Fewer Angry Owners as Volkswagen Slogs Through Buyback Demands

Angry phone calls from Volkswagen diesel owners eager for settlement cash are on the decline, while the amount of money paid for doomed TDI models has ballooned in recent months.

A status update filed by the automaker paints a clearer picture of where the arduous process stood at the end of February, with most of America’s diesel owners opting for a buyback or lease termination in addition to compensation cash.

Still, taking the nearly 500,000 rigged 2.0-liter vehicles off the road hasn’t been an easy one.

The court document published by Bloomberg shows Volkswagen rolling with the punches as customers — frustrated by untimely claims offers and service problems — swamped phone lines. The automaker set up a claims hotline last July to handle questions and complaints related to the buyback.

While most eligible customers received their offers in a reasonable time frame, issues cropped up. From the report:

Complaints related to processing delays peaked in late November and early December 2016 and subsequently leveled off. While they remained relatively steady through January 2017, a decline in negative feedback has been noticed in recent weeks, as Volkswagen is processing the remaining backlog of overdue claims. Notably, the initial complaints regarding delays were generally distributed among different eligibility classes and concerned a range of Claims Program challenges. However, complaints regarding processing lags by consumers with third-party loans steadily increased over the course of this reporting cycle, while complaints from other types of consumers have steadily declined. Over the past month in particular, more consumers raised questions and expressed frustration concerning the timing of when they or lenders could expect to receive post-closing payments from Volkswagen.

Because of the nearly one million calls logged between late July and late February, the ranks of hotline agents swelled from less than 100 to more than 500. Early on, many complained of hours-long waits and the call abandonment rate hit 70 percent. That rate now stands at 15 percent, VW claims.

The automaker was forced to add a “live chat” function after owners complained of not being able to speak with a real human being. However, many were angered by that human’s lack of knowledge, their demeanor, or failure to call back. In response to these complaints, VW rolled out another hotline agent training program in January.

“As might be expected, consumers have generally been annoyed by many of the unavoidable bureaucratic aspects of the claims process,” the report states.

As of February 18th, a total of 355,395 owners have submitted claims for a buyback, lease termination, or emissions modification, with 323,179 consumers issued offer letters. The total value of those offers amounts to roughly $5.9 billion. The number of owners and lessees who had completed a deal at the time of the report total 137,985, with the payout reaching $2.9 billion.

As of now, there’s a two-phase fix available only for 2015 models, which came equipped with the second-generation 2.0-liter engine. Still, roughly 52,000 owners have opted for the fix. It isn’t known how many are 2015 owners and how many might wait in vain for an extensive modification that never comes. (Also, those owners might not like what the fix does to their cars.)

John German, senior fellow at the International Council on Clean Transportation, told Bloomberg the changes needed to bring pre-2015 models into compliance might be too costly.

“Anything’s possible, but if the costs [of repairs] exceed the costs of just scrapping the vehicle, especially on the older ones where the values are so low, VW might just scrap them,” he said.

[Image: Volkswagen]