Vehicle repairs draw inquiry

The agency has added seven Purrfect stores to the four in its original complaint. The complaint also now includes 18 defendants who own or manage the stores, up from five defendants in the initial case.

The attorney general’s office alleges that the owners and managers of the Purrfect Auto Service locations in question sold unnecessary repairs to consumers and charged customers for parts that were never installed.

The attorney general’s office claims that defendant Shafik Hirji, who works for Purrfect franchisor Francare in Las Vegas, "controls in one way or another" all 32 Purrfect Auto Service outposts in Nevada, either through befriending investors and controlling managers or through reselling franchises to new investors after prior franchisees refuse to participate in the Purrfect operational model.

Purrfect’s operational platform required that locations sell additional services to at least six out of every 10 customers who responded to a low-cost repair ad, the attorney general’s complaint said.

The attorney general’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, along with the Consumer Affairs Division of the Nevada Department of Business and Industry, launched a sting in November designed to find illegal sales of car-repair and maintenance services.

Investigators took a test car to four Purrfect stores and determined that Purrfect failed to perform most services for which the company charged.

Kathleen Delaney, a senior deputy attorney general, said the investigation into Purrfect’s business practices is ongoing, and that it’s possible other Purrfect locations could be added to the complaint.

"If there are consumers out there who have had problems and want to file complaints, we need them to contact our office," Delaney said.

Consumer complaints must be in writing. The attorney general’s office does not accept complaints over the phone. Consumers can obtain complaint forms at www.ag.state.nv.us, or they can call 486-3194 and request the paperwork.

The Bureau of Consumer Protection and the Consumer Affairs Division have received more than 250 complaints against Purrfect.

Delaney said the case is scheduled to go to trial in February, though it’s difficult to predict whether that date will hold given the ongoing investigation and the expanded complaint.

Shafik Hirji did not return a phone call to Francare’s Sahara Avenue office.

Hirji formerly owned Paisa Inc., which was the franchisor of Purrfect Auto Service until it went bankrupt in 1999. Francare replaced Paisa as the Purrfect franchisor in May 1999.

Several other defendants named in the lawsuit did not return phone calls by late Tuesday.

One owner of a Purrfect location named in the complaint did speak with the Review-Journal, but he said he has owned his store for just three months and wasn’t involved in the operational model the attorney general’s office alleges the defendants used.

Mouhamad Hamey, president of the Purrfect store at 3101 N. Rancho Drive, said representatives of the attorney general’s office have not contacted him regarding the case. He also said he was not associated with Hirji, nor did he know how to reach Hirji.

Setrak Mardirossian, the store’s previous owner, is named in the attorney general’s complaint.

"I have built great customer relationships," Hamey said. "We do everything by the books, the honest way and the old-fashioned way. The customer has no obligation to do any services if he doesn’t want to. The customer seems very comfortable with us, and we have been doing really good on our own."

Hamey said he was concerned that news of the Purrfect investigation might hurt his business, but he hoped consumers would understand that each Purrfect owner operates the business differently.