Absolutely disgraceful

Absolutely appalling service from Jon Crory (Secondhand Sales Manager) at AGG Northcliff — avoid if you expect professionalism and accountability.

Our experience with Jon Crory has been nothing short of disgraceful. We traded in our BMW two months ago for another vehicle, and Jon was extremely quick to take possession of our car. However, when it came to processing the necessary paperwork and ensuring that the outstanding finance and debit orders were properly dealt with, the service we received was utterly unacceptable.

Ten days after trading in our BMW, the monthly instalment for the old vehicle was still deducted from our ***. What followed was weeks of frustrating back-and-forth communication just to recover our own money. Instead of handling the matter efficiently and professionally, we were left chasing answers and trying to resolve a problem that should never have occurred in the first place.

On 4 September, it was established that the paperwork for the vehicle had not been processed, resulting in the refund not being paid as it should have been. Despite this being an administrative failure that was not ours, we were left to pay the bank penalty fees ourselves. There was no excuse for customers to suffer financially because the necessary paperwork had not been handled correctly.

The final outstanding amount only came through tonight, two months after the trade-in. Two months to resolve an issue caused by paperwork not being processed is completely unacceptable. The lack of urgency, accountability and communication turned what should have been an exciting vehicle purchase into an exhausting and deeply disappointing experience.

What made this even worse was Jon's complete lack of accountability as a manager. He was quick to blame a new salesman, Johnny, instead of taking responsibility or properly checking his team's work. Ironically, Johnny was the only person who consistently kept us updated, answered our calls, and actually tried to help.

As the excuses changed, so did the people being blamed. First it was the new salesman, then it was supposedly missing paperwork, and later the entire finance department. Yet whenever we tried to follow up, Jon ignored us for nearly two weeks. The only message we eventually received was a blunt text asking whether we had received our money. When we replied that we hadn't, we never heard from him again. That is not how a competent manager handles customers who are waiting on money that is rightfully theirs.

To make matters worse, we were initially told that our new vehicle had a full service history, only to discover later that the service history was not up to date. That only added to our concerns about the accuracy and transparency of the information we were given during the sale.

Unfortunately, the financial issues were not our only concern. We were also appalled by Jon's unprofessional conduct when speaking about his colleagues. Hearing him refer to a colleague using the derogatory and racially offensive phrase "fat black thing" was deeply disturbing. No customer should ever have to hear a manager speak about a colleague in that manner.

This experience has seriously undermined our confidence in the standards of customer care at AGG Northcliff. Customers trust a dealership to handle significant financial transactions responsibly. We expected professionalism, transparency, accountability and respect. Instead, we experienced unnecessary delays, financial inconvenience, shifting excuses, poor communication and conduct that left us questioning the dealership's professional standards.

Jon was quick to take possession of our BMW, but when it came to ensuring the paperwork was processed correctly and resolving the resulting financial issues, we were left chasing our own money for two months. We were even forced to cover bank penalty fees for a mistake that was not ours.

Management needs to take this matter seriously, investigate how this trade-in was handled, address the bank charges we incurred, and examine the reported conduct towards colleagues.

Buying a car is a significant financial commitment. Customers should not have to spend the next two months chasing refunds, paying bank charges because of dealership errors, and being ignored by the very manager responsible for resolving the issue.

Based on our personal experience, I would not recommend dealing with Jon Crory. His lack of accountability, poor communication and unprofessional conduct made this one of the worst customer service experiences we have ever had.