THE nation’s powerful Australian Automotive Dealer Association (AADA) has issued a warning to car dealers to be on the lookout for independent repairers posing as customers who are apparently setting up dealers in order to feed smear campaigns on social media.

The AADA and independent repairers remain at odds over the issue of access to proprietary franchise service data and independent repairers have recently stepped up their campaign in public, suggesting franchised dealers are trying to close out independents from repairing cars.

In a bulletin to AADA members, the association’s CEO David Blackhall said he became aware of the smear campaign when a dealer reported a customer arguing with staff over the Takata airbag recall.

The dealer subsequently found that the customer posted “false, derogatory and potentially unlawful comments” on social media.

“Subsequent investigations have revealed that the customer was actually an independent repairer and franchisee of a large, Australia-wide franchised repair network,” Mr Blackhall said in his bulletin.

“The AADA has reason to believe that this was not an isolated incident and that the franchisee was acting on a franchisor directive, issued to all repairers within the network, to name and shame new-car dealers at any given opportunity.

“This directive is most likely an attempt by the franchisor to win community support in the current debate regarding the availability of technical information, being dealt with as part of the current ACCC New Car Retailing Market Study.

“If proven, such actions could be considered misleading and deceptive, deemed an unfair commercial practice or defamatory,” Mr Blackhall said.

GoAutoNews Premium understands that the remarks have since been removed following approaches to the repairer concerned.

Mr Blackhall said: “It is unfortunate that dealers are now being forced to defend themselves against instances such as these.

“Nonetheless, dealers are advised to be aware that there are individuals and groups operating in the market, who seek to discredit new-car dealers at any opportunity.

“Dealers may be targeted and so, as always, should be aware of the prospect of such actions by seeking identification of customers and by monitoring social media closely and responding accordingly, especially where they suspect that a contrived dispute as in this example, is being used to ‘set them up’,” he said.

By Neil Dowling and John Mellor