I became victim of fraud carried out by an on-call mechanic. It'd really help if know what action could be taken now.
On friday, My friend had borrowed my car for the weekend. Its a 2006 Vitz 1.3 with no issues. It was parked in Xinhua Mall parking. After completing his shopping, he tried starting the car, but battery felt dead. There was now issue before, new battery was installed that week. He called me late at night, I had a number of a mechanic from some friend before that I forwarded to him, he contacted him and he got to the spot in 15 minutes max.
Next day my friend told me that it costed 7500 just to change the spark plugs. I was like, why the spark plugs, and that too for 1800 each. He handed me over the spark plugs which were previously in there, the ceramic on the electrode was broken. That too for all spark plugs, even powdery residue was there, clearly indicating that there were manually broken and not overheated or discolored.
What actually happened is that once the mechanic figured out the problem, he corrected it (loose connection/leakage) and additionally put in these to make some money. What he did was, break perfectly running spark plugs, put in re-furbished spark plugs and ask the price that is double that market, 1800 instead of 950 for Denso SK20HR11. We made a call to the mechanic asking him why he did such thing, his response was that someone had already broken these, to run the car. When we told him that this not a Yamaha motorcycle, he hung up.
What we have planned is to call him up from another number to another car. And clarify the things. By clarify I mean take him to the police or reimburse the price we had paid. Please advise regarding the implications, especially police matter (if I need to contact police before/after?).
I'm obviously not the only one looted by him, there must be many more. This has to stop. I'll share his name/contact details once we have dealt with him. Thanks alot