Complaint Review: GEICO

On November 28 '03 my 66 yrs old dad had the misfortune to have his prized car stolen from the front of his house in Philadelphia, PA. I happened to be there while visiting from out of state and was quick to calm him down assuring him that he has full coverage insurance with GMAC and all will be taken care of. Well, we find out that he was about to be robbed twice: firstly by the thief, and secondly by GMAC.

Since my dad doesn't speak English fluently, I decided to help him out and do all the calling. Upon my first calling GMAC, we were assigned a "claim rep" by the name of Ms Marianne Attridge. She assured me that we should have no problem getting good money for this car since it was a 94 Honda Accord Station Wagon with only 80kmiles on it and Hondas are know to hold on to their value. After waiting the mandatory 3 weeks to give police a chance to find it, I called Ms Attridge about 4 times leaving a message each time urging her to resolve the claim and tell us what we are getting for the car.

Finally, she called me about 1 week later to tell me that she found that the car had a reconstructed title and therefore the value of the car will go down UP TO 50%. I was incredulous upon hearing this, since a reconstructed car means that it was rebuilt back to the original manufacturer's specification. A friend of mine that had plenty of cars before, stated that he had 2 rebuilt cars totaled in 2 different accidents at different times while he had 2 different insurance companies. In no case did he get less than the full value of the car. In his words, this is BS.

Next time I talked to Attridge, she mentioned that dad will get 50% of the value of the car!! Suddenly we are getting the worst case scenario! The day before she mentioned UP TO 50%, and now we are getting 50%!! Doesn't "UP TO" mean anythign between 0% and 50%? When I asked what is this figure dependent on, she said that all claims of this type are paid at 50% of the value!! From that point on I didn't want to talk to her anymore and asked for the supervisor.

The supervisor, Shuchry Baroody was not far off in misleading us. When I mentioned that the car had a hitch added and a special device attached to the roof rack that was holding somew gear for dad's fishing trips, he wanted receipts, or at least pictures of the car having these items on it! Would anyone here hold receipts for a hitch that was added 2 years ago? Or for a roof rack device for that matter? Or take pictures of these items?

I invited Baroody to come over to dad's house and inspect the boat that dad has in the garage and all the gear he would transport while fishing. Baroody finally relented and upped the refund check from $2745 ($5490/2) to $3372. Las time I talked to him, January 2nd 2004, he stated that all dad had to do was send the notarized title to him and he would send dad a check for $3372.26. I was floored on January 9th to hear that the check he actually got was $2872.26 ($3372.26 - $500.00 deductible).

I left messages every day since 01/09th to Shuchry Baroody alerting him to this mistake. None of my calls were answered. When I finally got a hold of him today, he back pedaled telling me that $3372,26 was the value of the car and not the check my dad would get!!! This man is being lying to my face. Is there any organization out there to protect consumers like us? Do we really have no say when these sharks are stripping us alive????

Valentin
apex, North Carolina
U.S.A.