I Fought the Corporation and (after an insufferably lengthy period), I won!

Two months ago, my spanking new car was rear-ended after being on the road for less than two days. What I figured would be a simple problem to deal with fast turned into a nightmare. An auto mechanic struck my car, so in the spirit of charity, I offered to not report it through insurance and instead let him fix it. He agreed to these terms, but gave me a phony phone number in an attempt to hose me.

So I contacted my insurance company, Travelers. Though I usually don't use corporations' names in my posts, I'm going to do so here since I love the customer service of my insurance company and find them worthy of my verbal support. Even though I thought the guy who hit my car is an idiot for ruining a chance at an easy fix, I still felt a little bad for him for screwing himself over.

While a Travelers agent came to my place of work within hours of my reporting it to check out my damages, the other insurance company, Allstate, whose name I will mention since they are awful and I think everyone should know it, made me drive half an hour to their location two weeks later to check out my damage. That was after having to call them twice just to get them to take my accident statement. Allstate told me that resolving this accident would be easy since there was nothing really to stipulate, and not to worry about it.

Two weeks passed. I call Allstate to find out what my car's status was, but got no response. Only after my third message did I receive a return message, which informed me that the client is disputing the accident. Immediately, I called concerned by this development, and when my call was returned three days later, I was told that while the other driver admits to hitting my car, he did not cause any damage. I told Allstate that this was preposterous and asked whether their client claimed the damage was pre-existing or not there at the time of the accident. The Allstate representative looked over the report then said that that fact was not specified. Huh? That seemed like an important detail that they should have if they're going to claim they didn't do the damage. I was told not to worry, there would be an investigation.

At that point, I realized that I was about to get screwed. As someone in the automative business, the Lying Fuck Face, our new name for the other driver, probably knew he could get away with it. Admit to hitting the car since I managed to get all of his information, but claim you didn't do the damage.

I followed up with several calls to Allstate in the next week and a half; each day they told me they would have an answer for me the following day, though that never panned out. Finally, I received a message telling me my deny had been claimed. Lying Fuck Face disputes the damage, so Allstate would not be paying since that apparently means he did not do it. He would have no incentive to lie, right? The feeling I had was not that they didn't believe that their client caused the damage, but that they realized they could get away with not paying it for this reason, so of course they'd deny it.

Travelers helped me out with how to approach the situation further. I raised enough of a stink with Allstate (in a politer fashion than I did with the cable company) to finally speak to a manager, who was the first helpful employee at Allstate (out of several). She admitted that they didn't even have my own side of the story on file, and neglected to ask for my input in the investigation as should be procedure. Convenient!

From there, I went into detective mode. I knew I should be able to prove that the accident happened in the manner I said it did since I had the truth on my side. I drew pictures of the scene and went and took video footage of the freeway exit where it occurred, demonstrating how countless cars pass through in the same formation I stipulated. (The main reason they said the damage didn't happen was because it wasn't possible for my car to sustain that damage given the details of the accident -- as relayed by their customer and their customer only, mind you.) I submitted photos of my car two days before the accident occurred. Additionally, I got proof from my car dealership that I had purchased an undamaged car just days prior. After hours of work, I put together one hell of a case to prove my point. I didn't hear from Allstate for a few days, but in the meantime I was commended by my Travelers rep for my effort. He was genuinely supportive -- amazing customer service.

After I made it clear that with the evidence I gathered I would file a lawsuit (a bluff, but whatever, they were being assholes), finally, Allstate had no choice but to acknowledge that they did the damage. Since they already cleared Lying Fuck Face of blame, they couldn't put the blame on him and will instead just pay for it themselves. Part of me is irritated that Lying Fuck Face is getting away with it, but then again, all it would mean is his rates would go up and he'd pay more to Allstate, a company I equally despise. So as long as my damages are being taken care of, I suppose it's okay.

It's been a lot of work for a few hundred dollars, but it became the principle of the thing. And I'll be damned if my principles don't trump your harmful lies and corporate greed.