PCTG Consumer Complaint Report Record ID#: 1284399993

To Whom It May Concern: This is the second incident that is separate but related to the first incident we encountered with William Bubka of Nationwide Insurance Company. In early July we received a vehicle from Mike Piazza Honda, a 2009 Honda Accord owned by Harry Smedley. As you will remember from my first incident report, we do the collision work for Mike Piazza Honda in Langhorne after being approached by Piazza when they closed their own collision shop. Being a quality-minded shop with an excellent reputation secured our position as the shop Piazza was confident could please their customers, protect their reputation, and build a business relationship in a mutually beneficial way. To refresh, Ron Dworsky is the Body Shop Coordinator at Mike Piazza Honda and the liaison between the customer and us. For Mr. Smedley's vehicle, we were provided with an estimate written by Nationwide and upon review assessed that a supplement was necessary. The supplement was minor in nature and amounted to about $223.00. As usual when dealing with Mr. Bubka, he denied several procedures that we had wriiten to be performed in order to repair the vehicle in the correct manner.'At the end of the negotiations, Mr. Bubka asked if he had an agreed price with us. Our business philosophy concerning agreed price is consistent for ALL insurance companies. We do not have an agreed price with any company when procedures that do not allow us to put the vehicle back to its condition prior to the accident are left out of their estimate. That being said, it is quite typical that an agreed price is not achieved because insurance companies hide behind their DRP contracts with other shops and they use their status as preferred shops against the independent shops.'If a shop signs up to be in a DRP program and agrees to concede to not doing certain procedures and practices, that is their right. However, their economic advantage, in that they are guaranteed a bulk of work for such concessions, should not be used to suppress the true cost of doing business. Yet it happens every day. We are strong-armed to do the work for the lesser price, we just don't agree to it on principle. In what has become typical with Mr. Bubka, he left very upset again. Because there was no way to censure Mr. Bubka after the first incident, he left my shop and called Ron Dworsky at Mike Piazza again. He failed the first time he had called to try to sway their opinion of my shop, and must have felt he had to try again using the leverage he believed he had in knowing this vehicle was from Piazza. In his conversation to Ron, he said the same problems were occurring again with Hunt Auto Body, and thought Ron should be aware of the situation. Ron told Mr. Bubka that he had every confidence in us, and that any estimate problems he had needed to be worked out directly with Hunt Auto Body. That obviously wasn't the answer Mr. Bubka was looking for because his next comment to Ron was to ask if the customer knew Piazza doesn't have a body shop and whether the customer knew that they were subletting the work to Hunt. Ron told him that the customer was well aware that the car was sent to Hunt Auto Body. That fact was privileged information in that Mr. Bubka has no reason to ask of the situation ~ some insurance companies have their concierge programs where customers never know where their cars are being sent once the insurance company takes it from them. The question was irrelevant but was answered openly because nothing improper is happening by securing a steady stream of work from a dealership. Again, that response must not have been the desired outcome because Mr. Bubka then took it further and called the customer directly to inform him that the car was sent to Hunt. Mr. Smedley's response was that he already new where the vehicle was and was comfortable with the arrangement. It wasn't until just this week that we became aware of this second attempt by Mr. Bubka to interfere with our business relationship between Hunt and Piazza as well as our professional relationship with our mutual customer. Mr. Smedley stopped by to thank us for fighting for the OEM fender liner that we put on his car and to thank us for doing a good job. It was then that the customer went on to tell us that Mr. Bubka had called him to inform him that his car wasn't at Mike Piazza Honda but was at Hunt Auto Body. The customer told Mr. Bubka that he was well aware of the location of the car. Mr. Smedley was nice enough to let us know of the appraiser's tactics and went on to say that Mr. Bubka told him that we were trying to overcharge for work performed when in fact we are just insisting on being paid for procedures that we routinely do in order to repair a vehicle. Prices are capped by the insurance company for our labor rate, times, procedures and our materials, and no body shop can charge more when using computerized estimating software. The difference is in doing the repair correctly. Mr. Bubka cannot be allowed to impact my business by slandering my good name and reputation. No shop can afford to have State-licensed appraisers over stepping their boundaries by getting involved in the relationship with the customer. The only reason for Mr. Bubka to weasel into my relationship with Piazza and, subsequently, our customer is to negatively impact the business I have built for the past twenty-five years. Please help me with this ongoing vindictive behavior of Mr. Bubka before he hurts my business any more than he has already. How many other slanderous comments has Mr. Bubka made that I am not privy to? One can only imagine the impact of his behavior on my business. I look forward to speaking with you concerning Mr. Bubka.' Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Mark C. Vettori President