So we got a letter the day before yesterday from Viking Billing Service alleging damage to a car we rented from Avis. The paper had the logos for Viking Billing Service and for Budget (who owns Avis or something). It did not provide too many details but we had rented a car from Avis earlier this year and it did have a large scratch on it when we picked it up, a detail noted by the agent who checked the car out to us. This was 6 months and 2 days ago.
We contacted Avis by email and the next day, were contacted by Viking Billing Service. Apparently Avis had just passed it off to them without even looking into it.
Viking cannot provide us with any details about the rental or the actual damage and asked us to call the Avis branch where we got the car. My wife called and someone promised to get back to her. When they didn't, she called again today. She was told that records are only kept for six months so no records were available, there was nothing that could be provided. (Again - the rental was 6 months and 2 days ago.)
So my wife called the place where the car was dropped off. They offered to email her a confirmation, but it was simply the return receipt. Not a checkoff, not an inspection, just that little slip they give you when the car is turned in. You know how it is these days - they don't look at the cars while you're there, they just have you park in a a row, give you a little slip and send you on your merry way.
So we were later able to determine that the damage report was filed one day after we returned the car, but we weren't able to determine where the report was filed from but my wife thinks it was filed by the place where we picked it up. The damage report wasn't entered into the Avis system until November. So far, no one has been willing to provide us with any documentation.
We talked to a lawyer who says that the rental car companies bundle up these claims and sell them to Viking Billing Service.
So Viking Billing Service has already paid Avis for the right to harass you for money (whether or not it's even true) so they're not going to be willing to help you if there's been an error. And the person assigned gets paid on commission so their only goal is to get you to pay up. And it's gotta suck to work there.... a 2.4 on Glassdoor? You gotta try really hard to be that bad. That's worse than Zulily.
And Avis has already washed their hands of it, getting some money. So why should they care if they're sticking the wrong person with the bill? (Or maybe they stick multiple people with the bill. Would not surprise me.)
We're fighting it. We're not paying it. The car was damaged when we got it and we did not damage it further. And Avis refuses to provide any documentation relating to either our pick-up of the car or our return or the damage report itself. (We're still hoping that we've still got the paperwork around here somewhere, but we haven't come up with it yet.)
This is fraud. Plain and simple. Probably someone at Avis gets a kick-back from Viking. This is Wells Fargo-style "screw the customer" fraud.
Worst case scenario, we'll call the credit card company we used to rent the car and send it to them, but we'll strongly encourage them not to pay it. The problem is, for the credit card company, it's such a small amount they'd probably just pay it because that's the cheapest solution.
We will also be contacting the Better Business Bureau, our state's insurance commissioner and the Attorney General in our state and the Minnesota Department of Commerce (who has fined them in the past for violations). It would also be nice to find a lawyer who wants to take it on as a class-action lawsuit.
So I don't know if this is an Avis scam, a Budget scam or a Viking Billing Service scam, but it's a scam. They intentionally wait hoping you'll have discarded paperwork or lost photos (if you took any yourself) and I wouldn't be surprised if they bill multiple people for the same damage. (Searching on Google, apparently this is a Hertz scam and a National Car Rental scam as well. Must be good business ripping people off.)
All I know is that Avis, Budget and Viking Billing Services are either rotten thieves or just incredibly careless, inept and callous -- and danged if they're going to get our money for damage committed by some other renter. (Danged if they're ever going to get any of our money ever again - when I have a choice in who I rent with, it will never be them.)
Apparently this has been going on for years, must be profitable for Hertz, Avis, Budget, National Car Rental and Viking Billing Services. Just check out Google. Seriously, I think it's time for a class action lawsuit.
Showing posts with label cars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cars. Show all posts
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Sunday, January 17, 2016
@Lyft made me a fan of ride-sharing
This week, I went to L.A. for work. Usually, that means over $350 dollars on car-related charges - over $100 to park my car at the airport, about $100 for a rental car (because my employer gets an amazing discount), $150 for parking my car at the hotel (they charge $25 a day and the city of Santa Monica tacks 10% to the cost of the entire hotel bill as a special parking tax) and then my employer pays another $20 a day for me to park the car at the office. And then there's about $5 in gas to cover the drive to/from the airport in L.A. and then 2 mile drive each way to the office for a few days. This trip, I decided I was going to do L.A. without a car.
Lyft had recently gotten approval to pick up from Los Angeles, so I signed up with them. (A few years ago, in some really nasty traffic here in Seattle, I had needed to change lanes and no one would let me, until this car with a furry pink mustache on the front held back to let me in. They don't still wear the furry mustaches, but that act of kindness by a Lyft driver had stuck with me.)
My first ride wasn't the best introduction. The guy had a 3.5 rating and I watched on the app as he had trouble finding my house. A lot of people have trouble finding our house, but if he'd paid attention to his GPS, he would have gotten here quicker. He showed up in a very nice and comfortable Acura MDX. He had the heater on to 80 degrees for the first half of the trip but I decided not to say anything. He finally turned it down partway through. His lane control wasn't quite scary, but I hoped it wouldn't set the tone for the rest of the rides. Near the airport he missed the exit and had to slow and cross a painted median. It was my first ride, so with nothing to compare it against and gave him a 4 with no other feedback. After my other three rides, I might have revised that to a 2. Hopefully he improves.
At LAX, I had trouble finding the pickup location at first and had to resort to some research on Google. I knew I was looking for a brown sign, so I figured it was like these on the arrivals level:
Of course, I had problems with getting a signal and I was worried I was going to get rejected or a bad rating. Fortunately, since Lyft told me what kind of car, its color and its license plate number, I was still able to connect with Mohammed even though our phone calls kept getting disconnected. So got into his nice Honda and we drove to Santa Monica. He had a rating in the high fours and was a really nice guy. He drove well, with confidence and safety and in a very direct route. I learned that he'd only been driving for Lyft for a few months, having just moved from Lebanon. He was driving a lot, so that he could save money to bring his wife and five children over. He said he only went to LAX when he needed a rest, knowing that there was so much competition at LAX (even with just Lyft serving the airport) that it would be between 30 and 60 minutes from when you arrived to when you'd be assigned a fare.
The next few days I used the Santa Monica Bikeshare to get to and from work. There's a few large roads to ride on or cross (in the dark in the evenings) but it was fun and felt safe. The final day I used the hotel's shuttle to get to work since I had all of my bags with me. The guy who drove me was filling in for the guy who normally shuttled people around. Turned out he was the hotel's manager of housekeeping, which wasn't even a full-time job so he had the same role at another hotel by the airport and that he had a 90 minute commute just for his two part-time jobs.
After work, I summoned a car from work. The first Lyft drive assigned rejected the fare and then a second driver (Levon) was assigned who was there in a few minutes. He theorized that the first driver wasn't registered to serve LAX. Levon had just finished medical school, had $200k in debt and was driving with Lyft while interviewing with hospitals looking to get connected for a residency. The flexibility of Lyft allowed him to book a lot of hours when he was available, but then take days off so he could fly to various places for interviews. The first thing he said when I got in the car was "buckle up" - not in a "this is gonna be scary" way but in a "I care about your safety and the rules." He too, was a competent and safe driver. He pulled off one move I would have never even tried and it paid off awesomely when the GPS told him to do something legal and nearly impossible. I was well-impressed. His last fare, a trio of teenage girls had asked him to write a note for them posing as a parent excusing them from school but he declined. Levon had gone to school with the founder of Uber which was part of the reason he went to work with Lyft and not Uber.
I had been worried about Seattle - I had read that a Lyft driver had recently gotten a ticket for driving someone to Seatac. But the Lyft people on Twitter said that if it was in the coverage area, it was covered. So, after deplaning, I made my way to the curb and summoned a lift. I was told that the car would be there in less than a minute. Again, I had problems with the phone, but the driver had stopped about 15 feet ahead of me, so as he got out of his car with his phone to his ear, I waved my phone and he waved back. And off we went. Roman had been driving for Lyft for only a few months and had only learned the day before that he could pick up people at SeaTac after dropping off his brother and then signing in and immediately being assigned a pickup at the airport. The day he drove me he had gotten up at 6 am, drove up to Seattle, worked for two hours, made $80, drove home and got home just after his wife woke up. They spent the day together and then in the afternoon he went back to work, planning to work until later into the night. Roman's been married 11 months and likes Christian music and really loves talking to people, so loves getting to meet lots of people as a driver. The last three drivers all spoke highly of Lyft, saying that they really felt like the company supported them, worked to constantly make things better and were really invested in their success.
These four experiences - even the first one - were so much better than the two taxi rides I've taken in my life. One was straightforward, but I remember sitting on seats covered with duct tape. The other taxi ride was much longer than it needed to be, we're sure. These experiences were much closer to the few limo rides we've enjoyed. I'm definitely sold on RideShare.
Lyft gave me discounts on those rides as a new customer so I was happy to give big tips to the drivers.
Lyft had recently gotten approval to pick up from Los Angeles, so I signed up with them. (A few years ago, in some really nasty traffic here in Seattle, I had needed to change lanes and no one would let me, until this car with a furry pink mustache on the front held back to let me in. They don't still wear the furry mustaches, but that act of kindness by a Lyft driver had stuck with me.)
My first ride wasn't the best introduction. The guy had a 3.5 rating and I watched on the app as he had trouble finding my house. A lot of people have trouble finding our house, but if he'd paid attention to his GPS, he would have gotten here quicker. He showed up in a very nice and comfortable Acura MDX. He had the heater on to 80 degrees for the first half of the trip but I decided not to say anything. He finally turned it down partway through. His lane control wasn't quite scary, but I hoped it wouldn't set the tone for the rest of the rides. Near the airport he missed the exit and had to slow and cross a painted median. It was my first ride, so with nothing to compare it against and gave him a 4 with no other feedback. After my other three rides, I might have revised that to a 2. Hopefully he improves.
At LAX, I had trouble finding the pickup location at first and had to resort to some research on Google. I knew I was looking for a brown sign, so I figured it was like these on the arrivals level:
But it turns out they're small round signs on the departures level:
Of course, I had problems with getting a signal and I was worried I was going to get rejected or a bad rating. Fortunately, since Lyft told me what kind of car, its color and its license plate number, I was still able to connect with Mohammed even though our phone calls kept getting disconnected. So got into his nice Honda and we drove to Santa Monica. He had a rating in the high fours and was a really nice guy. He drove well, with confidence and safety and in a very direct route. I learned that he'd only been driving for Lyft for a few months, having just moved from Lebanon. He was driving a lot, so that he could save money to bring his wife and five children over. He said he only went to LAX when he needed a rest, knowing that there was so much competition at LAX (even with just Lyft serving the airport) that it would be between 30 and 60 minutes from when you arrived to when you'd be assigned a fare.
The next few days I used the Santa Monica Bikeshare to get to and from work. There's a few large roads to ride on or cross (in the dark in the evenings) but it was fun and felt safe. The final day I used the hotel's shuttle to get to work since I had all of my bags with me. The guy who drove me was filling in for the guy who normally shuttled people around. Turned out he was the hotel's manager of housekeeping, which wasn't even a full-time job so he had the same role at another hotel by the airport and that he had a 90 minute commute just for his two part-time jobs.
After work, I summoned a car from work. The first Lyft drive assigned rejected the fare and then a second driver (Levon) was assigned who was there in a few minutes. He theorized that the first driver wasn't registered to serve LAX. Levon had just finished medical school, had $200k in debt and was driving with Lyft while interviewing with hospitals looking to get connected for a residency. The flexibility of Lyft allowed him to book a lot of hours when he was available, but then take days off so he could fly to various places for interviews. The first thing he said when I got in the car was "buckle up" - not in a "this is gonna be scary" way but in a "I care about your safety and the rules." He too, was a competent and safe driver. He pulled off one move I would have never even tried and it paid off awesomely when the GPS told him to do something legal and nearly impossible. I was well-impressed. His last fare, a trio of teenage girls had asked him to write a note for them posing as a parent excusing them from school but he declined. Levon had gone to school with the founder of Uber which was part of the reason he went to work with Lyft and not Uber.
I had been worried about Seattle - I had read that a Lyft driver had recently gotten a ticket for driving someone to Seatac. But the Lyft people on Twitter said that if it was in the coverage area, it was covered. So, after deplaning, I made my way to the curb and summoned a lift. I was told that the car would be there in less than a minute. Again, I had problems with the phone, but the driver had stopped about 15 feet ahead of me, so as he got out of his car with his phone to his ear, I waved my phone and he waved back. And off we went. Roman had been driving for Lyft for only a few months and had only learned the day before that he could pick up people at SeaTac after dropping off his brother and then signing in and immediately being assigned a pickup at the airport. The day he drove me he had gotten up at 6 am, drove up to Seattle, worked for two hours, made $80, drove home and got home just after his wife woke up. They spent the day together and then in the afternoon he went back to work, planning to work until later into the night. Roman's been married 11 months and likes Christian music and really loves talking to people, so loves getting to meet lots of people as a driver. The last three drivers all spoke highly of Lyft, saying that they really felt like the company supported them, worked to constantly make things better and were really invested in their success.
These four experiences - even the first one - were so much better than the two taxi rides I've taken in my life. One was straightforward, but I remember sitting on seats covered with duct tape. The other taxi ride was much longer than it needed to be, we're sure. These experiences were much closer to the few limo rides we've enjoyed. I'm definitely sold on RideShare.
Lyft gave me discounts on those rides as a new customer so I was happy to give big tips to the drivers.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Feed Sift (09/18/2015)
-1-
ENGADGET.COM -- Ford gets serious with self-driving and 3D printing tech
-2-
TWISTEDSIFTER.COM -- How Pixar Artists Made the Cars in ‘Cars’ Do Things Without Hands
-3-
WORKSHOP.LIFEHACKER.COM -- What to Avoid When Picking Lumber for Your Woodworking Project
-4-
WAITBUTWHY.COM -- How (and Why) SpaceX Will Colonize Mars
-5-
SIMPLE.COM -- Project Days at Simple Bank
Friday, August 07, 2015
Feed Sift (08/07/2015)
-1-
WAITBUTWHY.COM -- Elon Musk: The World’s Raddest Man
-2-
ENGADGET.COM -- The first self-driving big rig licensed to operate in the US
-3-
HOUZZ.COM -- 10 Creative Ways to Bring Structure to Your Outdoor Room
-4-
KPCB.COM -- Internet Trends 2015 **A MUST READ**
-5-
ESPN.GO.COM -- The Whole Game is Beast Mode
Friday, July 31, 2015
Feed Sift (07/31/2015)
-1-
ENGADGET.COM -- The US wants cars to 'talk' to each other, sooner rather than later
-2-
SETHGODIN.TYPEPAD.COM -- How to go faster
-3-
TWISTEDSIFTER.COM -- A Film Editor’s Take on the Rube Goldberg Machine
-4-
ARCHITECTURALDIGEST.COM -- Rooftops and Terraces (Slideshow)
-5-
MORNINGDEVOTION.OASISMEDIASERVICES.COM -- Giving life
Friday, July 10, 2015
Feed Sift (07/10/2015)
-1-
ARCHITECTURALDIGEST.COM -- New Volume Showcases Delightful Parisian Landscapes
-2-
TWISTEDSIFTER.COM -- 16 Breathtaking Underwater Animal Photos
-3-
GOOGLEBLOG.BLOGSPOT.COM -- Green lights for our self-driving vehicle prototypes
-4-
ENGADGET.COM -- The first solar bike path is producing more energy than expected
-5-
BLOG.LEARNINGBYSHIPPING.COM -- Africa’s Mobile-Sun Revolution
Friday, July 03, 2015
Feed Sift (07/03/2015)
-1-
XKCD.COM -- Microdrones
-2-
TWISTEDSIFTER.COM -- The Model Model Model Model Village
-3-
ENGADGET.COM -- FTC airs support for Tesla's direct-to-consumer sales
-4-
LIFEHACKER.COM -- Learn SQL with Khan Academy's New Interactive Course
-5-
WEBURBANIST.COM -- The Void: World’s First Virtual Reality Theme Park Coming Soon
Friday, May 08, 2015
Feed Sift (05/08/2015)
Ah, Friday. I hope everyone has a great weekend!
-1-
ENGADGET.COM -- Tesla's Model S is getting a self-driving 'autopilot' mode in three months
-2-
BRAMBLITT.MYSHOPIFY.COM -- Sightless Works: The Art of John Bramblitt
-3-
LIFEHACKER.COM -- How to Keep Planning Great Date Nights in a Long-Term Relationship
-4-
TWISTEDSIFTER.COM -- The Ingenious Design of the Aluminum Can
-5-
HOUZZ.COM -- 9 Tricks to Boost Your Home’s Appeal for Less Than $400
Friday, March 06, 2015
Feed Sift (03/06/2015)
-1-
ENGADGET -- Flying fake cell towers target fugitives, but can ID your phone too
-2-
WEB URBANIST -- Hoverboards are Here! Design Floats Above Metal Surfaces
-3-
NORMAN NIELSEN GROUP -- Progress Indicators Make a Slow System Less Insufferable
-4-
MORNING DEVOTION -- Sweeten the air
-5-
TESLA ON VIMEO -- Fast Pack Swap Event
Friday, February 27, 2015
Feed Sift (02/27/2015)
Five things I wanted to share...
-1-
ENGADGET -- BMW's new street lights will charge your electric car
-2-
LIKE A TEAM -- The Power of Positive Quotes
-3-
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW -- What You Eat Affects Your Productivity
-4-
BBC -- Your life on earth
-5-
YOUTUBE -- Alexander Gerst’s Earth timelapses
Friday, April 11, 2014
Feed Sift (04/11/2014)
-1-
LIFEHACKER -- I'm a Telemarketer. Here's How to Get Rid of Me
-2-
I, CRINGELY -- An impending black swan for electric cars
-3-
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Indexing
I've been plagued recently with the "Indexing" problem on my Ford Sync. That's the one where no matter what you do, the screen says it's indexing and won't talk to you. Well, you can talk to her but all she says is "Indexing" like she's channeling Eve from WALL-E.
I thought there must be a way around it. I tried the MASTER RESET. I tried the FACTORY DEFAULT RESET. Neither worked. Why do they even have that reset? (Why do they have two resets?)
I thought "This is a Microsoft Product. There must be some super-secret key-combination like VOLUME-BAND-REPEAT to restart the computer." Couldn't find one.
Pulled the fuse. (Siri was also no help.) Didn't help.
Tried another iPod. Oddly enough, the iPod was five years older than the car but as soon as I plugged it in, a Ford logo appeared on the screen. Cute trick. No luck. I thought about making a USB key with only a single song on it but that was a level of effort I didn't want to make.
Finally, I gave in. Finally I did what everyone else said you had to do. I disconnected the black lead from the battery for the entire car and waited a minute or so. Then reconnected, bolted it back in place, got back in the car and viola, problem solved.
So now I know. Like everyone else on the internet already figured out, the only way to successfully solve the Indexing problem with a Ford Sync is to disconnect the battery. Sad.
True story.
I thought there must be a way around it. I tried the MASTER RESET. I tried the FACTORY DEFAULT RESET. Neither worked. Why do they even have that reset? (Why do they have two resets?)
I thought "This is a Microsoft Product. There must be some super-secret key-combination like VOLUME-BAND-REPEAT to restart the computer." Couldn't find one.
Pulled the fuse. (Siri was also no help.) Didn't help.
Tried another iPod. Oddly enough, the iPod was five years older than the car but as soon as I plugged it in, a Ford logo appeared on the screen. Cute trick. No luck. I thought about making a USB key with only a single song on it but that was a level of effort I didn't want to make.
Finally, I gave in. Finally I did what everyone else said you had to do. I disconnected the black lead from the battery for the entire car and waited a minute or so. Then reconnected, bolted it back in place, got back in the car and viola, problem solved.
So now I know. Like everyone else on the internet already figured out, the only way to successfully solve the Indexing problem with a Ford Sync is to disconnect the battery. Sad.
True story.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Apple vs. Google #onejob
Siri, you are no help at all.
You get an F.
(You had one job, Siri. One job.)
Thanks, Google - a video and everything.
Brilliant.
Thursday, February 06, 2014
Car Insurance is a pain.
We've been on a money-saving kick lately, dropping the land line, replacing satellite TV with online services, trying to see if we'll be able to go to a smaller trash can after Christmas, stuff like that.
So we wondered if we could get cheaper car insurance, since everyone advertises it. While getting a quote has gotten easier, sort of, it's still not as easy as one would expect. I was surprised (or weirded out) that with a few pieces of personal info, they were able to tell me what cars I currently own.
GEICO - the quote may have been cheaper, but it zeroed out a bunch of coverage we currently have. Their system lets you customize (so we could compare apples-to-apples with our current insurance) but after I'd change an option, it would break and refuse the load the page. I finally gave up. I get emails every few days from GEICO telling me to "Buy Now" - it doesn't reference the original quote with any specific details (or the cost) and it doesn't invite me back to review my quote, just the hard sell "Buy Now." I had tweeted my experience that night and they didn't respond.
MetroMile - their site doesn't seem to have been fully tested in Chrome as it occasionally glitches. A confusing near-last step ended up with them asking me for a credit card. I thought I was still waiting for the official final quote, but apparently that's supposed to come by email. That email never arrived. I'm going to do the test-drive thing where they send you a small device to plug into your OBD-II port in the car and track your driving habits, but I'm pretty sure they're not competitive. I tweeted my experience and they tweeted inviting me to call them and they also did call and leave a voicemail.
esurance/Allstate - this website broke part-way through the process and I was never able to complete. I never returned to the site. I tweeted my experience and they invited me to call them.
Liberty Mutual - I'm currently a customer for another product. Their form was by far the most onerous (no auto-lookup) so I thought if I signed in that would save some time. Surprisingly, there's no marketing inside their portal, I'll probably make a separate post about that. At one point in the process when you hit submit the screen refreshes with an error message asking me to find the marked field and fix the error. But there are no marked fields. I tweeted about this. They tweeted back inviting me to call them. They ultimately turned my info over to a local agent who emailed me and left me a voicemail.
Based on what I was able to see, this is one place I won't be able to save any money. It's weird, I should feel good - that I've already been getting the best possible rates on car insurance (yay, USAA!), instead I felt bad that I couldn't squeeze any more money out of the process. (I tried to flip the tactic and see if I could save money on my homeowner's insurance but USAA can't beat Liberty Mutual.)
So my experience is that buying car insurance online isn't as foolproof as it ought to be. This is somewhat of a commodity product but computer glitches and a model that's still biased towards talking to people on the phone mean it's not so cut-and-dried.
Why not talk to a person? When you talk to a salesperson, you're at a disadvantage:
(1) Talking to a person, you want to get it over with quicker, either because you want to respect someone's time, or like me, any real-time interaction is nerve-wracking because I'm such an introvert.
(2) A salesperson sells for a living. I don't buy for a living. So they have the advantage.
(3) I can't easily compare and try out different options when they have the screen in front of them and I can't see their screen.
So I'll stick with my current car insurance provider, USAA. Confident no one can beat their rates, before we even factor in the annual dividend. Oh, and yesterday they just offered me 5% off to help them with a research study - they want me to plug in one of those devices into one of my cars.
So we wondered if we could get cheaper car insurance, since everyone advertises it. While getting a quote has gotten easier, sort of, it's still not as easy as one would expect. I was surprised (or weirded out) that with a few pieces of personal info, they were able to tell me what cars I currently own.
GEICO - the quote may have been cheaper, but it zeroed out a bunch of coverage we currently have. Their system lets you customize (so we could compare apples-to-apples with our current insurance) but after I'd change an option, it would break and refuse the load the page. I finally gave up. I get emails every few days from GEICO telling me to "Buy Now" - it doesn't reference the original quote with any specific details (or the cost) and it doesn't invite me back to review my quote, just the hard sell "Buy Now." I had tweeted my experience that night and they didn't respond.
MetroMile - their site doesn't seem to have been fully tested in Chrome as it occasionally glitches. A confusing near-last step ended up with them asking me for a credit card. I thought I was still waiting for the official final quote, but apparently that's supposed to come by email. That email never arrived. I'm going to do the test-drive thing where they send you a small device to plug into your OBD-II port in the car and track your driving habits, but I'm pretty sure they're not competitive. I tweeted my experience and they tweeted inviting me to call them and they also did call and leave a voicemail.
esurance/Allstate - this website broke part-way through the process and I was never able to complete. I never returned to the site. I tweeted my experience and they invited me to call them.
Liberty Mutual - I'm currently a customer for another product. Their form was by far the most onerous (no auto-lookup) so I thought if I signed in that would save some time. Surprisingly, there's no marketing inside their portal, I'll probably make a separate post about that. At one point in the process when you hit submit the screen refreshes with an error message asking me to find the marked field and fix the error. But there are no marked fields. I tweeted about this. They tweeted back inviting me to call them. They ultimately turned my info over to a local agent who emailed me and left me a voicemail.
Based on what I was able to see, this is one place I won't be able to save any money. It's weird, I should feel good - that I've already been getting the best possible rates on car insurance (yay, USAA!), instead I felt bad that I couldn't squeeze any more money out of the process. (I tried to flip the tactic and see if I could save money on my homeowner's insurance but USAA can't beat Liberty Mutual.)
So my experience is that buying car insurance online isn't as foolproof as it ought to be. This is somewhat of a commodity product but computer glitches and a model that's still biased towards talking to people on the phone mean it's not so cut-and-dried.
Why not talk to a person? When you talk to a salesperson, you're at a disadvantage:
(1) Talking to a person, you want to get it over with quicker, either because you want to respect someone's time, or like me, any real-time interaction is nerve-wracking because I'm such an introvert.
(2) A salesperson sells for a living. I don't buy for a living. So they have the advantage.
(3) I can't easily compare and try out different options when they have the screen in front of them and I can't see their screen.
So I'll stick with my current car insurance provider, USAA. Confident no one can beat their rates, before we even factor in the annual dividend. Oh, and yesterday they just offered me 5% off to help them with a research study - they want me to plug in one of those devices into one of my cars.
Friday, December 20, 2013
Feed Sift
-1-
Caregiver Stress Syndrome: Caring for a Special Needs Child - yep, it's a thing. (Yahoo! Voices)
-2-
A Mirror or Window? - as a leader, a good reminder of when to look out the window and when you look in the mirror. (Doug Blackie on Leadership)
-3-
Caregiver Stress Syndrome: Caring for a Special Needs Child - yep, it's a thing. (Yahoo! Voices)
-2-
A Mirror or Window? - as a leader, a good reminder of when to look out the window and when you look in the mirror. (Doug Blackie on Leadership)
-3-
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Trigger Happy
I never put my car into M so I have no use for the +/- keys but I often drive with one hand on the shifter.
It would be nice if I could re-task those buttons...
Maybe...
...cruise control up/down
...volume up/down
...temperature up/down
...sunroof open/close/vent
...mood lighting color adjustment
or
- minus to change between ordinances and plus to fire
Friday, November 29, 2013
Feed Sift
-1-
What "no" means - an excellent reminder. (Seth Godin)
-2-
Concerned mom campaigns against artificial dyes in candy - In other countries where they'd have to put a warning, they do without. So why are we subjected to them here? (Today)
-3-
Friday, September 27, 2013
Feed Sift
Here's five things I've come across recently that I wanted to share.-1-
An End of Books - Seth Godin explores an end. A longer piece, a good read.
-2-
Death and Taxes FY2014 - They'll sell you the poster, but they'll also let you see it in all its meticulous detail on this page. A breakdown of the entire federal budget. (Timeplots.com)
-3-
40 Awesome Maps - This stuff is just fun - from the 22 countries Britain hasn't invaded to what the moon would look like if the United States were located there. (Twisted Sifter)
-4-
Thoughful Design - Why GM cars sound like they do - a brief look into what goes into today's sound engineering. (Medium.com)
-5-
Niagara Falls - some angles you've probably never seen before. (Yeah, you'll probably want to go full screen.)
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Paying It Forward
Mom and Dad gave me one of these as a gift. You can jumpstart a car, inflate tires and stuff and charge a cell phone with it. I'd used it plenty of times to inflate tires and other things around the house, worked quite well.
Once a week Lori has lunch with me at work. If they're out of school, it's all of us having a nice family meal in the work cafeteria. Recently we decided at the last minute to meet some place for lunch instead of coming to the office. The kids were having a slightly rough time of it and Lori wasn't feeling like preparing lunches or trying to stop somewhere with them and pick up something. So we met at Wendy's instead.
While we were eating, we watched someone messing with a dead car two over from Lori's. After awhile, another car came. The dead car was a newer model Toyota sedan of decent size. The helper car was a tiny mid-80's I dunno... maybe a small Yugo or something. It was a tiny car. I just imagined them hooking up jumper cables, cranking over the Toyota and seeing the little car explode. After a while the small car left and the couple was still there with their dead car.
So when we came out, we were loading up the children and they asked if we had cables. We started to pull them out and then I thought that maybe I should bring my car around instead. No sense in having the little ones sit in the hot car. So said goodbye to the family, they left, I jogged a few rows over to my car. By the time I had gotten back around, the space next to them was now open. (They had pushed it out some to try to get the cables to stretch to the little car.)
Once a week Lori has lunch with me at work. If they're out of school, it's all of us having a nice family meal in the work cafeteria. Recently we decided at the last minute to meet some place for lunch instead of coming to the office. The kids were having a slightly rough time of it and Lori wasn't feeling like preparing lunches or trying to stop somewhere with them and pick up something. So we met at Wendy's instead.
While we were eating, we watched someone messing with a dead car two over from Lori's. After awhile, another car came. The dead car was a newer model Toyota sedan of decent size. The helper car was a tiny mid-80's I dunno... maybe a small Yugo or something. It was a tiny car. I just imagined them hooking up jumper cables, cranking over the Toyota and seeing the little car explode. After a while the small car left and the couple was still there with their dead car.
So when we came out, we were loading up the children and they asked if we had cables. We started to pull them out and then I thought that maybe I should bring my car around instead. No sense in having the little ones sit in the hot car. So said goodbye to the family, they left, I jogged a few rows over to my car. By the time I had gotten back around, the space next to them was now open. (They had pushed it out some to try to get the cables to stretch to the little car.)
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Worth Repeating: Jennifer Healey
Video:
If cars could talk, accidents might be avoidable -- When we drive, we get into a glass bubble, lock the doors and press the accelerator, relying on our eyes to guide us -- even though we can only see the few cars ahead of and behind us. But what if cars could share data with each other about their position and velocity, and use predictive models to calculate the safest routes for everyone on the road? Jennifer Healey imagines a world without accidents. More on TED.com...
Why I posted -- An interesting exploration of technological possibilities and implications.
If cars could talk, accidents might be avoidable -- When we drive, we get into a glass bubble, lock the doors and press the accelerator, relying on our eyes to guide us -- even though we can only see the few cars ahead of and behind us. But what if cars could share data with each other about their position and velocity, and use predictive models to calculate the safest routes for everyone on the road? Jennifer Healey imagines a world without accidents. More on TED.com...
Why I posted -- An interesting exploration of technological possibilities and implications.
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