I own an automatic 1996 Toyota Tacoma pickup with about 180,000 miles on it. Last year it started giving me some problems and as the repair bills began growing, I saw one of their adds on tv and called them at 800-280-1200. The salesman I was talking to on the phone assured me that as long as it was under 200k, that I qualified for a 5 year plan with a total cost a little over 2k but they would charge me only $82/month for about 2 years for 5 years worth of coverage. Problem was that I knew I had to have the truck in good operating condition before buying the coverage. My biggest worry was about my transmission since it was starting to act up. i took it to a repair shop where they told me the problem was with the universal joints on the front end and not the transmission. I had that repaired for about $280 and it was quite a relief that my transmission problem promptly dissapeared. I then called this company back ( my mistake) and signed up for the coverage. They assured me that this policy covered most of the major engine components, the transmission and so forth from this point forward even if the vehicle went past 200k mileagewise. I thought this sounded pretty good so I sent them a deposit of a little over $200 and signed up. I kept sending them a monthly fee of of $82 for about 5 months when suddenly my transmission started acting up again. This time it was the transmission. I promptly called this stoprepairbills company while at the repair shop to get pre-repair authorization and make sure I was not stuck with this bill myself. Thank god.
After holding for 40 minutes, the patient repair shop person who has always provided me excellent service in the past finally got thru to someone. This man explained to the internet company that the tee cable that apparently connects from somewhere outside the actual transmission was loose and he needed to remove the pan ( which would cause a loss of all the transmission fluid) and than possibly replace this cable or may need to do other work on the transmission itself depending on what he saw inside the "guts" of the transmission itself. This would be essentially a diagnostic exam on the transmission to see what the actual problem is. If all he needed to do was replace this cable, put in new transmission fluid and put the pan back on, this would cost about $280. Stop repair bills ended up telling me in the end that 1) this is not an internally lubricated part of the transmission so would not be covered 2) I needed to provide proof that I had a transmission service done sometime in the last 6 months 3)proof of my last 3 oil changes. This is besides having to hold for 40 minutes before talking to a human. I was never told of any of these requirements when I purchased this service.
I was very angry at this to say the least and then mad at myself for not checking out this company further before buying from them. They are listed on this website as having 1) class action lawsuits pending in multiple states 2) many angry customer complaints detailing similar problems 3)Former employees stating this is a rip off and so forth 4) that this same company operates under different names. DON'T BUY ANYTHING FROM THIS COMPANY. I HAVE ALREADY CONTACTED A LAWYER.