Mechanic Theft! Inside Job? (Why so ANGRY?) Stop Stealing!

41 thoughts on “Mechanic Theft! Inside Job? (Why so ANGRY?) Stop Stealing!”

1. Short Video mentioned earlier: Scumbag Auto Parts Theft! https://youtube.com/shorts/B9YQOXKFozg

2. mechanicslife1984 sounds like a Tim Walz loving troll……

3. True story, my old boss was taking old rotors and returning them in new rotor boxes to get credit on his account. Turns out I ordered some rotors from the parts store and got 4 used rotors.

4. The real crime in returning old parts is the time that is stolen from the guy that buys them and has to spend his time to get the parts he needs, not only paying twice for the same part if you are not well enough known by your supplier for them to trust you that those are not your parts .

5. Stop rambeling you are getting really bad

6. Only thieves and those who might consider doing it themselves get upset when someone calls out petty thievery as despicable. It's similar to fact checking; honest people don't get uptight about it, dishonest do.

7. What people are not realizing is the customer is having to pay more because your time is money and time for the vehicle being on the hoist and being in the shop. And the customer is out a vehicle for a longer time period. Customer is screwed because of a slime ball that is putting their shit back in the box and returning it to the parts store.

8. There are 2 things i can't stand.. a liar and a thief! If i can't trust someone's word or actions, then i have no use for that person period!

9. Really, it starts with the guy who stole the part in the first place. Now, I don't know how they do things down there, but here where I live, when I return something, they open it up and look at it. So, obviously, wherever the part was returned at, that sales clerk did not do his due diligence and just gave the guy his money back.

10. Absolutely not wrong calling out the bad behaviour at all. It all has a knock on effect. The longer you have to wait for parts, the longer the car is on the ramp doing nothing costing money because you can’t work on something else. Bad behaviour is inconvenient and costs time and money.

11. Ignore the loonies. It's projection, clearly.

12. the worst crime here is that poor torque wrench laying under the other tools.

13. Ray sounds like he is jacked up on ☕️!! Enjoying his videos!!

14. Now I know why I only use OEM parts from a dealerships. Florida seems to be the kings of scams…

15. Went today to buy new wheel bearing for my Honda. Decided to check the box because of your video. Sure enough, one of them was a return with the wrong part in it. They are ordering new ones and gave me a discount for my inconvenience.

16. Ray I work for one of the big parts stores, we have had a few times, when, we have gotten parts from another store, and was Obviously not new. it is a problem. people try all the time to return things, that they have put on the car. We have a standing Policy every box gets opened and checked. I had a customer try and return a battery by placing our company's stickers on the battery.

17. This is properly directed anger too. You don't yell at the store owner you're mad at the person who returned their old parts to get the new one free. I stand with you

18. Theft is theft, returns need to be inspected better. This hidden theft costs ALL of us $$$$ !!!

19. I have to agree Ray, it's completely understandable why you are upset. I have to agree as the economy tanks, and prices are rising this problem has gotten out of control. As a consumer who tries to do my own repairs I can take my old parts in and make sure I am getting what I need. For you as a shop owner getting things delivered helps you out because you are able to do work while you're waiting for those parts. When you receive the wrong part, or a part that is clearly a used part that makes you unable to finish the customer's car on schedule. That is where the problem lies, and having an upset customer because of a wrong or used part is unexcusable. Parts stores need to train these young employees how to verify that they are getting the product back in new condition, and also make sure they are able to verify part numbers.

20. My experience as a contractor, is that Home Depot returns people do not check anything that comes back. Several times I've gotten to a job site and found used junk in boxes. I learned my lesson to check everything I buy.

21. Maybe the parts should be in sealed plastic wraps to make it harder for theft to happen.

22. I would be absolutely pissed

23. You're pissed with good reason. That two hour job, just became a four hour job, and two hours, or whatever it takes, is on your time. Also, veiwing the short, it did look like they were new seals, but, installed and removed. Heck, I'm probably wrong, I'm a guy, I'm never right according to the Mrs, but, I could be slightly less wrong……………..

24. I have seen this scam on an appliance part order too. I ordered a fill valve for a dishwasher, and received the part. The part received had teflon tape on the thread, and it was broken. The company that sent the part had to send me another part.

    Also, while I was shopping at The Home Depot, I pulled an item off the shelf in the electrical department. When I opened the box to compare it with my old one, the part in the box was also old, and also used.

    If you can you have to check everything because there are dishonest people out there who do not want to pay for a part they need to repair something.

25. I don't know a parts store that doesn't check returns. If they checked them, their company and their customers wouldn't get ripped off! This was either a lazy employee or an inside job. It's ultimately the person that returned bad parts fault, but the parts store needs to do their due diligence as well.

26. People who steal suck! They drive the cost up for the rest of us!

27. This is ridiculous, you have every right to be angry over this. I definitely would be.
    Those commenter's you called out can go pound sand

28. It’s not even about the money, it’s the time wasted. As a business owner myself, nothing pisses me off more than others incompetent behaviors wasting my time

29. It wastes your time and your customer's time. You have a right to be upset about it.

30. I think this is a no-brainer. It's on the customer who returned olddamaged parts and who ever processed the returns.
    Mostly the person who stole the parts in the first place. Theft is wrong. It's less so on the personcompany the processed the return. "Trust me bro" is not an excuse. If the return takes a few minutes longer than so be it. It isn't in any way the responsibility of anyone else down the chain to unbox and check all the items (regardless if it is a good idea or not).

31. You are 100% accurate. Have spent 10 years representing that auto parts company in the field to repair shops I can tell you it’s a break down on several fronts. First off retail customers are more likely to take that risk (no surprise though not all repair shops are honest) that said it’s more often retail “joe”. The parts house needs to pay a livable wage if they want to attract employees who will care enough to inspect returns and have enough backbone to call out someone on their “honest mistake”. The other common one is the guy who sends his wife back with the return and she’s under the impression “her husband didn’t need that part so it’s a new part in the box”. That “new” part has already been replaced in the store’s inventory so the “new” part then gets returned to the distribution center, put on a shelf until it goes out to another store often hundreds of miles away from where the offense took place. There is sits on the shelf possibly for months but being ordered by a professional like yourself. This is yet another break down because 2 people are supposed to open that box and verify the part before it gets delivered. Problem is those employees are “busy” aka don’t get paid enough to care, let’s remember the most important employees in that store are the delivery workers but they are also the lowest paid. Meanwhile now you have a flat rate tech waiting around for the part to get transferred from another store not getting paid so he’s pacing around getting worked up and usually ends up jumping down the delivery drivers throat because they are the only person representing said parts store to walk in the shop. Ray I have watched your videos for years love what you do and the honesty you put into your work. Keep it up I wish you all the success.

32. Anybody who would get mad about you calling out people who return used parts are the same kind of people who would return used parts.

33. Hey Ray, I got a question. Are you putting in Timken bearing in the rear end and bearing in the wheel hubs

34. You must always call out bad behavior. That is the biggest problem today, people being bullied into shutting their mouths when bad things happen. Those people should DIAF!
    
    Let me add, those who are calling you out for calling out bad behavior are more than likely bad actors themselves. Prove me wrong.

35. Calling people out isn't wrong, and I'd be absolutely livid if I was torn into a project only to find that my "new parts" weren't as such. That said, most of those guilty who see your videos probably just laughed and plan to do it again.

36. Not related to car parts, but parts in general. Where I work we use expensive parts to service our equipment (components that can cost as much as $6,000.00). You would be familiar with this from working at a dealership, but we have certain KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that we have to meet, and one of them is Parts Usage. Quite a few years ago we started having a large problem with techs receiving a disproportionate number of parts that failed on install and it was discovered that a number of the techs would install these expensive components, and then a few days later they would return the old part in the new box back into inventory, marked as a Surplus component that wasn't needed. This was a largely internal issue because maybe 2% of parts used were actually billed to the end user (usually due to obvious, customer generated damage), but because of how our system worked the tech who received the part had to expense it against the call, and then expense the replacement part once it arrived as well. We had to institute a policy where all returns had to be labelled with the technician's name, ID code, and reason for return so that whomever got the part next knows who it came from and why it was returned.

    I also worked for a total D-bag before my current employer who did much the same thing as you experienced. He would purchase certain components from a large retailer instead of from our wholesaler, we would install the component and he told us that we were to return the old parts, and packaging, to him for "disposal". Well, "disposal" meant him doing exactly what you experienced. However, Idiot-Boy being cunning, but not smart, failed to notice that the boxes these components came in had a serial number printed on the side which matched a serial number stamped into the component housing. The retailer (a National chain) took notice of this because the aforementioned Idiot was using his consumer credit card to process the purchases and returns. It turned out that he, alone, was responsible for 60% of the returns of these products in the greater metropolitan area (roughly just shy of 1M population) where this retailer operated a dozen or so locations. To this day I have no idea why that retailer didn't have him arrested for fraud/theft, instead they cancelled his credit card, reported him to their consumer credit reporting agency as a fraudster, and trespassed him for life from all their locations, nationwide. In our defense, none of us techs knew he was running this scam (or the ones we found out about after he sold the company a couple years later) and it also shed an ironic light on his reaction about a year later when it came to light that the company's bookkeeper was discovered to have embezzled about $80K from the company over the same period he was scamming this retailer and others as well.

    My current employer operates to the highest ethical standards possible, and there is a high cost to techs who are more concerned with fixing their KPIs instead of fixing the customers equipment. That former employer was (we all found out later) so crooked he had to screw his pants on in the morning.

37. I went to Home Depot to upgrade to a "smart" thermostat. The first one was previously opened. It was a lesser model — it was probably the previous customer's old thermostat. Thankfully, Home Depot gave me my money back without any hassle.

38. in Australia, we have great customer service, we will bend over backwards to help you, but bad behaviour is not rewarded "I wanna have a tantrum and get store discounts" is not here folks, you want to act a fool do it in the parking lot.

    With that said, our customer service does make mistakes, human is human and I once had a DOA – RTM television, the RTM was in the box and the TV wouldn't work, so I returned it.

    Now, my story was based on a mistake, fraud is different, it's observantly being deceptive to make money, hopefully they will investigate and the employee feels the hot water and leaves the company or is quietly taken care of to improve the companies values.

39. I know most part stores have the “limited life time warranty” they basically just take everything and give them a new part. Maybe just maybe they confused the boxes when they sent them out to you and gave you a warranty return.

40. I hate getting pre installed junk parts,because now your tied up even more and then you have to explain to the the customer what's taking so long.

41. Worse yet? I quit my tech job. The boss locked up my stuff and wouldn't let me back in the shop. Police, lawyer…. He went through every drawer in my tool collection, and took about 25% of my tools, several custom made one of a kind. Then to top it off, he went through my personal stuff and took an 1881 $10.00 gold coin that my father gave me.

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