Workshop Whose Customer’s Car Was Taken for a Joyride Claims It Was Broken In

By
George Yang
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If you’ve downloaded our app, you’d have known about an incident whereby a car owner got the shock of his life when he saw that his car has been driven for 272km when he sent his car for a spray paint job and grooming.

Lest you’ve not read it, here’s a brief summary of what happened:

  • Facebook user Eric Lau sent his car for spray paint and internal grooming, and left the car with the workshop for five day after going overseas
  • The odometer showed that the car has been driven 272 km during his absence
  • The memory card was removed and sound system bass adjusted to the maximum
  • Turned out that these occurred:
    • Car was sent to another workshop for another job (spray paint?) and returned to the original workshop for grooming
    • When the original workshop receive the car, there were cigarette ashes in the car
    • The second workshop owner’s son had allegedly driven the car to various parts of Malaysia and even smoked in it
  • First workshop referred customer to the second workshop for compensation
  • Compensation was not made after two months

Now, this is when it gets confusing: why was the car in two workshops (or worked by two different companies)?

Simple: usually, one workshop won’t do everything. For example, if you had a dent in your car, you might send it to Workshop A.

Workshop A would fix the dent and then send it to Workshop B. Workshop B would touch up on the painting and return it to Workshop A. For you as a customer, you just correspond with and pay Workshop A.

Sometimes, workshops won’t tell you that they’ve sent the car to another workshop, simply because they’re acting as an “agent” to Workshop B. And usually, these workshops are very near to each other.

This is quite common—in fact, if you do your homework, you might also realize that workshop buy their spare parts from a nearby shop: you’ll save more money if you buy it yourself and send it to the workshop. But workshop owners need to make money too, so it’s not just the repair you’re paying for: it’s the convenience.

But anyways.

Original Post Has Been Removed; Facebook User Allegedly Finally Being Compensated

The original post, which has quite a bit of shares, has since been removed.

According to the original workshop, the customer has finally been compensated—whether it’s because the issue has gone viral or that it’s a coincidence, we’ll never know…though we can speculate 😉

But of course, all we’re wondering is this: how did it happen?

Original Workshop has Posted an Update on its Facebook Page

Yesterday night, GlozZ Factory Car grooming & Detailing, supposedly the so-called “Workshop A” as quoted in the example above, has spoken out about the incident in a Facebook post:

If you can’t read, here’s what is written:

Glozz Factory sincerely apologize to Car owner Mr Eric Lau and his family for this unfortunate event. We understand the inconvenience and trouble that has caused to Mr Eric Lau. This is a heavy lesson learnt by Glozz Factory from such an unexpected event. We are also very fortunate that Mr Lau had kindly accepted us to make this necessary compensation. From here, I would like to thank Mr Lau for his graciousness towards us.

In addition to this, we too want to clarify to everyone about this incident. Glozz Factory took over Mr Lau’s car and parked in the workshop for works to be done. Shawn Chng, who is NOT Glozz Factory staff but from Chng Brother Motor Services, sneaked into our workshop in the night and quietly drove off Mr Lau’s car without permission.

We have lodged a police report for this case and will let the Law handle accordingly.

As such, William Chng (Owner of Chng Brother Motor Services) together with his son, Shawn Chng and myself met up with car owner, Mr Eric Lau to have a private settlement. As per discussion, William Chng agreed to compensate Mr Lau.

However, William and his son made Mr Eric Lau waited for 2 months with no actions done. When we questioned William Chng about the compensation again, his answer was just “Lawyer Preparing” and ignoring the fact that we need to expedite the settlement. Therefore, I stood forward to bear all the compensation ourselves.

Through this post, I hope the public will have a clearer picture of this unfortunate case. We, Glozz Factory, have been always been sincere and always strive for the best for our customers.

In other words, it’s not just a case of mischief: it could have been a criminal act.

Though, of course, you’ve got to wonder: why would William Chng agreed to compensate Mr Lau when it’s his son who caused all the trouble?

Image: Pinterest

It’s heartening to see that Glozz Factory has decided to bear all the costs, though it might be a tad too late as bad reviews (which looks C&P) have been streaming in since the post went viral:

Well, at least we know the truth now.

And also we get to read about yet another strawberry story #justsaying

Case of Breaking In: A Cause for Concern?

If you’re read the comments, you’d see that people were hating because it seem easy to sneak into a workshop.

Now, read on because you’re going to get a shock (though you might not if you’re a car owner).

You see, car workshops are usually only open during office hours, and car owners often work office hours. What many owners do is this: they’ll contact the workshop one day earlier and send the car over to the workshop the next morning to let the mechanics do whatever repair or servicing is needed during the day.

Most of the times, in the morning when the workshop is not opened yet, the car owner would lock the car and put the car key into the workshop letterbox.

And since car owners could only collect the car after office hours, the workshop would leave the car unlocked and place the key somewhere inside the car, or on the tyre of the car. They’ll usually park it outside their workshop or somewhere nearby and inform the owner.

In other words, any car owners would know that you can just walk around a place with many workshops and see a few unlocked cars around at night.

So, sneaking into workshop? Nope, there’s no need to. It’s just like products that are left outside a shop overnight: Singapore’s so safe, no one would steal it.

So, yeah. Now you learn something.

Watch this for a complete summary of what REALLY happened to Qoo10, and why it's like a K-drama:

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George Yang
Email: [email protected]