Scratch on customers van, advice / views please?

[Martin Oxenham]

I would not take responsibility for this. If you look at it you can see an almost perfectly straight line in both directions. How could you have caused such a thing so far from where you were working on. Its not the sort of shape where you could have brushed against it or in the position where you could have held a ruler to it. Its difficult thing with vans when this happens and I have had it on a brand new car, which at first I was being blamed for, until I pointed out several more slight scratches in areas we had not Evan cleaned or been near.

[David Rowland]

is it small pair of steps?

[Phill Fenton]

That’s what I was wondered at first Dave but I really don’t think it is. I’ll have a better idea tomorrow when I see it first hand and can place my steps alongside to see if there is any way it could have caused it

[Robert Lambie]

difficult one phil,l and one i was stung for in the past.
I am not saying your customer is responsible, but dont rule out he didnt already know it was there.
if the van is brand new, do you have any stickers on the vehicle showing where it was bought from? i.e. rear window sticker, small text on number plate, key fob?
if so, call them and ask was this damage originally on the vehicle because it maybe an ex-demo van or just new and damaged.
reason i say is many years ago a guy came in with a lovely metallic blue transit.
it ended up covered in graphics by time we were done. the install was lengthy
graphics were not cheap… so he had a decent bill by end of it. when he came in i wasn’t there, just one of our lads as it was around 6pm. he refused to pay and wanted someone to call him in the morning.
ranting and raving next day he emailed some pictures and sure as sugar, you could see scratch swirls all over the place. very lightly but cut in the someone paint and light at an angle there was definitely scratches.

our lad was adamant he never caused it, i had been on the van earlier and i hadn’t seen it. cut story short the job was waved and he got it free of charge. i had no doubt they could be polished out but still…
couple of days later one of the girls in office asked about the invoice and i explained what had happened. she said "but he gave me the keys and i had them in my desk. there was a "paper" key fob of the garages on it with the registration and also scribbled "prices reduced ex-amount due to scratches on near side"
so not only did he get a brand new metallic van on the cheap, he now had his graphics free!
we did call and say what the girl told us be of course he denied it. i of course told him were to shove his next van he wants done. 😉

anyway, bot helping you any, just explaining why i said what i said about locating the garage that sold it. long shot i know…

it looks like the van has been caused whilst moving or the doors been opened and as its slide back its hit something.
hopefully it can be polished out… if worst comes to worst, maybe call these dent care type mobile guys to come out to your place and polish it on site.

hope you get it sorted phill, nothing worse after completing a job and this happening.

[Nigel Pugh]

You know when you hire a motor when they hand it over they point out the dents and whatnot before you sign the acceptance paperwork, too late I know for this instance, but perhaps you could do a check and get the customer to sign in the future.

Nigel

[Richard Urquhart]

I would just pay for the moulding to be painted local bodyshop max £55

[Hugh Potter]

quote Richard Urquhart:

I would just pay for the moulding to be painted local bodyshop max £55

or wrap it!

[Kevin Flowers]

Phil
if you know where the van came from go check if they use promotional graphics on there sale vans. Looks to perfect a shape like someone as trimmed something whilst on the van. Just could customer didn’t notice it when he picked it up don’t mean it wasn’t there at the dealers

Kev

[Karl Williams]

As Richard said mate pay for the damage. If the cost is £55 it’s a small amount to safeguard your reputation. Don’t act like your hassled by it. But as Nigel said do a vehicle inspection next time. Bad news mate but it happens. 😕

[Martin Pearson]

Difficult one Phill, I certainly would want a good look at it before agreeing to pay for any damage, it may well buff out depending on how bad it is. How does the customer know you did it if he didn’t notice it until the next day? Could have been anyone who did it really.

Unfortunately it may well be best to pay for a repair rather than have the customer giving you a bad name but I certainly wouldn’t accept responsibility for doing it if you don’t think you did.

Only ever happened to me once with a van I did at a local dealership, customer picked the van up from them and came straight round to see me after they told him they had inspected the van before I applied the graphics and it had been perfect before I started.
Lucky for me because I had been to the dealership to look at the van a week earlier and unbeknown to them i had taken a few pictures for the visual as it was a metalic colour. You could see the marks on the photos when you looked closely so I couldn’t have done the damage. I got paid in full and the customer got a discount and an apology from them but strangely they never apologised to me.

[Mo Gillis-Coates]

Sorry Phill, day and a dollar too late I know, but I have a walk round check sheet for each vehicle I do (I just use a printed impact template on a4) I mark any dents or scratches etc and then get the driver to sign it!

I wouldn’t even pay out for a body spray, get one of those scratch repair guys to come round to you, they polish them out these days!

[Craig Ross]

This is a hard one as you say you didn’t see if when you started and it does look like the type of scratch you would know you would of done.

Is it a scratch or a dent? Could it be polished out with a rotary polisher and some elbow grease?

Thing is you don’t want an unhappy customer who won’t recommend you or bad mouth you to other people for the sake of a few pounds. You won’t nessacerly be loosing money just some of the profit he has paid. 🙂

So actually he would be paying for the work, ha!

[Phill Fenton]

I saw the damage in person today – it is a very light scratch and I still wasn’t convinced it had been caused by me. As a gesture of goodwill I offered to make up a decal to put over the scratch. The owner agreed this would be a satisfactory solution.

[Mo Gillis-Coates]

YaY…. Result phill……. nice, wasnt worth losing sleep over afteral… well done mate!

[Craig Ross]

Excellent!

Deep down I reckon the owner of the van knew he had done it! 😛

[Robert Lambie]

great stuff, glad your sorted phill. 😛

a lesson learned, next time just watch were yer kicking those bloody steps eh! 😉 :lol1: :lol1:

[Glenn Sharp]

what decal are you putting on Phil?

Mind
The
Steps

😉

[John Harding]

you could do a decal of a realistic scratch 😀

[Brian Little]

buy the guy a new van and stop mucking about phil