dealer is the official and approved Mercedes-Benz dealer for the capital Abu Dhabi. I have bought the C350 at a discounted rate of 165,000 AED, which is equal to $ 44,960 US.

This discounted rate was explained by the agency as a special rate due to the lower options that the car comes with, as it comes with no sunroof, no push-start engine, no sports-kit. However it came with the navigation and other specs, so I found the deal to be sweet, and decided to go ahead.

3 months after purchasing the car, and by chance, I came to discover that the car lacks the Gulf Specifications (Gulf Specs are the specs that all cars sold in the Arabian Gulf area must have due to the relatively high-temperature versus temperatures in Europe and the west), and that the car has German specs, with options as unsuitable to the region as anti-snow mirrors.

Upon contacting the agency, they admit that the car lacks the GCC specs, and they even admit that the Gulf Specs are more expensive than the non-Gulf specs models due to the various additions (to the radiator, a/c fans, cooling system, etc...) that are added. However, the agency refuses to replace my car, and only accepts to replace it if I play the price difference of 60,000 AED (18,000 $ US), which extremely exceeds my budget and is not sensible.

I decided to pursue legal action against them ( Which I am starting to do right now) , and I made it clear to them that I will even publicize the case in local media. I have even submitted the complaint to the Customer Care program run by the Daimler Middle East head-quarters, who should be responsible for monitoring agencies and their performance and any fraud schemes (which this is obviously).
Daimler middle east took no action whatsoever and left it up for the agency to resolve this issue, who did so by offering an unrealistic and unfair 18,000 $ US balance car swap solution.

I have been informed by an insider friend who works at Daimler that this whole scenario is a fraud-scheme, where EMC (the Abu Dhabi dealer) have bought the cars from a factory in Germany, where these cars are among the first few C350s to be ever made, and are highly unwanted in Germany, so the dealer chose to buy them at a discounted rate and just tag them with GCC-specs approved and sell them.

I believe that the Daimler AG Middle East might even be involved in this whole fraud scheme.

I decided to submit this case to a Daimler International Agencies monitoring program/administration, who I will request from to follow up on the case and even run a whole investigation on the scheme.

I kindly request from members to aid me in locating such a Daimler administration/management who will promptly follow up on the case and take the needful action

Thank you for your time everyone.

 

[Dieselman]

Just start HERE and go from there.

 

[grober]

While sympathetic to your situation they did sell you a car at a substantially discounted price. They may be guilty of being "economical with the truth" in letting you assume you were getting a Gulf Specification car--- less a few options--- but you did get a substantial reduction in price. If they had charged you the full price of a Gulf Specification car which was in reality a German specification car that would be fraudulent IMHO. Daimler AG Middle East have attempted to redress the situation by essentially starting from scratch again which is probably as much as you can expect under the circumstances. The crucial question on which your case may succeed or fail is whether the "Emirates Motor Company"advertised, or any way stated in writing in the vehicle or sales transaction documentation that the car met Gulf Specification when it did not. The only other possibility is that all new imported vehicles must meet certain "type approval specification" for your country decreed by your government and are thus illegal or "grey" imports. Good luck with your situation.

 

[intabli]

To clarify on that, all agencies in the Gulf region, by default, have to sell GCC specs, it is not something that they have to clairfy, it is the default unless knowingly mentioned otherwise, which in my case, is not true. Not only that they did not mention that or ignored to, on the contrary, they did emphasize that it is a gulf specs car, and the car even has the Metal label on the Driver's door the clearly states that the Car meets the Gulf specs according to EMC, which doesn't. Furthermore, the Label falsely claim that the car build date is in 2008 (Not the model, but the manufacturing date), which is not true, as the true build-date is March, 2007.

Buying a brand new car from an agency in the Gulf is the most trusted way to assure buying a car that meets the GCC specs, otherwise, I would have bought the same car offshore and imported it myself for an even cheaper price.

Thank you Dieselman, however, I called that number and a German answer-machine replied, and I was not able to proceed. On the same website, I was unable to find any direct complaint email/address other than the postal address which will take forever to use. Any other suggestions please?