Volkswagen scandal in Egypt: An engineer at VW Egypt crashed the Jetta of our reader Sherif Ezzat

Over the past few years, the reputation of the renowned German brands Volkswagen and Audi as well as the Spanish brand SEAT have been damaged a lot by the Egyptian Automotive & Trade Company (EATC), which is unfortunately the official importer of those three brands in Egypt.

Aside from the scandals and corruption accusations between both EATC partners, the Beirut-based Lebanese partners and the Cairo-based Karim El Najjar, which resulted in Karim El Najjar being forced to leave his position as EATC chairman through the Egyptian Investment Authority, we receive regularly many complaints from Volkswagen, AUDI and SEAT owners in Egypt. As a matter of fact, Volkswagen & AUDI & SEAT are among the most complaints we received from our readers and listeners.

Below is the most recent complaint we received from our reader Sherif Ezzat, who is extremely angry at Volkswagen because they crashed and caused a total-loss to his Volkswagen Jetta and then were extremely arrogant and customer-unfriendly with him. And this is his complaint which is also published in our reader's letter section http://www.autoarabia.org/readersletters/ along with other reader's complaints:

Hello Mohamed Sheta & Autoarabia,

Below is my very serious complaint:

• I bought my 2010 Jetta from VW authorized dealer in Egypt: Egyptian Automotive & Trading Co. – EATC (Karim El-Naggar)
• I usually make all my maintenances at Obbour-Cairo maintenance center
• I delivered my car to Obbour branch as I had a major problem in my DSG gearbox
• I received a call from customer service agent (The first & the last call during 4 months) telling me that my car is fixed & ready to use again
• On January 22nd, I went to receive my car, I found it AS IT WAS since the last 18 days, so I returned it back to maintenance center with the same hour of receive with a big shock!
• From 22nd of January till April 5th I was fighting with customer service agents to get a single valid update on my car after they advised me that they will replace my current gearbox with a new one from Germany but unfortunately I did not get any
• They did not provide or tried to offer a car to use during this period!
• After 4 months, on April 6th, I received a phone call from VW Egypt telling me that my car went through an accident by one of VW employees during testing my VW car without my permission and the car is in a total loss case
• Immediately, I went to the VW site in Egypt with my lawyer to understand and see their immediate response, however, I faced the worst and loose ever response in my history. VW Egypt marketing manager told me: The only alternative we are offering you is that you will receive the amount of money representing the value of your car as per our council.
Upon my logic and reasonable anger, they asked for a period of 24 hours to get back with another response.
• On 8th of April, they did not call me back, I called them to hear the same response with very cool and cold blood!!!

I do promise you I will take all measures and seek all alternatives to take my rights after this looseness and nonprofessional ways I am facing couple of days ago with VW Egypt and since 4 months as well!!

Kindly find the actions taken from my side during the last 48 hours only:
1. A big scandal for VW Egypt on the social media specially Facebook, shared my very bad experience & got engagement till now = 15,000 shares & 200,000 impressions
2. Submitted a complaint at Consumer Protection Agency in Egypt (www.cap.gov.eg), case no. 156534, and the first session will be held in the next couple of days at the agency.
3. I went to the police station & submitted a complaint and report against VW Egypt for what they done with my car (Case no. 2925-61 for 2016 on April 8th)
4. Three Egyptian journalists are working parallel with me to push what it takes of articles either online and offline with official documents to be published in no time.
5. Preparing to appear in the media during the next week complaining about VW Egypt & the bad service & experience I am passing through

My non-negotiable request is to receive a new car instead of mine and immediately.

P.S. I never rode a used car and this option is not acceptable for me.

I am really shocked about my experience with VW Egypt & the client servicing quality I received, this was not expected from a renowned company like Volkswagen!

Your URGENT action is highly needed.
Regards,
Sherif Ezzat



My personal opinion after reading this complaint: It is really about time that Volkswagen AG and AUDI AG start restructuring their presence in Egypt and look for a new, more professional, more reliable, more competent and less business- and reputation-harming importer.

Mohamed Sheta
15.04.2016
Cairo - Wolfsburg - Ingolstadt