Mobile Service Invoice - Full of Lies

[s4wrxttcs]

Since this is a customer facing I would provide Rivian with feedback.

I see two issues with the "inflated" invoice despite it all being covered under warranty.

One is that it reflects badly on Rivian when things show up on an invoice that were never done.

The second is its going to freak people out about the out of warranty costs.

It's also important to provide feedback since we don't really know what the agreement is between a person that does the service and Rivian. My assumption is that all Rivian service people are employees of Rivian, but I could be wrong about that.

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[Placer Paul]

Had a wicked rattle coming from above the rear passenger door so I booked mobile service to see if they could figure it out. After waiting 3 weeks, my appointment was yesterday and the tech fixed it in less than 5 minutes. Great outcome right?

Trouble is that I got the invoice and noticed that the tech "billed" for a 30 minute test drive, an hour long "interior general diagnostic" and a courtesy inspection and tire inflation - none of which happened. The tech never even turned on the car, in fact, I never even handed him the keyfob. There was no inspection. and certainly no tire inflation service (the invoice said all my tires were inflated to 49 psi - seems like a lot of specificity for a lie) . All he did was pop a cover on the grab handle and tighten one torx screw after I described the problem

He did fix the rattle for which I am grateful but I feel like "billing" Rivian for $340 and 1.5 hours of his time is fraud. Not sure who benefits - maybe the tech who might get paid by the service - but in any case, it just doesn't feel right.

Wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience and what they did, if anything, about it.

From the facts you present it appears that you got billed for work that did not occur. That's theft. Call the manager of the SC and present your facts and insist upon an explanation and correction. That failing, advise the SC manager that you will be contacting the police. Then contact the police.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

From the facts you present it appears that you got billed for work that did not occur. That's theft. Call the manager of the SC and present your facts and insist upon an explanation and correction. That failing, advise the SC manager that you will be contacting the police. Then contact the police.

He didn't get a bill, you need to read more carefully. He paid 0 dollars.

 

[Zoidz]

From the facts you present it appears that you got billed for work that did not occur. That's theft. Call the manager of the SC and present your facts and insist upon an explanation and correction. That failing, advise the SC manager that you will be contacting the police. Then contact the police.

He didn't get a bill, you need to read more carefully. He paid 0 dollars.

 

[donguanella]

From the facts you present it appears that you got billed for work that did not occur. That's theft. Call the manager of the SC and present your facts and insist upon an explanation and correction. That failing, advise the SC manager that you will be contacting the police. Then contact the police.

OP this here is the answer. You should definitely follow this advise, especially contacting the police

 

[shandel]

The mobile techs are employed by Rivian so are not scamming anyone. The bit about filling up the tires and doing a "general inspection" is in there because the law states that any time there is a vehicle service appointment, they need to check tire air pressure. So he checked the box. This doesn't feel like a big deal at all to me. He's not getting paid extra to do this, Rivian is not paying extra, and you're not paying anything.

 

[nomis]

Feel like this thread has run its course, but as someone that's been a Dealership tech for years, I'll shed a bit of light to what may have happened. Techs work under flat rate, which basically means we get paid for the predetermined time of a service regardless how long it takes in real life. If you complete work faster than the predetermined time, you essentially got paid more per hour; if you work slower than the predetermined time, you get paid less. Its a double edged sword.

With that being said, often warranty work is a predetermined set of steps. Such as in this case, "a rattle in the door" is probably a well known, documented, TSB under Rivian's internal service documentation. So Rivian's official steps to fix such a problem might have been itemized to: Check/Tighten bolt, test drive, re-inspect, courtesy tire check. And tech's can't deter from flagging those hours because its listed in the TSB as such. So if the tech has done the same repair a 100x and he knows that a test drive isn't necessary because the 75 prior times he's done it in the past, it's never posed a problem, he may have made a judgement call to skip that step and grab 30min of extra time, again its not like he can't remove that item from invoice, because the TSB calls for it. As for the tire check, he probably glanced at the screen and saw that the last recorded tire pressures was 49psi so he didn't need to adjust pressure; technically he DID check to see that the tire pressures (as recorded) were in spec, whether that took 5 seconds to glance at a screen or 20 min to go around to each tire and measure/fill.

Companies pay techs per job and not true hours spent. This was a gamble on the tech's part due to the fact that if you, as the customer, found the problem not-fixed and still an issue, he would have to fix it again under the same hours he flagged for the TSB. For example, maybe this TSB allotted 2.0 hours, but he finished in 1.5 hours and pocketed 0.5 because he made a judgement call and some steps, in his experience, were not necessary. But if he were to come back out and work on the job again because he didn't do it right, now he spent 3.0 hours on a job that paid him 2.0 hours.

While working at Volkswagen, there was a well documented turbo failure that all the techs knew about and a warranty TSB existed. It called for removing the entire front clip of the car, but techs knew, if you had the flexibility and right tools, you can get away with the job without taking off the front clip, but loosening several other components to barely get it in and out. This ran the risk of damaging other components, but that never happened. In the end, it saved us a ton of time and we were able to move on to more jobs sooner. More jobs = more money.

TL;DR: Its probably not dishonesty or scamming, its the nature of flat rate warranty work.

 

[TomServo2112]

The mobile techs are employed by Rivian so are not scamming anyone. The bit about filling up the tires and doing a "general inspection" is in there because the law states that any time there is a vehicle service appointment, they need to check tire air pressure. So he checked the box. This doesn't feel like a big deal at all to me. He's not getting paid extra to do this, Rivian is not paying extra, and you're not paying anything.

Except that if I know a mobile service visit comes with courtesy checks, I expect them to be done because those checks may reveal something in edge cases. Otherwise, don’t publicly publish that they occur on an invoice, whether they’re zeroed-out/paid for by Rivian, or not. Don’t set expectations, fail to meet them, then blame me, saying “well you didn’t pay for it.” There’s no connection there.

We’re in a time where Porsche, Audi, and others are literally texting owners links to videos that show service techs doing the courtesy checks the peanut gallery here is saying don’t matter since we’re not paying for them. For peace of mind, tread depth is measured and #s reported, brake pad wear is measured and reported, PSI as well - in handy videos the owner can see and point to on their invoice to cross-reference, but apparently “don’t matter.” Someone tell VAG, then. The immensely profitable Rivian has it figured out.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Except that if I know a mobile service visit comes with courtesy checks, I expect them to be done because those checks may reveal something in edge cases. Otherwise, don’t publicly publish that they occur on an invoice, whether they’re zeroed-out/paid for by Rivian, or not. Don’t set expectations, fail to meet them, then blame me, saying “well you didn’t pay for it.” There’s no connection there.

We’re in a time where Porsche, Audi, and others are literally texting owners links to videos that show service techs doing the courtesy checks the peanut gallery here is saying don’t matter since we’re not paying for them. For peace of mind, tread depth is measured and #s reported, brake pad wear is measured and reported, PSI as well - in handy videos the owner can see and point to on their invoice to cross-reference, but apparently “don’t matter.” Someone tell VAG, then. The immensely profitable Rivian has it figured out.

You don't know how to do that stuff yourself? Does Rivian need to hold your hand to measure the air pressure in your tires?

 

[Scottm]

From the facts you present it appears that you got billed for work that did not occur. That's theft. Call the manager of the SC and present your facts and insist upon an explanation and correction. That failing, advise the SC manager that you will be contacting the police. Then contact the police.

Why stop there? I would definitely involve the FBI, the ATF, possibly Ace Ventura if there were pets involved. And if you still have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them....maybe you can hire The A-Team.

 

[Jeep Addict]

From our friends at Merriam Webster:

Lie.
verb (2)

1
: to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
She was lying when she said she didn't break the vase.

He lied about his past experience.


2
: to create a false or misleading impression
Statistics sometimes lie.

The mirror never lies.


transitive verb
: to bring about by telling lies
He liedhis way out of trouble.

Lie.
noun (2)

1a
: an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker or writer to be untrue with intent to deceive
He told a lie to avoid punishment.

b
: an untrue or inaccurate statement that may or may not be believed true by the speaker or writer
the lies we tell ourselves to feel better

historical records containing numerous lies


2
: something that misleads or deceives
His show of remorse was a lie.


An invoice, even a $0.00 invoice should be factual. An invoice that details time and activities that were not performed represent enterprise data that will be analyzed at some point and decisions will be made as a result of it. Simple analysis on how much labor is required for a symptom code, how often an activity is performed, the costs associated with activities, etc.

I strongly believe those "phony hours" will show up as costs on the P&L, either as warranty costs, or some concession account.

Making excuses for these inaccuracies is just that, making excuses.

 

[Explorer3686]

Had a wicked rattle coming from above the rear passenger door so I booked mobile service to see if they could figure it out. After waiting 3 weeks, my appointment was yesterday and the tech fixed it in less than 5 minutes. Great outcome right?

Trouble is that I got the invoice and noticed that the tech "billed" for a 30 minute test drive, an hour long "interior general diagnostic" and a courtesy inspection and tire inflation - none of which happened. The tech never even turned on the car, in fact, I never even handed him the keyfob. There was no inspection. and certainly no tire inflation service (the invoice said all my tires were inflated to 49 psi - seems like a lot of specificity for a lie) . All he did was pop a cover on the grab handle and tighten one torx screw after I described the problem

He did fix the rattle for which I am grateful but I feel like "billing" Rivian for $340 and 1.5 hours of his time is fraud. Not sure who benefits - maybe the tech who might get paid by the service - but in any case, it just doesn't feel right.

Wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience and what they did, if anything, about it.

Can you take a picture of the cover he popped? I have an annoying rattle from the same place. Wondering if a simple tightening of things will address the issue vs taking it in for service!

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