I am not one to get on here and write reviews, but I had such an extraordinarily bad experience with this company that it warrants a write-up and a huge BEWARE to others who may be considering doing business with this unethical shop.
Recently, my car sustained significant damages when a red-light runner collided into me. As anyone who has ever had the unfortunate experience of being involved in a vehicle wreck knows, one of the next steps in dealing with the aftermath is obtaining a repair estimate(s).
The insurance company gave me the option of choosing from one of their "select provider" repair shops, or choosing my own from outside of their network. I opted for the latter, figuring a shop outside of their network would be more objective in their assessment of the damages and repair cost estimation.
So I went online to find a repair shop, came across ACC, completed their online query, and was contacted by Nicole to make arrangements to get the car towed in for the estimate.
Right after the car arrived at the shop, Nicole emailed me an authorization form to sign. I questioned this, as it seemed a little odd to me that they would need signed authorization to write up a repair cost estimate. I clarified to Nicole again that I only wanted an estimate and was not committing to selecting their shop to provide repairs at this point. She insisted that this signed authorization was required in order to provide the estimate, and confirmed that it would be used only for that purpose. Still uneasy about signing a form that had "tear down" in the wording, but with my car already towed to that shop, and them refusing to do the estimate without the signed form, I reluctantly signed. I added a statement under my signature for added measure: "this authorization is limited to repair cost estimate only...no repairs are being authorized without prior additional written consent."
A week passes and I have not received an estimate yet, nor do I hear from anyone (I think nothing of this because it was the Thanksgiving holidays and everything moves slower). I then receive an email and vm from Joe Decker, shop manager, stating parts have been ordered and there is a targeted completion date of repairs on my car for Dec 24!! Wait....WHAT??! I have not even received an ESTIMATE, let alone authorized this shop to proceed with the repair job!! What is this shop estimating the repair cost to be? Where is the itemized list of repairs they are proposing? And what if I want to get additional estimates from other shops?? I was not even consulted in this decision to award ACC the repair job....and it was MY car, MY choice who I want to select to do the repair job!! I was in utter disbelief.
So I call Joe. He insisted that they had authorization to proceed with repair. I told him that the car was in for an ESTIMATE...which they never even provided me with prior to jumping into ordering the parts and on trek with repair completion date. He was not seeing anything wrong with this picture. I told him that I had confirmed with Nicole that the form I signed was for ESTIMATE, and wrote that on the form as well. He said that is how they have always done it.
A couple weeks later ACC's supplemental estimate comes through (roughly 1k higher than insurance adjustor estimate) and insurance company deems my car a total loss. So now here we have my car that I was the orig owner of, maintained, ran fantastic, just needed bodywork. I was weighing my options and buying my car back was a very attractive option. The insurance co and I agreed it would be towed to my residence for storage while we were in negotiations (rather than continuing to accrue storage fees at ACC). The day they were to tow it to my house, I get a call from the insurance stating that my car was "in pieces" at the shop, with "14 hrs" of labor in it. And they were not going to pay for any more labor to put it back together to the condition it was in when towed in for an ESTIMATE. So if I wanted to retain the vehicle, it would be "as-is" in the torn down state. Thanks to these shady characters at ACC, I am without my car now and struggling to find another one of the same value that is as reliable as what I had. Thanks a lot Arizona Collision Center. read more