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| If you went into store and bought parts and paid cash or wrote a check for part. You thought everything was fine, until a month later you got a bill in the mail for the invoice you had paid the month earlier. What they were doing was hoping someone else was getting the farm bills was would pay it again unquestioned. If it went through unchallenged they just got paid twice for the same transaction. If you called and went into store and questioned what was going on they just said oh sorry our problem it won't happen again. What they were hoping for was you didn't question those 100-200 dollar purchases and your bill payer or someone else would just pay it again. It was easy money on their part, all it cost them was a stamp and envelope in hopes they caught you not being aware of your bills status.
I started to question a lot of local people, they all said it was happening to them. Some caught it, other repaid the bills. At the time the dealership was in trouble, I figured this was a way for them to get extra cash into business. They had a captive market, if you owned a Green machine you were pretty much forced to buy parts there. They got in standard practice of marking parts up 20% higher than any dealership in a 200 mile radius. Then if you tried to order parts next day air from any of the other dealerships, it wouldn't happen. You were told that no that was dealer A area, the only way you could order from dealer B was to bring it into Dealer B as next day air, then they could sent it back out as next day air to you. So you had to stand two next day air charges. It was cheaper and faster to have someone drive to dealership B to pick part up than to still deal with dealership A.
I complained to dealership B about not being able to buy parts from them next day air from them and have them shipped direct from JD to us. I was shown a letter from mother Deere that dealer B couldn't sell parts in my area and have direct ship. I could order or drive to dealer B and pick up. If I wanted direct ship from factory to me I had to order from dealership A. However I could buy any piece of equipment from any of the dealers, just not parts. The frustrating part is I had three JD dealers on my side of the state line in state I live in, however because of geographical area they are farther harder to drive to. Roughly 70 miles to each of them. The closest dealer is in another state which is 40 miles, but they are the crooks. I was told from mother Deere if I wanted next day air parts to my door step they had to be billed from this store, but you flat out paid 20% more for that order than you would have from any of the other stores farther away.
I haven't seen this practice from CIH nor New Holland farm dealers, just good old mother Deere protecting bad dealerships. If you need any parts from dealership A you better have called around to all surrounding Deere stores and priced the parts, then tell dealership A this in only what you are going to pay.
Have also just seen Case construction equipment do this same thing in state next to us, only one owner of all Case stores in the state. Parts all went up, we can order parts online cheaper and have them freighted into us cheaper. Sad that these corporate businesses are doing this to their customers. The three majors will soon own every farmer, rancher because they will hold us parts, machinery pricing. Only problem is agriculture is price taker business, we can't set our prices and pass increases along to our customers like construction industry can, sad. | |
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JD Financial
