Kennedy NewsA wannabe influencer’s threat to a family-run garage over a free exhaust has completely backfired on him.
Dave Aspden threatened to ‘make or break’ specialists Zaustworx in Darwen, Lancashire, by shaming them online when they didn’t fit an exhaust for free.
But when they did the same back to him, they earned themselves thousands more followers.
Kennedy NewsDave wanted the garage to remove the cost for fitting the exhaust on his Vauxhall Cavalier in exchange for promoting them in his 22,000-member Facebook car group.
While the garage were happy to oblige at first and offered to carry out the work in February, Dave didn’t come back until a few weeks later and was less than impressed when he was told they were now booked up until March.
The company’s owner Gary Faulker were still happy to carry out the work at the later date for free, but Dave’s actions left them going back on their original offer.
Kennedy NewsThe social media mogul warned them that they would ‘regret messing’ with him and in a matter of minutes Dave left a review on Zaustworx’s Facebook page.
In the post he branded them ‘cowboys’ and ‘f*cking morons’ for making him wait for the free job.
But it was Gary, 52, who had the last say as he hit back – posting their entire exchange, including the negative review, on the firm’s own Facebook page to expose Dave’s behaviour before warning they ‘would not tolerate threats’.
He said in the post:
THATS IT!!!!!!! No more free work for anyone and you can thank Dave Aspden for that.
The post attracted more than 10,000 comments with many branding Dave ‘utterly petulant’.
By firing back at the wannabe influencer, Zaustworx’s page earned treble the following, jumping from 5,700 likes to more than 16,300.
Kennedy NewsBut this wasn’t before the garage put up another post saying how Dave’s plan had backfired after their page had attracted just the 250 new followers.
Dave has since admitted that he ‘lost his temper’ but still stands by the fact that the garage should have ‘honoured’ the job as the fall out could have been ‘avoided’.
Gary said:
I had to protect the business, being threatened like that. But the response that it got was unbelievable.
It blew up, but it blew up in his face, and that could have so easily been the other way round if I hadn’t posted the conversation.
The phone didn’t stop ringing, with people booking jobs in and people just ringing with support.
I booked quite a few jobs in just purely because people had seen that and thought ‘I’m going to use him’.
Dave first contacted Zaustworx in October via Facebook Messenger saying that he wanted he exhaust doing in exchange for him ‘drumming up’ some free advertising on his car group.
Gary replied to his message agreeing to the offer telling Dave to bring his car to the garage and that they’d ‘sort something out’.
Kennedy NewsDave claims he brought the car into the garage and there was a ‘handshake’ on it – though Gary claims the customer never actually booked the car in for the work to be done.
Gary added:
When he came in, I told him the earliest [we could do it] was February and then when he got in his car, I said ‘let us know when you want it doing’.
He said, ‘yep, I will do’ and then drove off. So he never contacted us to let us know what date he wanted or anything, and then messaged us [months later] saying are we still alright for February.
When Gary told him they were now booked up in February and it would need to be March, Dave flew into a rage telling Gary he would regret messing him around.
Kennedy NewsAfter the garage exposed the row online, Dave discussed it with other social media users and admitted he was ‘wrong to lose his temper’ but still maintained that the garage were in the wrong.
Following the messaged being exposed, Dave responded:
That is the thing, people only know half the story. Zaustworx and I had shaken hands on a deal and when I went to see him about 7 weeks ago but as usual only half the story ends up on social media.
When approached for comment, Dave said: ‘There was a deal made between myself and Zaustworx in person that we shook hands on’.
Moral of the story, guys – just pay to get your car fixed like everyone else.
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Niamh Shackleton is a pint sized person and journalist at UNILAD. After studying Multimedia Journalism at the University of Salford, she did a year at Caters News Agency as a features writer in Birmingham before deciding that Manchester is (arguably) one of the best places in the world, and therefore moved back up north. She’s also UNILAD’s unofficial crazy animal lady.