the vynsane asylum

So last night, I'm driving home from work. I stop at the stoplight, and I'm about four or five cars back. I leave a couple of feet in front of me, because I try to drive ultra-safe (some would say like an old lady, except for my tendency to speed wherever I know police don't usually watch traffic). Why? Because I don't want to fucking hit anyone, or have anyone fucking hit me. Call me crazy, but I don't relish the idea of having to replace a crucial piece of machinery that costs several thousand dollars.

So, of course, what happens? BOOM! An SUV plows into me from behind, methinks going about 15-25 MPH despite the stopped traffic, and knocks me into the SUV in front of me. Long story short, she had two kids in the backseat who she couldn't control, and so the dumb bitch takes MY life into her hands because she wants to turn around and say something to the brats. Both the SUVs got pretty serious scratches on the bumpers, but my truck, being in the middle, got the worst of it. There doesn't seem to be any damage that interferes with driving it (I drove it home with no problems), but the front and back bumpers are destroyed, the front grill is mooshed in, and (I discovered later) the passenger side panel seems to have been bent in a way that's not visible but that interferes with the door opening.

She didn't want anyone to call the police (hmmm, I wonder why?), but I called. Not only is it what you're supposed to do, but I don't want my insurance company to try to screw me over. However, no report was filed. (In CA, crashes are so common that they don't file reports unless the officer judges that there's been a certain dollar amount worth of damage, and apparently, he didn't think there was.)

My truck's 11 years old. It has 180,000 miles, but it's a fucking Toyota. Those things will still be running when the fucking Earth crashes into the sun, as long as they don't get wrecked. Obviously, it was paid off. But with the headlight being off-kilter thanks to the bent front, it's not safe to drive it at night. So, depending on how much the estimates run (and, likely, with body damage, more than the value of the truck), I either have to get a new car or pay at least part of the repair costs out of my own pocket. With another car we were planning to pay off sometime next year, and me planning to stay at home, this couldn't happen at a worse time.

Thankfully, no one was hurt. I know I (and the lady in front of me) wanted to do some serious bitch-slapping, but I don't think anyone deserves physical injury beyond that.

But, fuck, lady, because you can't watch the fucking road you're speeding along, I'm probably going to have to stay at this dump a few more weeks (since, if we have to buy another car, which we won't know for at least a week, we'll need both incomes for the loan). I don't think you deserve to be hurt, but, since the police didn't issue any tickets (stupid policy, I know, but apparently it was decided years ago that tickets in accidents caused undue stress on the CA courts), I hope your insurance goes up so damned high that you can't afford to drive. Sorry, there are accidents, and there's fucking stupidity. If you're too goddamned stupid to watch where you're going when barreling along in a several ton steel contraption, I don't want you on any fucking road I'm on.

man, that fuckin' blows... things do happen at the worst time, sometimes... and this is definitely one of those things.

that's basically the worst way to handle accidents i've ever heard of... what they're saying is "accidents happen so often that we're not going to enforce any penalty at all" which will only make accidents increase, as people get more careless, since there's no penalty. re-fucking-tarded.

No shit, vynnie.

Just now, on my lunch break, I went out to look at the truck in full daylight. Since there's damage to the front, I decided to take a look under the hood. Well, the hood was very difficult to open, and took an act of congress to close again.

So the damage interferes with both the hood and passenger door.

And, as we're all painfully aware, if you look crosseyed at a car, it's about $1000 in damages. This has to be upwards of $2000, being conservative.

The trade-in value is $2800 in excellent condition, $1000 in fair. The truck was excellent this time yesterday, but is no longer good enough to be considered fair.

Yeah, I have a feeling that in a month, I'll either be sitting on my ass with no transportation when Mrs Anarky's at work, or driving a Yaris.

Wow, that does suck. Especially when it's out of your control. Even defensive driving can't prevent stupid people from rear ending you. I'm glad you weren't hurt. I hope that bitch loses her children in a custody battle next year.










And then the Grip fucks the hell out of her delicate heinie.

Actually, Negative Boy, the insurance companies decided the blame is entirely yours to bear. You see, I was distracted by the subpar blowjob your mother had given me just beforehand, and that's what led to the wreck.

This whole situation is fucking ridiculous!!

So the lady who rear-ended me and the lady I was knocked into are with the same insurance company. (I'll call it "M.") I have insurance "W."

Like I said, I drive safely so I don't have to deal with this sort of crap. So I immediately called W to report the accident. They sent someone to my house to look at the truck. He said the air intake was definitely messed up, and it looked like some minor damage to the radiator. It won't be a problem for maybe six months, but he said it's likely the radiator will go out sometime shortly.

This was two weeks ago. W called me a few days later. They wanted to total the truck, but were offering almost twice what I was finding for the blue book value. And that was after they'd subtracted a prior dent from a couple of years ago (so small, we'd never dealt with it).

But everyone, including the investigator from W, suggested going through M if they would handle it, so as to not have to pay my deductible (or subtract it from the total payout).

I've been going back and forth with M since!

They sent me to a local collision repair center last Tuesday. A girl, who didn't seem especially bright, took a lot of pictures, took my info, and said they'd contact me Wednesday with the estimate, and upload the info to M.

Wednesday comes and almost goes. About 4:30, I call the collision center. The manager tells me he should have the estimate in the morning. Then he tells me he wants me to bring it in again, because if it's a borderline total, he wants to be sure.

Keep in mind that M won't just take W's word for the damages.

So I take it back Thursday afternoon. The manager takes the same pictures (and, while I'm waiting, I overhear the girl I dealt with on Tuesday--she seems totally incompetent). He assures me twice that they'll have the info on Friday, and send it to M. However, despite what the first girl said, they can't give a quote on the phone.

Friday afternoon, I call the adjuster at M. She has not received an estimate, but says she'll call. So she does, and calls me back five minutes later. Apparently the prior dent--which is smaller than my fucking palm!!--is causing a holdup on the estimate. But the guy is going to plug the info into his computer that afternoon, come up with an estimate, and upload it to them over the weekend.

The prior dent was in the side fender. A lot of the damage from the wreck was on the side fender, too. (The dent was positioned so that it was obvious it wasn't from the same collision.) M won't repair the fender without repairing the entire thing, and the value of the prior damage would be at my expense!

W had already told me that the value for this dent was within $8 of my deductible. So, although I wouldn't have repaired the dent otherwise due to it being just under the value of the deductible, and I'm not too happy about having to fix it to take care of the other damage, I can live with it. Basically, I'm out $492 for this, or $500 if I go through W and deal with the deductible.

However, she mentions that it shouldn't be a problem fixing it, as the manager told her it looked like "about $1000-$2000." Keep in mind that there's body damage to the bumper, truck bed, front fender, and the cab, as well as definite air intake damage and likely radiator damage. Also keep in mind that W has offered me more than twice that to total the truck. (Yeah, they want me to get a new car at a higher insurance rate, but even then that figure seems way out of the realms of logical if there's so little damage.) I'm suspicious that he's lowballing things, knowing that if the truck is totalled, he gets nothing.

So I give it a couple of days. Neither M nor the collision center call, so I called the center this morning. As they won't do the estimate verbally, I asked for a faxed copy. I was told it would be right over. Four hours later, I'm so totally fed up with these quacks that I call M.

Guess what? There is no estimate yet! I've been told three times it would be sent to me, and it didn't even exist! They're still using the tiny dent as an excuse!

The lady from M assured me all damage from the accident would be taken care of. But she wants to protect M's bottom line, and has no stake in whether my truck is fixed or not.

Under no circumstances am I having a shady operation "taking care" of my truck without giving me written proof of what they're doing.

And once it's worked on, M's off the hook. I sure as hell don't want them to fix everything but the radiator, and then that blow up on me two months from now.

So, screw it, I'm taking the money from W. Hopefully it won't screw up my rates too badly.

I'm so incredibly frigging sick of a certain insurance company I don't want to call by name, but it shares its name with a bisexual lead singer of Queen who died of AIDS in 1991.



[/rant]

Well damn, that blows a big fuckin caribou cock. At least you are getting some flow out of it. Make like Billy Joe and Bobby Sue, take the money and run bitch.

Sorry I was so late in seeing this, Chux - that's fucked, and damned bad timing. Glad you weren't hurt, and very glad that the Mrs. and Charlotte weren't on board (I'm assuming, as you made no mention). Up here, we do reports if the dmg is over $1000 (which, like you say, it always is) OR if someone gets hurt. They likely have a higher dmg amount down there, due to the number of accidents.

I think I would have done the same as you and gotten paid out by my insurance. I have no doubt that they'll go after "M" to get their money back, anyhow. :shady:

I actually got a letter from "M" yesterday saying they couldn't continue processing the claim because they needed the inspection photos.

Hello? Your people took the pictures twice.

They're crooked as hell.

Jesus balls. It's times like these you wish you could get everyone in the same room and when someone doesn't have their shit together like that, it's automatically $5000 cash in the other guys pocket.

Yeah, it's kinda for the best. We won't need two cars in about 10 days, and this is enough to take care of paying off the other. So a few hundred less per month to spend on that, which can be applied to fun stuff. Or, more likely, diapers.

Insurance is the biggest ripoff scam in the world. I get so pissed sending them my money every month that it almost physically hurts. Nark's story is just another shining example. Mine is such: Two summers ago (2005) I had about 100 CDs stolen from my car. Not only was I pissed at the Mrs. for leaving the door unlocked, but I was pissed at the cocksucker who thought my shit was his. Since it happened on campus, I had to deal with CMU's police department, whom I swear are the only reason the University of Phoenix Online offers a "Criminal Justice" program, as it seems they have a 100% placement here.

Blah, blah, blah. I make a report and call my insurance company. They tell me to make a list of all the CDs that were taken (because saying "Ol' Dirty Bastard- 'Nigga Please'" means more than just saying "1 CD" I guess ). We make our list, fax it to our insurance and, like the "good neighbors" they are, make us wait. And wait. I finally decide to call them after four days to get the scoop. Here's where I get pissed.

A CD isn't covered by your insurance unless you do not have a CD player installed in your car. Yes. If you have the media device wired into your vehicle, any media for said device is not covered. Do you think the douche bags told me that when I made my claim, before I poured over hundreds of CDs to determine what was missing? Nah. I could feel my face get red and I began to let loose, going as far as to ask if I should move all of my furniture to the lawn. That way if there happens to be a fire I won't be out further. I mean, I DO have an apartment. Shouldn't it stand to reason then that all the things that go in it aren't covered either?:roll:

This is why I think insurance should be optional. If you have it great. But you can't bitch about stuff like this happening. If you don't have it, you're pretty much fucked forever, especially if its totally catastrophic. But how many people pay a premium every month and when they finally have to make a claim (i.e. Chux, me) they get shit on? [/rant]

No doubt, CS1138.

As you know, my house was broken into in May. They stole most (but not all) of our GameCube games. (I'm focusing on them, because that's where the insanity lies, not because they were the most important things taken.)

1) We listed "GameCube Game: Gun" and were told it was not available. It turns out someone actually thought it was a gun that is used with the GameCube and could not find any info on it.

2) We were told they could replace X2: Wolverine's Revenge, Batman: Vengeance, and X-Men Legends. We instead got X3: The Official Game, Batman Begins, and X-Men Legends 2. Now, we didn't complain, as the games cost twice as much as the ones we had, and we just re-bought the missing ones, but that's a stupid error to make once, much less three times. (Well, five. Keep reading.)

3) They sent Dr Mario for the Gameboy instead of Dr Mario/Puzzle League. The twofer costs twice as much, and most of the reason we got it was Puzzle League. We did complain about this one, and they replaced it.

4) Mrs Anarky was told by the rep (she did most of the communication, due to her schedule that they could not replace Medal of Honor: Frontline, but could substitute Medal of Honor: Rising Sun. (Oddly, this was the only one they offered a substitution on--in the other cases, they basically lied to us and sent the wrong game.) As it turns out, Rising Sun was one of the few games not stolen, and she told the guy that. So he said they'd send a cash settlement for that game. A week later, we receive Rising Sun anyway. She calls back, points out that she'd talked to the guy, what they'd discussed, and mentioned there was a third MOH game (European Assault) that we didn't have, and which would make a better substitution. So they switched it.

5) We were told they could replace Rogue Squadron III. We're still waiting. Every so often, we call or e-mail to remind them, and are told "it's in our next incoming shipment." I'm ready to buy the damned thing and if they can send it, we have two copies. They haven't made the game for over a year.

I wonder how much money I've spent in car and home insurance over the years. The only time we've ever needed it was for our house in Nanaimo - there was a small leak downstairs, and they forked us over $3500 to help with the repairs. Since we were looking at renovating anyhow, we were very appreciative for the help.

Not that I enjoy paying the premiums, just saying I've been dealt with pretty fairly by my insurance people so far.