Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 22
A customer brings his family-sized (premium) sedan, purchased only a few months back, into the dealership.
Customer: “The car drives funny. I want it repaired under warranty.”
The service team take the vehicle for a drive to get an idea of what’s happening, and finds that over 50kph the car becomes almost impossible to steer and keep under control.
They bring the car back, pop it on the hoist to have a look at the underside of the vehicle. It looked like someone smashed the whole bottom of the car up a foot and let the crumpled mess fall back into place. In short, it’s a mess, and unsurprisingly the steering is one of the many (badly) affected components.
My coworker gives the customer a brief run-down of the damage and asks:
Coworker: “Have you had some sort of accident?”
Customer: “Yeah, I visited a customer on his farm, and I hit a few rocks getting to and from his property.”
Coworker: “Okay, well this is something you’ll need to contact your insurance company about.”
Customer: “No, I have a warranty; you need to repair my car.”
Coworker: “I’m sorry, mate, but warranty doesn’t cover accidental damage. You’ll need to call your insurance company and make a claim.”
Customer: “No, I don’t need insurance, I have a warranty. You’re obligated to repair my car.”
Coworker: “Your warranty does not cover this type of damage. This is an insurance claim.”
Then the customer drops a bombshell, as several staff have wandered over to listen in to the conversation.
Customer: “I don’t have insurance because I don’t need it; I have a warranty.”
At this, jaws drop and we all just look at this guy in disbelief.
Coworker: “You didn’t take out insurance when you bought the car?
Customer: “No, like I said I don’t need it since the car comes with a warranty! Look, I’m sick of f****** going around in circles with you. You need to fix my car!”
From here, the dealer principal is called in since this bloke’s just not understanding, and he’s getting louder, angry, and starting to become abusive since the dealership won’t repair the car.
It gets to the point that the cops are called when they’ve had enough. Management tells him to leave the premises and he refuses. The customer sits his sorry arse down on the low fence in front of the dealership to take this up with the police since “they’ll sort this out.”
After a while the police turn up, one officer heads to my coworker and the dealer principal, the other goes and talks to the customer at the front of the dealership.
My coworker explains to the officer the damage to the vehicle, what’s happened leading to them being called and the cop is just stunned when he’s told the guy has no insurance.
Officer: “Right, we’ll sort this out.”
He heads over to his partner, where the customer is gesticulating wildly as he’s explaining what’s going on. The first officer basically gives him the “This is how it is talk” and the guy is still waving his arms around, trying to convince the police otherwise but they’re both standing there, arms crossed, shaking their heads.
Officer: “Mate, you’re wrong and you’ve f***ed up.”
This goes on for a while and then it finally dawns on the customer. You can physically see the guy deflate when he realises, he’s trashed a $70k car less than six months old and he has to foot the bill for repairs himself.
This customer looks simply devastated as the officer heads back over to my coworker and the dealer principal.
Officer: “Okay, we’ve got him to understand, he’s going to leave without any further issue.”
The police drove off with him (no way is he driving without insurance!) and a tow truck came by for the trashed car the next day.
Related:
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 21
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 20
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 19
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 18
Not Much Assurance About The Insurance, Part 17
