Allstate Insurance Co.

Dear Allstate Thieves~

As you can see, I am writing this letter in a way quite different from how you folks do things: I have begun with honesty. I realize that this is likely not the most successful way to have my needs met by you folks, but I have no faith in you whatsoever, as I think your ultimate goal is to fuck people and take their money. (Honesty) It is clear to me that you folks at Allstate Insurance don’t give a shit about honesty, for you have been deceptive, you have withheld information, you have distorted the facts, and you have lied to me outright. You should be thankful I didn’t write this letter last week at the height of my dismay and frustration, for the vitriol herein would have been greatly increased.

So I presume my words deserve (or rather demand) some sort of explanation. Fair enough. So the short version is: my wife and I drove to Troy, New York (upstate) from Davis, California last summer. The trip was fantastic though I’ll spare you the details. Upon arrival in Troy, all things regarding our vehicle fell into a complete mess. The bulk of the problem revolved around the fact that the California Department of Motor Vehicles mailed our license plates to us long before we left (as we had just leased a new car) but the postal service lost them somewhere along the way. I don’t really blame them, for if you consider the number of items they must deliver from one place to another, it would make sense that occasionally they would lose something. (This sentiment just expressed would be defined as compassion, something that you folks in charge of Allstate seem to be lacking.). So to make a long story short, this mishap involved many trips to the DMV, many phone calls, faxes, etc., and at long last we finally received new plates and were able to register our car.

Somewhere along the way in this process, we had to switch our insurance from California Allstate to New York Allstate. While I’m not really going to get into the fine details of this problem in the letter, let it suffice that this policy of yours is idiotic and poorly thought out. One should not have to go through a bunch of paperwork and forms when they are already insured by you, just because they moved to another state; it should just transfer over. Simple as that. While I understand that it has to do with state laws and whatnot, it is absurd, and creates yet one more pain in the ass for people who move. You should this change this policy. For example, I don’t have to open a new bank account because my money doesn’t “work” here as the Allstate folks told me. What do you mean it doesn’t work? It’s insurance. And yes, that is a direct quote. You clearly only hire the best.

Anyway, here begins the real story…we switched our insurance over. In doing so, (I’m still surprised you didn’t lie to me about this) it turns out that we saved some money, as things are cheaper here. So we met with a local agent whose name I won’t mention, as this agent is not very competent, but is a kind human and none of this is really their fault. (It is rather the fault of the big executives who make more money in one year than I’ll likely ever make in a decade.) So began the sending of cryptic bills. Every three weeks or so, you folks would send me a bill for somewhere in the ballpark of $18.00 but it would say on the bill that “$0.00 were due at this time.” I didn’t understand this, and eventually called you to ask you to either:

A. let me pay the damn bill or
B. stop sending things unnecessarily
Of course you folks did neither. You just don’t give a shit about your customers’ needs. You kept sending me the bill and asking that I pay nothing and, in the process wasting much paper and energy.

So one day in February, I was looking through junk mail (including these meaningless bills) and discovered that there was a statement form Allstate informing me that my insurance had been cancelled! What??? Appearently, at some point, this $18 on which I owed nothing, became an $18 bill on which I owed $18.38. Fuck you. This is bullshit. It’s like some goddamn trick. Something kids in gradeschool do. You need to inform people about this kind of shit. These changes. Moreover, why didn’t someone call me? When my payment (of $18.38) became so late that you were going to cancel my insurance, couldn’t you have called me first? No, you couldn’t, because that would have been the kind, logical thing to do, and you wanted to fuck me.

I called my agent who (as I said) is something of an idiot (though at least with good intentions) and my agent tried to “re-instate” my insurance. So after a phone conversation (I had to call my agent not the other way around) I drove up to my agents office and delivered a check for $18.38. All was cool, so said my agent.

But all was not cool.

I received a call from said agent the next week informing me that as I had been uninsured for over 30 days, I was now considered “delinquent” (good word choice on your part, suggesting that I’ve done something reprehensible) and Allstate would not insure me. Of course, if my agent had expressed this earlier, I might not have waited several days to get them a check (which they said would be fine) as this put me into the 31 day realm. What horseshit.

Then began the phone calls (which you will see detailed in the attached invoice). I spent many hours on the phone with very polite people at the Allstate main offices who ALL agreed that the situation was absurd, but could do nothing about it. They ALL also stated that “you get good ones and bad ones,” referring to the local agents. This is ridiculous! How can you stand behind a company when it’s a “luck of the draw,” concerning whether or not you’ll get someone who knows what they’re doing? So I repeatedly asked to be transferred to someone higher up in the company, but was repeatedly told that this was impossible. So I guess, in effect, the big whigs have constructed a giant brick wall around their worlds so that they can steal from me, fuck up aspects of my life, and not be held accountable for any of it. Just like most of the soulless, greedy, disgusting politicians currently running our country. Democracy my ass. And you tell me I’m “in good hands with Allstate.” Bullshit. I’m in “slippery hands that know how to reach into my pocket, steal my money, sour my reputation, and make me look like I did it to myself.” True corruption.

Anyway, I’m growing tired of writing this letter, and have other things to do. I’m still really pissed off and just need you folks to know that. The icing on the cake,came when I called to establish insurance with another company and they asked me about my accident history. Four years ago a woman going the wrong way on a one-way street, ran a red light and crashed into me. She spoke no English and was rude as hell. A great deal of damage was done to my car, which I reported to you folks and had fixed. (This by the way was like pulling teeth to get anything done) Anyway, the people at this new company informed me that cost of my insurance would be higher, because you listed the accident as my fault. My god, what robbery. You guys are assholes. This is simply immoral. Anyway, there is more to this story but I know that no one with any say in the company whatsoever will read this, so I will stop now, knowing that this is really just for me, the person who opens the mail, and the finance department who will be sending me my money. As you will see detailed in the invoice, I have included six things:

1. the amount of money you owe me for the price increase in my car insurance for switching to another company.

2. the amount of money I owe the state of New York for being uninsured for 31 days.

3. the hourly amount of time I spent on the phone, driving to the agent’s office and writing this letter, based on my current hourly teaching wage.

4. Punitive damages.

5. libel: I feel personally offended that you stated that the accident four years previous was my fault, and embarrassed. I am not such a bad driver to do such a foolish thing.

6. Projected future problems due to this occurrence; ie: the black stamp on my name.

Best~
Jefferson Pitcher

Posted by jeff pitcher at March 24, 2007 10:47 AM

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