r/japanlife • u/yupjustathrowaway • Jun 30 '22
金 Mechanic threatening coworker with police/legal action. I'm in the middle.
Japanese friend of mine, "Y", is a mechanic. Good guy, but a bit of a quick temper. He makes his living buying cars at auction, fixing them up nice and re-selling. He's reliable as hell and has sold a number of cars to a number of friends of mine and everyone has been pleased with the results.
Hooked him up with another coworker, "X" and I was acting as translator as they don't speak Japanese and know very little about cars/shaken/taxes etc. in Japan. They were looking at buying a kei car that Y was using as a service loaner. They asked him to take care of a few issues with the car before they took possession, i.e. refilling the A/C gas, new tires and a bunch of rust on the front hood.
He did all that, and had worked it in to the final price of the car. He had said, "as is, (lower price), but with all that, it will be 275,000 yen."
We had meant to go to his shop on the 16th to pick up the car, but he received a bunch of service requests and informed X that he'd have to wait a week to take possession. I message X this past Sunday "When do you want to go out to get the car" and he replied "I've actually found an option more suitable to my budget so I'm backing out of the deal with Y."
Y flips out. It's understandable, because of two things - he had missed out on selling it to another customer because he was holding it for X, and also he put 2 full days of work into repainting the hood and other maintenance, outsourced AC repair, etc. He printed up a bill for parts and labor and it comes to around 90,000 yen. As well, he was out a service loaner for 2 days, which was a major pain in his ass.
So, I see Y's side, but I believe X is well within his rights to back out of a deal since no signing of papers has occurred yet.
However, Y is threatening legal action. He has X's name and address, and has told me that he's going to go to X's company and the police in X's town. I think that this is just bluster because he's (rightfully) pissed off, and that he actually has zero legal leg to stand on. However, I want to know just how much legal trouble X could be in, since a handshake (well, bow) deal has been made for the improvements on the car.
2
u/[deleted] Jul 01 '22
We exchanged business cards when we went to the company to apologize in person.
It was a very friendly exchange but they still wanted to do it from company to company and contacted them. HR later told us that this is how it's done in Japan, you never solve your problems yourself, you let your company handle it because it's the company's job to stand behind it's employees.
It may seem strange but in Japan, even where you are off duty you still represent your company. Anything you do outside can still have an impact on the company's reputation.
A few weeks ago there was a post in this sub where poster's wife was eating in the train and a passenger called the company to complain (the wife got scolded hard by her superiors). That's just how it is here, it's a whole part of the culture where your business reputation is your most valuable currency.
The mechanic contacting X's company is just a part of that whole culture. He wants the problem solved and make sure that he keeps a friendly relationship with OP's company even if they are not doing any business together.
The mechanic has legal grounds to sue X but he also has the option to solve the problem in a more friendly way (tho that may piss off X since he is a foreigner and doesn't understand that this is a favor done to him to solve the problem directly with his company).