This guy (Paul Adelman/Adelman Auto) tries to find ways to avoid doing business... first, while his estimate was good/low he wants to come to my house to do the car service; and while this sounds like it might be a "benefit" it's actually not a benefit for me/the customer. It saves him a lot of overhead and thus I take the risk of him spilling something or breaking something on my property. He doesn't say anything about having business insurance to cover anything that might happen/go wrong. Second, he tells me that if I use a credit card or debate card, he adds 3% to the bill, so he advises paying in cash, which, again, sounds like a convenience, but is more of a red flag to me, in that he might not report the income to the IRS/tax board.... not good for anyone (except him). His estimate was $710 for the service (which was competitive), so I suggested doing it for $700 if I paid in cash. He did not like that option. Of course I did not like the 3% fee charge... He said, "if you want to "barter" maybe you can find it a cheaper mechanic". First of all I was not trying to "barter" that word means "trade". I was not interested in trading anything, I was trying to "negotiate" which is normal/acceptable when someone sends you "an estimate", which means the price is not "fixed/firm" and could cost more, or possibly less... and he did not say this is a "firm" price... or maybe I'm defining that word incorrectly too? :-)
I read the 5 reviews that are posted and while most were old/older... they did give me a sense of his work/ethic, which was helpful. To me, out of the gate (once he presented the estimate), he se difficult to work with initially and he told me that he could do the service (100K) on my car next Monday which per the weather forecast, says it will be raining, so not a good day... when I suggested doing it later next week, after the rain, he told me he was all booked up, (red flag) so I suggested doing it the following week. At that point he said "I'm going to politely decline have a nice day"). which while he used the word "politely" to me reads as "I'm blowing you off", which put me back on my heels a bit, so I said "well, then I'm going to report this all to Yelp and let others see how you work (or don't...) with a potential customer" he then said "I've been nothing but polite to you. I was upfront with you (which is true), I just don't play games. Every business has a right to decline business". which, is true, but I take as a personal insult... this process is not certainly "a game". It's a RFP (request for proposal); mine, not his. I'm the potential customer, which I don't think he understands... perhaps he's been burned which is why he is so "negative/harsh:, but this again is HUGE red flag. I suggested that based on his "attitude" towards me that he might think about retiring (he said he's been in business since 1994 (almost 30 years), which is a nice long run, but maybe time to take some time off... He then told me I was being "rude"... no, not rude, just honest feedback. I just trying to help him understand how I was feeling. Apparently, he thought I was insulting him... not no, he was not listening to a potential customer... so, I said, "OK, game over" and thus this negative feedback here. Maybe after he read this, he'll learn something from this feedback and at least apologize for this outcome... and hopefully this will give you all a sense of who this guy is and how he does (or doesn't) do business and maybe avoid him and his business... Just doing what I can to inform and help, unlike what Paul did... as I said to him "game over". I hope this feedback is informative. Onward.
BTW, I DID find a very helpful and honest mechanic at a price that was competitive, honest and fair. :-) read more
