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Review 11/16/2011
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My experience began on 10/30/2007. I was going to drive to a restaurant for lunch. I got in my car, and lo and behold, my car wouldn't start. I wasn’t able to resolve the problem, so I elected to leave my car in the employee parking lot. On 10/31, I was able to arrange a tow through my insurance company with Best Car Towing inc. The tow truck driver arrived at around 7pm. He tried what he could to get my car started, but to no avail. He then loaded my car on the flatbed and we proceeded to take my car to my mother’s house. The driver then recommended to me that I tow my car to the tow truck company parking lot, they had a mechanic onsite who would give me a free diagnostics and isolate the issue. I took his advice and he towed my car to their lot. He told me the mechanic would get hold of me with a quote for the job the next day. Come around 2:25pm on 11/1, I had yet to receive a phone call, so I decided to call the company to find out what was going on. The person I spoke to, I believe her name was Lorleina (forgive me if it is incorrect, when I asked for her name I had already been too upset to remember it). Anyway, she had no idea why my car was there in the first place, and so I explained everything to her and she said the mechanic would get back at me either at 6pm or early the next day. Come around 11/2, at around 11pm, still no phone call from the company. I called them and was told that my car was ready, and that the problem was a bad terminal connection. She told me I could come pick it up anytime. I replied “Okay, thanks”, and was excited, assuming that since they did the repair without asking me, or giving me a price, that it was for free. I had a co-worker driver me to their lot, but when we got there… I was served with an invoice. With parts and labor it came to $130 dollars. I had no money at the time, so my co-worker allowed me to use his credit card. We paid and left. Afterwards, I noticed that my radio wasn’t working, and my hood had been crashed into by something, making it much harder to open. My car is in pretty bad condition as it is, so I have no way to prove that. They replaced a fuse which had been blown (presumably by the tow truck driver trying to jump start my car when my battery was just fine). I then mentioned to Lorleina that I wasn’t asked if repairs could be performed on my car, nor was I given the cost for the job. She quickly became defensive, asserting that she in fact did ask me and gave me the dollar amount and said that it would be okay for them to proceed with the repairs. Was it a communication disconnect, or perhaps a ruse… I was then told that I only had 2 choices then, leave, or have them remove the new terminals and replace them with the old ones that they replaced. The impression I was under was the diagnostic would be for free, as what I was told by the tow driver, but had I left, I would have had to pay $75 dollars for the diagnostics, so essentially, by towing my car here, I was trapped. I don’t believe that this company is completely unscrupulous; they could have easily extorted more money out of me if they wanted to by performing unnecessary repairs and they did replace the fuse for free, but all in all, I feel I was deceived. I’m not pursuing any litigation for monetary gain, $130 dollars isn’t really that’s much to me. In the end though, I felt I was played for the fool. To add salt to the wound, prior to this, I was warned by my father about these types of places, but that didn’t dissuade me in the least. Hopefully my case was just a misunderstanding, but I felt it was imperative to share my experience, in case it isn’t.
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