AS far as how I handle telling a customer he got taken, I usually apologize for the entire forklift industry, as the actions of those 'less than honourable' folks taint all the rest of the industry. [and to myself I say "wow, what a gold mine, this truck will be something good to the service Dept. budget"] and then I tell the customer I will do the best I can to keep his bills as low as possible and still give him a "safe and serviceable" forklift and that I will be as honest as anyone would be with him.
I have been considering working on a set of questions to "open source" that I would like everyone considering buying a forklift or using forklifts today to have to get the answers for in advance of dealing with anyone to confirm their ethics. perhaps what I need to do is start a thread here on forkliftaction to get input as to what those questions should be, or maybe to create a "uniform forklift industry code of ethics" thread, to get input as to what the code should say.