First and foremost, I feel sick to my stomach even giving this company 1 star, but unfortunately Google requires a rating. Please stay away from this actual location at all costs or you will be a victim of fraud! I first went in this shop on November 9th, 2015 to have my halogen headlights replaced to HID Bi-Xenon. I was quoted a fair price, at least that's what I thought prior to this nightmare, paid the $324.00 and went on my way. Just after 24 hours, I noticed that I didn't have HID b-Xenon installed in my car as we have agreed and as what I paid for. I noticed, the first time when driving my truck at night, that my high beams were still halogen. To anyone that knows, this means that only the HID low beam was installed - Strike 1 (lied). I called back Nadine (store owner of the franchise) and he began to profusely apologize and agreed for me to bring my truck back to be "fixed". This time, he stated he was ordering another pair directly from his distributor and would personally have his "best" guy install the new set in my truck. I dropped off my truck, left it there all day and proceeded to have the new products installed. Prior to this, he stated on the phone that he was going to go back to same manufacturer "Vision Pro" out of California and that he was ordering the "upgraded" version to make sure everything was perfect this time around.
I later picked the truck up, noticed that the headlights still had a yellow tint to them but at least now the low and high beams worked better than before. Interestingly enough, I was supposed to have the 5000k which is the purist white available, yet the distinct yellow Strike 2 (lied). At this juncture, unfortunately I didn't have enough time to go back to his shop yet again because me and my family were moving back to Seattle from Austin and I had a 2300 mile trek ahead of me driving this truck.
Through out the trip, there were several occasions that the headlights went out completely and luckily my wife was driving her car separately so I was able to follow her down the interstate for the last few hundred miles, scary huh? I assure you there were multiple times I thought I could die or at the very least get hurt. Especially since there was a 176 mile stretch to not pull over, no rest stops or gas stations or exits of any kind. Once we finally did find a place to exit, needless to say we didn't drive at night any longer.
Upon arriving back in Seattle, I called Nadine (owner) to tell him what had happened and that I wanted my money back. After just a little shy of an hour conversation of my trying to convince him that I wanted a refund, even though his store policy has a 30 day money back guarantee, he finally agreed to reimburse me for just the hardware but minus the install costs. Reluctantly, I agreed simply because I was now over 2000 miles a way. had I been still local to Austin, this conversation would have gone down a much different path. we agreed that I would have the products removed and I would ship them back to him, while he would pay for a different product to be put in my truck by a local Seattle vendor.
As of today, the local vendor puled out the products and the first thing we noticed was that Vision pro was actually not installed in my truck as promised, but they used Kensun instead. For those of you that don't know, this is by far and away one of the bottom barrel aftermarket kits a person can buy. In fact, the average price on Amazon is around $50. While I certainly don't have a problem with paying a margin nor even maybe a high margin assuming the whole experience warrants such, I do have a problem with being lied to about what was installed in my truck versus what I was told I was paying for. I quickly called and brought this to his attention and demanded for him to give me a full refund as he had committed FRAUD. I told him that what he did was unethical and illegal and even criminal. I told him that if he did not refund my full amount of $324 I would call the police, contact his corporate, contact my bank and file a fraud claim with bank...
Needless to say, as of 2:51 PST today he has now blocked all of our numbers, my business numbers, my cell and home numbers and now even my wife's number that prohibits my even calling his store. My truck is in the local shop having legitimate products put inside but yet the owner, to whom had already agreed to just pay this vendor directly with is corporate credit card is nowhere to be found. I have tried to call about 6 times now to no avail. My next steps will be to contact the local Austin police department, the BBB and of course their corporate. Quite frankly, I am dumbfounded as to why anyone would allow for this to happen. It's pretty horrible for any company to defraud their customer's, but to at least not try and rectify the situation before it snowballs out of hand is incomprehensible to me on both a business and personal level. I own my own company, a service industry nonetheless. Stay away! read more