The Crooked Chevrolet Dealer Story

1988

A True Story

Written 1995* 1,244 Words

By Howard Yasgar

This story is all about how crooked car dealers, and crooked insurance appraisers, work together to defraud the insurance companies and the public.

This is a true story about how I tried my best to inform the insurance company of what was going on to no avail, I just wasted my time.

It was in 1984 when I purchased a new Chevrolet Corvette, it was a beautiful silver color with a silver

interior. The car had a special four speed “Doug Nash” overdrive transmission, and a Bose radio system.

It happens that I984 was a transitional year for Corvette, so my car had a lot of new technology in its design.

I drove the car until 1988 when the overdrive transmission started making a loud whining noise.

Because the car was 4 years old and out of warranty, I decided to rebuild the transmission myself, which of course turned out to be a big mistake.

A gas station that was located across from my office removed Corvette’s transmission for me, and I then I rolled the car across the street and into the fenced-in yard of a building my company owned.

The storage yard had a six-foot-high concrete wall and a very tall and securely locked metal gate.

On top of the concrete wall and the gate was razor sharp concertina wire (barbed wire) running along its entire length.

The concertina wire was very sharp, and dangerous to anyone attempting to climb over the wall or the gate.

After the transmission was repaired and reinstalled, I had the gas station put the car back into the secure yard, thinking the car would be safe there for a few days.

The next morning when I went to get the car, I found that someone had broken into the yard.

They smashed the Corvette’s front windshield, then reached in and opened the car door.

And using what appeared to be a tire iron, they had attempted to remove the Bose radio.

For me, it was a heartbreaking scene, there was all the broken glass everywhere, plus all the damage to the dashboard from their foolish attempt to remove the radio.

The car was fully insured, so I called my insurance company to report the incident.

They said they would have their insurance adjuster stop by as soon as possible, but in the meantime, I should have the windshield fixed so there would not be any additional water damage to the car if it rained.

To be safe, we pushed the car inside one of our buildings and I called a glass company.

The glass company came and they vacuumed out all the pieces of glass and replaced the windshield.

Once the car had no more glass on the seats, I was able to sit down and survey what damage that had been done to the interior.

When the thief attempted to remove the Bose radio, I noticed that they had scratched a small piece of the radio’s plastic.

The next day the insurance adjuster came by, and he wrote up all the damage.

He was Hispanic, but he spoke just enough English to instruct me to bring the car to a specific Miami Chevrolet dealer, I won’t mention their name because they are still in business in Miami.

I did everything exactly as the insurance adjuster told me to do.

After two weeks the Chevrolet agency called to say my Corvette was ready to be picked up.

I went to the agency, and I sat in the car.

It appeared the dealer had replaced all the minor plastic parts on the dashboard, and everything looked excellent, but I noticed the small scratch was still visible on the Bose radio.

It appeared the agency did not need to replace the radio.

When I got back to my office, I looked at the dealer’s invoice that had been made out to the insurance company.

Listed among the many replaced items, it said, “One new Bose radio $1300.00”.

Well in 1988, $1300.00 was a lot of money, so it kind of bothered me that the Chevrolet agency was blatantly lying to the insurance Company, I could see that they hadn’t changed the radio.

So, I called my insurance agency, and I told them the Chevrolet agency was cheating them, they hadn’t replaced the Bose radio.

The woman at the insurance agency said that wasn’t possible because their adjuster had approved it, and he said the radio was new.

She said she personally knew the adjuster, and he was honest.

So, she said that as far as the insurance company was concerned, the radio was new, and they would pay the Chevr0olet agency $1300.00.

I suggested to her that possibly the insurance adjuster was working in collusion with the Chevrolet dealer to cheat the insurance company.

She said no, that’s not possible, the insurance company had total confidence in the adjuster.

I started to wonder if I was talking to the crooked adjuster’s mother, because after that conversation I could see I was getting nowhere with her.

I called the Chevrolet dealer and asked for the Service Manager.

They said he wasn’t available, so I left a short message regarding the Bose radio not having been replaced.

The next day the service manager returned my call.

He said he had checked with his service people, and they had indeed replaced the Bose radio with a new one.

That was an obvious lie.

So, I asked the service manager where the old radio was, and he said it went out with the trash.

I replied, no one ever puts a $1300.00 Bose Corvette radio in the trash.

By now I was getting pretty upset with how bold the Chevrolet people were at lying to me.

It just happened that my next phone call was to my real estate attorney.

During my conversation, I told him about how the Chevrolet agency was charging my insurance company $1300.00 for a new Bose radio they didn’t install.

My attorney happens to be a Corvette aficionado himself, and he said that the problem could easily be resolved because all Corvette parts have a serial number.

All I had to do was find what the serial number was on the original radio and verify that the one in the car was the same.

His idea was excellent, but I certainly didn’t want the expense of removing the radio to prove the Chevrolet dealer was lying.

I was just mad that the Chevrolet agency and the adjuster were in collusion and screwing the insurance company, who didn’t seem to care about being screwed.

I had to give it at least one more attempt.

I called and spoke to a senior manager at the Chevrolet agency.

I lied, and I told him that I had checked the Corvette serial numbers and the radio had never been changed.

After that conversation, I found out why that guy was a senior manager.

It was because he was the biggest and best liar of all of them all.

He called me back and said, “Yes you are right, the original radio had been sent out for repairs and reinstalled.

He said that the $1300.00 charge to the insurance company was a typographical error and it would be changed immediately, he said thanks for bringing it to their attention.

Of course they did nothing about it, and I gave up trying.