Complaint Review: Geico

I had filed a claim in late July with Geico (it is now October) when a repair shop in Long Island set fire to my car while performing a repair. I was not present and I only know the details that were relayed to me by the repair shop.  In a nutshell, after the repair was complete, they shop left the car running outside unattended to "Warm Up" unaware that there was an oil leak they had caused. The car caught fire and since nobody was watching it, a lot of damage was caused.

Now a resonable person would realize that this was the Repair facility's fault.   Not Geico.  They somehow deemed I was at fault and charged the accident to me.     Wait it gets better.    

Fast forward 2 months, and Geico has declared my car a Total Loss.  After making several phone calls (Because Geico hasn't figured out how to serve their customers, they leave it up to the consumer to do the leg work) I was told by my claim adjuster that my cars "Value" was $28,300.  Again a resonable and intelligent person would assume that Geico knows the definiton of the word "Value".    They do not.   

They rush me to sign over the title, they come for the car and email me the paperwork for my claim.  I see in the claim figures that they "Valued" my car at $26,000.  Then added NYS sales tax to that making it come to $28,300.   When you look at a new car, or a Shirt in a store or even a bag of chips in a gas station, SALES TAX IS NOT FIGURED INTO THE PRICE!!!!!     After being yelled at by the claim adjuster when I called to complain about it, I called Geico directly who told me

A: Claim adjusters are not Geico employees and therefore Geico is not responsible for figures or statments made by these individuals.

B: That the word Value means: Including Sales Tax.

I am Stupified.

Either this was a deliberate tactic used by Geico and their adjuster to screw me out of $2,300 or they are totally incompetent.  Since they conveniently waited untill after they had my title and car, to email me the paper work illustrating the figures, I have to believe it was intentional.