Just Brakes Deception, dishonesty, and price gouging Conyers, Georgia

Date 8/1/11

Bob Marshall
Just Brakes Corporate Office

Consumer Complaint of Store Deception at location:

1398 Klondike Rd
Conyers, GA 30094
(770) 483-2834

Dear Mr. Marshall,

Re: Deception at Just Brakes in Conyers,

On August 1, 2011 I had an appointment to visit your Conyers, GA location, just for some simple routine $99.00 brake service. Upon my arrival the store Manager by the name of John Thomas greeted me outside, I have been at this location several times in the past and I had never seen him before, so we engaged into small talk, and I felt a little skeptical of his domineer. I expressed to Mr. Thomas I wanted the $99.00 brake special and I thought the rotors may be too thin to turn, so dont worry about turning them if they are just replace the pads, He said he would.

Around 15 mins. later Mr. Thomas proceeded to explain to me other problems his technician discovered before continuing  the brake service. Mr.Thomas explained to me my rear rotors were under the minimum specifications and could not be turned so I would need to also purchase new rear rotors. I reminded Mr. Thomas of our pervious conversation about the rotors, to just replace the pads. He stated he would not be able to complete the $99.00 brake service without the new purchase of the rotors.

Now I really felt skeptical about this situation, so I asked Mr. Thomas what would be the new total for the work that needed to be completed. After a quick pause Mr. Thomas stated around $450.00 or so. After I quickly stated, You got to be kidding me! Mr. Thomas said, Well, I could go down to $350.00 or so. I said NO just put my tires on and I will go to different service center. Then Mr. Thomas said, Ok, well I can just slap your pads on if you like for the $99.00. Well at this point I called my local auto parts store and found out that the new rotors were only going to be $42.00 for each and not over $100 for each as Mr. Thomas wanted to charge me. So after thinking about it I offered to buy my own rotors and just have Just Brakes put them on because if they turned the front rotors they would still have to take them off and put the rotors back on. So it would be the same as turning them. Mr. Thomas wanted to charge me additional $50.00 to put the rotors on.

At this point I knew I was being taken vantage of by deception and said NO and asked for the District Manager number as he laughed and pointed to the 1-800 number on the counter mat. I call and spoke to the District Manager over the Conyers area, and he acted as if could careless, so I asked to speak to his superior he said NO and hung up, I then proceeded to call back and asked for his superior and was transferred to Mr. Marshall. After explaining my situation to Mr. Marshall I attempted to allow Just Brakes to resolve the problem with a visit to the Stockbridge location. After several conversations with Mr. Marshall we both agreed that it would not be a good solution to visit the Stockbridge location, because I was already upset and it could be a negative repeat scenario of similar bad situation at the Stockbridge location.

I explained to Mr.Marshall my concerns in how customers were being taken advantage of the dishonesty and deception of the Conyers location. So after a lengthy conversation with Mr. Marshall with no resolution I carried my business to (((competitor's name redacted))) in Conyers, Ga. I asked for their $89.99 per axle brake special and got prepared to hear the same problems with my rear rotors as Just Brakes informed me about. So I sat quietly thinking Im just ready to get home and take an aspirin.  After about 30 mins. The store manager Shirleen **** informed me all I need to replace were the rear brake pads.

To my amazement I stated are you sure? I thought someone made a mistake, she said, Yes sir, would you like to talk to the technician?  I said,Yes I would. The technician stated everything else looks fine except for the rear brake pads and have the rear rotors turned; the front pads and front rotors are like new and dont need to be replaced or turned. I stated, I thought the rear rotors were under minimum specification?, He then proceeded to show me as he measured both rotors right in front of me then brought out the book and showed me the minimum specification and stated No sir your fine, you have approximately 2 more time not counting this turn today. For a total of approximately 3 turns, depending on driving habits, but thats it everything else looks great.

Now I was positive that Just Brakes was ripping me off and other people as well. So I contacted Mr. Marshall to confirm my suspicions were correct. After another lengthy conversation about the company practices of deception I also conveyed my suspicion on possible employees skimming and price gouging. I informed Mr. Marshall I would send him the receipt that states the rotor measurements by the technician. After talking to several people today I have learn this has became a normal practice from this location and throughout the Just Brakes Corporation. Unfortunately Im sorry to say I have also just read several other articles about this exact same occurrence with another Just Brake location in Texas. Except he got ripped off of over $1000 and all he wanted was the $99.00 brake special as well.

Deception, dishonesty, and price gouging is against the law, I will also be sending a copy of my frustrated experience to my local news paper and as well to several websites, blogs, and possible to Face Book, the news media, and consumer affairs, and of course the Better Business Bureau. Thank you for your attention in this matter. I look forward to your reply and a resolution to this problem.

Regards,

sorry, allowing you to give a competitors name would instigate others to just file against their competition, to only come back later to suggest their company, ..plus, if you post a competitors name more than likely they will show up on search engines as a Rip-off! - - your comments on this policy are welcome. CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report. In this case we removed an alleged competitors name