奔驰想退款了事？晚了！| Action art protest puts quality in the spotlight

"Do you want me to sit on the hood, too?" A female driver asked her Mercedes Benz dealership in Zhengzhou, Henan province.

She claims she bought a new car from the latter and found the steering wheel failed within 24 hours, yet the shop refused to refund her.

By "sitting on the hood" she refers to a video clip that went viral, which shows a young woman in Xi'an sat on the hood of a car complaining about the dealership that sold the car to her. 

According to her, she bought the Mercedes Benz for her birthday in March, yet when she got it, even before she drove it out of the shop, the engine was found to have an oil leak.

The shop in Xi'an promised to refund her down payment and cancel the financial agreement. However, when she returned a few days later, they said they could only exchange the car she had for a new one.

The third time the two sides met, the dealer said it would replace the problematic car's engine with a new one. Anybody with a car knows how bad that idea is — That means a major drop in value.

That's how the scandal started. However, even after the video clip went viral on Thursday, Mercedes Benz did not make any official response — all it did was to issue a notice via the dealership, saying they had already reached an agreement with the consumer.

That was denied by the consumer. And on Saturday, the dealership negotiated with her at the office of the local market regulatory department.

Caijing.com.cn published transcripts of the two sides' negotiations. The dealership owner said that they always insisted "consumer first" principle, which was denied by the consumer, as well as by comments on micro blogs.

Now the shop owner said she was willing to refund the consumer, but the latter rejected. "It is the public support that helped me," she said, "I need to do something for all consumers, not only myself." 

According to latest reports, the consumer's requests mainly contain the following points:

1. What happened to the car before it was sold? Why could it pass quality control with a problematic engine?

2. The shop forced her to sign on a financial contract and charged her 15,000 yuan ($2,237) as service fee. Is that fee legal?

3.All checks should be done by a third-party without any interests involved.

4.Mercedes Benz needs to issue a formal apology and description of the issue.

On Monday, the consumer in the Xi'an scandal said that her phone number was made public by people unknown and she received hundreds of harassment calls and SMSs every day. She even got death threats from people unknown.

A comment on China Daily applauded her requests, saying the issue is no longer one between the consumer and the shop alone. On social media, many car buyers complain of being forced to sign financial contracts, while some insiders from car dealerships said the contracts are illegal. It is time to make a thorough probe of that chaos.

Besides, the case shows lack of effective support for consumers in defending their own rights. "It seems that calling the media is a more effective way to solve problems than calling the market regulators," comments People's Daily overseas edition, "That's why many consumers choose radical ways of protecting their rights."

"In the past few years, some car buyers have smashed up their cars in the public and some have held burials for their cars in a bid to attract public attention so that the subsequent media attention will prompt the law enforcers and market regulators to become involved. Media outlets even call these publicity stunts 'consumer rights action art'."

"It is time to improve the market regulatory system, so that consumers can get a fair treatment without resorting to such action art," it said.

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