不知道你没有听说过 DV (Diminished Value) Claim , 如果没有, 可以google了解一下, 说不定以后对己对人有用。 安全驾驶。以下是我去年登在一个叫Ripoff Report网站的complaint.
Auto Loss Appraisal Group of America AutoLoss.com - Dishonest company. Feel cheated -
Lessons learned -
1) When you google for a service, don't always takes the first 1 or 2. Whether they are on the top is NOT based on rating, but because they have had paid more advertisement fee than the rest.
2) Don't trust the customer feedback on a company's own web site. They have the control of their own website, and you won't expect to see any negative ones there.
3) It's NOT so important to see how many good reviews are there for a specific company (companies can write good reviews for themselves can't they?), what's important is to search what bad reviews are about on the service company. When people take time to write bad review, their experience must be really frustrating and unpleasant. So always start with bad reviews.
4) If you want to file a DV claim, either get a quote for about 40 bucks online, for if the insurance company is decent, they will pay you the amount close to the real loss, or if the insurance company is not that nice, spending more doesn't provide extra value than $40. Other option is you might want to walk into a local appraiser's office and make sure that they will negotiate with the insurance company if an agreement needs to be reached.
Auto Loss Appraisal Group of America AutoLoss.com - Dishonest company. Feel cheated -
My 2011 GS350 that was just purchased about 6 months ago was bumped by someone at the rear door. Since I worked for auto collision industry and knew that this qualifies for DV, I started my DV claim immediately. I googled for DV appraisers, AutoLoss.com was on the top of the list. I'm normally a very detailed oriented and cautious person, I do research before taking actions, but all "glamorous" feed backs on their website bewildered me -
So I submitted a request for free quote via their website, and Monica Fisher, wife of Terry Fisher, the owner, replied shortly with subject "Great DV Claim" in her email and called me instantly (In fact, this is the only time that she called, just to collect $275). After that she sent me a 10-page file which seems to be a boilerplate appraisal with lots of meaningless and informationless sentences at a lost value of $6770. Wawanesa, the offender side's insurance company, which I would say a pretty decent company, hired their own independent appraiser, appraised the loss for $2100 and sent me a check for the amount of their appraisal.
I sent their appraisal to Monica, and asked her to take a look as of why there was such a gap on the loss value between the two appraisals. She didn't reply, I sent email again after a couple of day, she replied "They are not comparing apple to apple. Thanks,". I doubt she even looked into the insurance company's appraisal. I called the local appraiser who did Wawanesa's appraisal and discussed, he said that's the fair value he'd given. I then called insurance company, and was told they would give me a chance to have my appraiser talk to their appraiser and confer with each other on the appraisals, and if it comes out of any difference, they would go from there.
The insurance representative also said DV appraisers should know how to do this as they were experts on this. After I requested a few times, after more than 2 weeks, Monica finally replied once more with just one line, "They need to put that the negotiations are binding in writing. Thanks.". At that time, I sensed the fishiness of this company. Apparently she's just trying to intentionally avoid/delay anything they need to do on their side until you gave up. I immediately searched online on the reviews of autoloss.com and found there were quite a few complaints filed against them. What had happened to those owners are so similar to what happened to me. However I still wanted to try a final test, so I sent an email to Monica and asked if they were going to charge me for this negotiation,
She replied "Yes, if you want us to negotiate the appraisal, the fee is an extra $100 just because it is a lot more work for us. Thanks," Her answer was not surprising to me, so I replied "Oh Monica, is that really? You didn’t do ANY job other than providing me an appraisal written from a template which probably won’t take more than 15 minutes. I read all bad claims from online and only regret that I had not read them earlier. Rest be assured, I will write another complaint on top of those, Thanks,"
So I submitted a request for free quote via their website, and Monica Fisher, wife of Terry Fisher, the owner, replied shortly with subject "Great DV Claim" in her email and called me instantly (In fact, this is the only time that she called, just to collect $275). After that she sent me a 10-page file which seems to be a boilerplate appraisal with lots of meaningless and informationless sentences at a lost value of $6770. Wawanesa, the offender side's insurance company, which I would say a pretty decent company, hired their own independent appraiser, appraised the loss for $2100 and sent me a check for the amount of their appraisal.
I sent their appraisal to Monica, and asked her to take a look as of why there was such a gap on the loss value between the two appraisals. She didn't reply, I sent email again after a couple of day, she replied "They are not comparing apple to apple. Thanks,". I doubt she even looked into the insurance company's appraisal. I called the local appraiser who did Wawanesa's appraisal and discussed, he said that's the fair value he'd given. I then called insurance company, and was told they would give me a chance to have my appraiser talk to their appraiser and confer with each other on the appraisals, and if it comes out of any difference, they would go from there.
The insurance representative also said DV appraisers should know how to do this as they were experts on this. After I requested a few times, after more than 2 weeks, Monica finally replied once more with just one line, "They need to put that the negotiations are binding in writing. Thanks.". At that time, I sensed the fishiness of this company. Apparently she's just trying to intentionally avoid/delay anything they need to do on their side until you gave up. I immediately searched online on the reviews of autoloss.com and found there were quite a few complaints filed against them. What had happened to those owners are so similar to what happened to me. However I still wanted to try a final test, so I sent an email to Monica and asked if they were going to charge me for this negotiation,
She replied "Yes, if you want us to negotiate the appraisal, the fee is an extra $100 just because it is a lot more work for us. Thanks," Her answer was not surprising to me, so I replied "Oh Monica, is that really? You didn’t do ANY job other than providing me an appraisal written from a template which probably won’t take more than 15 minutes. I read all bad claims from online and only regret that I had not read them earlier. Rest be assured, I will write another complaint on top of those, Thanks,"
I did another search on BBB (Better Service Bureau), and found out that due to too many complaints, autoloss.com's credential was revoked just over a year ago by BBB.
Lessons learned -
1) When you google for a service, don't always takes the first 1 or 2. Whether they are on the top is NOT based on rating, but because they have had paid more advertisement fee than the rest.
2) Don't trust the customer feedback on a company's own web site. They have the control of their own website, and you won't expect to see any negative ones there.
3) It's NOT so important to see how many good reviews are there for a specific company (companies can write good reviews for themselves can't they?), what's important is to search what bad reviews are about on the service company. When people take time to write bad review, their experience must be really frustrating and unpleasant. So always start with bad reviews.
4) If you want to file a DV claim, either get a quote for about 40 bucks online, for if the insurance company is decent, they will pay you the amount close to the real loss, or if the insurance company is not that nice, spending more doesn't provide extra value than $40. Other option is you might want to walk into a local appraiser's office and make sure that they will negotiate with the insurance company if an agreement needs to be reached.
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