Last August, I wrote a blog post about how DePaula Chevrolet still thinks that I own my 2005 Saturn Ion “Cardachrome,” even though I got rid of it nearly two years ago. After a blog post and a few calls over to the dealership, they agreed that I shouldn’t be receiving these zombie e-mails and that they would make sure such e-mails would stop.
I took them at their word. I mean, these guys have taken care of repairs and maintenance on every car I’ve ever owned.
Last Wednesday, I received an e-mail from DePaula Chevrolet. Here’s a screen capture of what they sent me.
Okay, read that very carefully. “You may have a limited time until the manufacturer warranty expires on your Saturn Ion.” This was sent last Wednesday, September 30th, 2014.
In other words… DePaula still thinks I own Cardachrome, and they’re still sending me zombie solicitation e-mails for me to trade in and sell my car to them. And this was barely a month after they promised me I wouldn’t receive any more of these “You own a 2005 Saturn Ion and we want you to trade it in for another car” e-mails.
Wow.
So essentially, when they told me I wouldn’t receive these e-mails any more, I now have to assume that they were just patting me on my head and sending me on my merry way, and then probably laughing behind my back and planning another batch of zombie e-mails to drive me nuts.
And you’re probably reading this blog post and saying to me, “For crying out loud, Chuck, it’s just junk e-mail. They probably made a mistake and forgot to delete you from this list.”
I’m not buying that theory. See, this type of e-mail is designed so that if you open it, it’s supposed to look as if someone from DePaula Chevrolet took the time to write you a personal letter about your car. You’re supposed to believe that a conscientious employee at DePaula wants to help you upgrade your old Saturn Ion to a new car, or maybe sell you an aftermarket warranty so that your car will remain roadworthy and you will have peace of mind should something break on the vehicle.
Yeah, we all know that those aftermarket warranties barely cover the replacement of the keychain. And this car was a 2005 Saturn Ion. How many manufacturers’ warranties last for ten years?
But here’s the thing that bothers me. I asked DePaula to stop sending me notices about a car that I haven’t owned in two years. They said they would acquiesce. And as you can see, they didn’t.
Eventually, after several calls to DePaula, I did get in touch with a DePaula representative, who told me that DePaula Chevrolet DIDN’T send out that e-mail. In fact, that e-mail may have actually been generated by General Motors itself, under DePaula Chevrolet’s banner or imprint. Eventually the DePaula representative gave me a number to call (1-800-553-6000) to get my name removed from THAT mailing list (and she swore that my name wasn’t on any of DePaula’s internal mailing lists), but after I tried the 1-800 number a few times, it kept sending me into a phone jail. ARRGH.
And that irritates me.
So here’s the deal, DePaula Chevrolet. Since you couldn’t follow through with what you promised, I believe there are ways in which you can make this up for me. Those ways would include either:
- A full and through car detailing of my ’06 Chevrolet Cobalt, free of charge.
- Oil, power steering fluid and transmission fluid change for my ’06 Chevrolet Cobalt, free of charge.
- Free one-weekend use of either of your floor-display vintage Corvette Stingrays. Maybe the powder blue one, I really like that. ‘Cause I’m thinking of going to Atlantic City for the weekend, and what better way to go gambling than in style…
Realistically, I’m not asking for much. Just an acknowledgement that you (or General Motors) not only made a mistake in soliciting me with a car that I CLEARLY TOLD YOU I don’t own any more, but that you hope to make things right.
Because right now, I’m not feeling like DePaula Chevrolet values me as a customer. I’m feeling like I’m someone whom the company can’t even bother to remember which car I own or which car I don’t own any more. I’m not Chuck Miller, valued General Motors loyalist and devotee of DePaula Chevrolet, so much so that I even asked them to put a DePaula Chevrolet license plate frame on my current car’s license plate. It’s almost as if I’m just some nameless, faceless, meaningless consumer.
And if you guys aren’t willing to treat me like a valued customer…
Then I’m sure that when I need dealer repairs on the Blackbird, or if I decide I want a new General Motors vehicle some day, that there’s another General Motors dealership in the Capital District – perhaps DeNooyer or Northstar or Otto – that will.
I don’t mean to be difficult. But I also don’t want any more 2005 Saturn Ion zombie e-mails.
So let me know when I can drop off the Blackbird for the oil and fluid changes, the detailings, and lend me the keys to one of the Stingrays. ‘K?
Chuck The Writer 
What has always irritated me about DePaula is that their employees jaywalk right across Exchange street and Central to get to the overflow lot (the old Ground Round), dodging cars and creating near accidents, avoiding the use of the light and the crosswalk that at the corner, only one or two dozen yards from the place where they jaywalk.
What’s more – I’ve seen their sales people jaywalk with customers across Exchange street – in the middle of rush hour, dodging cars, standing in the median – like they’re waiting for David Carradine in Death Race 2000 to run them down for points..
That’s how lazy their employees are. They would rather jaywalk across FOUR LANES OF TRAFFIC at one of the busiest intersections in the city (Central and Exchange) than walk their lazy behinds to the crosswalk – which, of course, is right next to the dealership. It’s not like it’s a major inconvenience.
It irritated me so much, the last time I bought a car I went to a dealer across the street.
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Correction – The crosswalk near DePaula it is EVERETT and CENTRAL, not Exchange and Central – which obviously do not intersect.
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One of my email systems is Yahoo, and I simply hit SPAM when I get unwanted emails. Is there an UN-subscribe button on the bottom of the email?
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If the e-mail was from a company you never did business with, never EVER click on anything that says Un-subscribe.
Sometimes companies send spam to every combination of letters and numbers. Clicking on “un-subscribe” only confirms to someone (or a computer) that the e-mail address was a real live person. The spam company will probably sell your address to hundreds of other spam generating people/companies.
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I was not aware of that.
I have AR/AW issues tied to my Yahoo email, but the DELETE SPAM button does provide jollies for me.
Also, if you’re a person who receives emails from a handful of companies, it’s not a bad idea to change your email address every so often. Yahoo and Google are free. I love the emptiness which results after a nice new email address is created.
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DePaula’s customer service really is horrible. My friend had a 1997 Chevy Silverado. He had recently moved to town from Michigan and therefore didn’t know where to take his truck when it needed a new fuel pump. Sadly he chose DePaula. They replaced it for $1400 and gave him a 1 year warranty. Thirteen months later the fuel pump fails again. DePaula says it’s out of warranty so he’d have to pay the whole $1400 again for a new one. By now he knows some people around town and gets referred to a different garage for the repair. The guy charges him $800 for the same job and explained why his fuel pumps keeps failing every year. Apparently there’s something to do with the ethanol that’s in gas now that makes the genuine GM part fail but there’s an aftermarket fuel pump that isn’t affected by the ethanol. DePaula refuses to use the aftermarket pump OR to educate customers. They just expected him to spend $1400 every year on new fuel pumps. Or they’d be happy to sell him a brand new truck of course.
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Have you driven a Ford lately?
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I still get snail mail asking me to trade in my 2003 Toyota because they need it really bad and they are willing to give me a most generous trade in allowance toward a new one. I traded in that Toyota, which I nicknamed the rolling money pit, in 2012 for a Ford and was never happier to get rid of a vehicle.
In the end, Chuck, we are all “nameless, faceless, meaningless consumers”. I doubt that will change any time soon. Just ignore and delete the emails. My snail mail goes directly to the garbage.
I wonder how much landfill space would be saved if junk mail was banned?
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While we are complaining about car dealerships….I bought a Dodge Ram in 2006 at Albany Dodge (now part of Armory). A couple weeks after my first oil change I receive a phone call from Albany Dodge asking if I was satisfied with my service. After responding “Yes” and answering a few more questions they asked if it would be OK if they could share my experience with Chrysler. I said “Sure”. About a week later I get a call from Chrysler’s customer satisfaction division asking the same questions regarding my oil change service. Which I obliged.
A while later I had a good experience with a recall issue. Got the Albany Dodge follow up call followed by the Chrysler corporate follow up call.
I didn’t think anything of this until I had a not so great experience with a transmission problem and voiced my displeasure to Albany Dodge when I received their follow up call. And what do you know – no follow up call from Chrysler corporate.
You see, in order for Chrysler dealerships to earn their 5-star Customer Satisfaction plaques they so proudly hang in their service waiting areas, they need a ridiculously high percentage of satisfied customers. I can’t remember what the exact percent is but something close to 100.
It seems that Albany Dodge was pre-calling customers to find out if they had a good experience before forwarding the service info to corporate. I thought that was pretty shady. So much so that I decided to not redeem the remaining dozen or so free oil changes I received when I purchased the vehicle and stopped dealimg with them at all for any other service.
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