Additional Information for Lot 99 LLC

On November 2, 2017, BBB recognized a pattern of complaints from consumers regarding customer service, guarantee or warranty, repair and sales issues. Consumers allege cars being sold do not pass the implied warranty of merchantability and are falsely advertised regarding the known issues and condition at the time of sale.  Consumers claim the company does not respond to these issues.   

On February 4, 2019, the owner of Lot 99 responded to the pattern of complaints stating the following:

Lot 99 L.L.C. started in 2012 as a very small business based out of a home.  The business was initially family run and in Dec of 2013 we started at a retail location in Portland.  Since then the business has grown at a very fast pace, including the introduction to social media with all its many venues both positive and negative, staff changes and growth, learning curves, the positive aspects of that and growing pains.  We value our customers and because of our service to them and them in general we have grown to having multiple locations and great sales. 

At the time of the letter to us we had a very small office staff that had many different jobs to perform, including interaction with the consumers.  We found that social media and the internet can become overwhelming if you are not prepared for it.  One customer can complain instantly on ten sites with the same complaint.  These all want you to respond.  This can amount to a lot of time if you are performing other tasks required by the business and state, as well as trying to answer these while still physically dealing with the person directly.   We have gone back and answered all complaints and most of the times shown that we had addressed a lot of these at the time they were brought up.  We just had a shortage of staff to respond via internet. 

During this growth and additionally during the beginning of 2018 we have made several modifications and changes.  We have added staff, changed how the business was controlled, upgraded our website to include very clear pictures of almost every aspect of the vehicle for review (sometimes 30), A free Carfax to disclose any known issues that is available to us as well as vehicle history.  These consumers can access and print free of charge right off our website.  We make it very clear anything promised has to be in writing to protect the consumer as well protect ourselves.  We also allow customers to take the vehicles to a local mechanic for a pre-purchase inspection at their cost if they choose. 

The Analytics RIS News which is nationally known for the ACSI American Customer Satisfaction Index, benchmarks retail sales by industry states the Retail Auto Industries average customer satisfaction rating is 82%.  We have a goal of 95% customer satisfaction.  We would love a 100% but understand that it is impossible to make everyone happy all the time, one because statistically it is impossible and two you wouldn’t stay in business.  Even though any number isn’t preferred regarding complaints I wanted to explain how big our business is in relation to the number of complaints.  We are a multi-million dollar business with thousands of customers, since opening we have received 14 BBB complaints over a 4 year window.  During that time frame we also sold 4270 vehicles.  That puts us at a .33 percentage for customer complaints versus our sales.  You will see that as our sales continued to spike upward that in 2016 we received 4 complaints.  At the peak of sales spike in 2017 we received 6 which was a very small percentage compared to number of customers.  In 2018 even as sales continued to grow, we added an additional location, implemented new strategies, staff to answer internet concerns, website modification and customer tools, went back to answer old complaints that mostly had been handled at the time of complaint,  we only had 4 complaints.  We have also joined the OIADA to give us additional tools to assist our customers.  We think our final step in helping us continue our growth and try to even drive that .33% down further is to look into joining the BBB and get accredited.  Which we plan to do.