Raw deal from BP Southern Africa Garage Car Wash, East London (Corner Pearce and Chamberlain)

BP Garage Car Wash Pearce Street/Chamberlain Road East London,

What a ******** behavior!!

I'm still trying to recover from my ordeal at the hands of the BP Garage Car Wash staff who gave me the worst service I have ever experienced at a car wash three days back. It was the third time I got a raw deal at this Car Wash but let me confine myself to incidents of the past three days.

On Tuesday (12/09/17) I took my car to this Garage to be washed as I have always done numerous times before despite the poor service I usually get here which includes theft of cash in the ashtray, shoddy work and bad customer care ethics. It's only advantage to me has been its proximity to my Office which allows me to walk back and forth when the car is being attended to.

On this fateful day I took the car there and paid for a full house bath and left the keys with the 'Rastafarian' supervisor who promised to take better care of the car 'this time around' unlike in the previous occasions when they broke my boot lock.

Although I was told to come back after 2 hours, I went back to collect the car after 3 hours to avoid the previous disappointments of finding them not done. As I approached the car wash the first thing that attracted my attention was the open boot of my car which was not attended by anyone despite the fact that there were potable valuables inside which could have easily gotten ******.

Nonetheless, I proceeded to the inside of the Pick 'n Pay Kiosk at the garage where car wash customers normally pick up their car keys attached to the Payment Receipts that have the car registration numbers and the customer's contact details. Surprisingly my car keys were not in the Kiosk! They were in the pocket of one of the supervisors, not the Rastafarian (Jah bless him). I became suspicious. Nevertheless I collected the keys and went to my car. I attempted to close the boot before I could drive back to the office. Lo and behold, my car boot could not close! I reported the matter to the same supervisor from whom I had collected the keys who took a ***** driver and attempted to fix the lock. I stopped him as I felt he would inflict more damage and told him I would need to get an expert opinion on whether to fix or replace the lock before sending the Bill to the company for the job. He agreed. Little did I know that I had been duped. Not giving me the receipt attached to my keys was a ploy to deny me the proof to link my complaint to the Garage! Not getting them to commit themselves to repair the boot in writing was another mistake. Trusting that I was dealing with ethical people, I drove away till the next day. When I came back the next day the whole shop together with Management had ganged up against me and claimed that my car was brought to the car wash with its boot already damaged! They refused to listen to my story. I was devastated.

Left without any recourse, I left my car in the car Wash washing zone, locked all the doors and went into a nearby shop for a few minutes. It was a protest. I wanted us to talk; I didn't want to be ignored just like that. When I came back later my car had not only been vandalised, it had been moved away from the spot where I had left it. The doors were open, the bonnet was open and the battery disconnected. The entire business entity ganged up on me, harassed me and chased me out of the premises with threats of violence. I replugged my battery and drove away.

Right now I'm sitting with huge bill for the repairs of damaged boot lock, my damaged back seats which can't fold any more because they forced down when someone gained an ******* entry into the car via the boot, in the process damaging the back seats' folding mechanism.

How can small people like me get justice against big companies that abuse us daily?