Pampero Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 Hello I am considering suing a bad repair shop that did a terrible work. I will explain the work done in another thread, the repairs were done in a different state of where I leave, so I am asking the following: Choose a lawyer from where the repairs were done or from my own state? Any experiences would be appreciated Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis H Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 This is just my opinion. YMMV. Suing for bad repairs is an exercise in futility and only pays for the lawyer's Mercedes and I realize I'm painting with a very broad brush. There are other avenues you might consider pursuing. Obviously if there are circumstances where something was not done where it's specifically spelled out in your CONTRACT then you might have an opportunity to collect some of your money back, less attorney fees. Finally, the lawsuit will be filed in the offending state so there will be travel expenses for you. Your attorney will have to be licensed in the State where the offense was committed and if your State's attorney is licensed in the State of occurrence, then there will be travel expenses for him/her also. You should consider many factors before going this route. First, any alledged grievance must be shown to be contrary to what is WRITTEN in the CONTRACT SIGNED by BOTH PARTIES. Simply your word against theirs won't fly in court. Second, you'll have to decide whether the "cost vs result" is worth it to you. Will you pay more in out of pocket costs vs what you hope to recoup from the service agency less your attorney fees. Thirdly, explore other avenues. I had a dealer in Sacramento overcharge me for a repair. I dropped the coach off at their facility first thing in the morning with a promise it'd be finished that afternoon. As we are full timers, we dropped the coach off, went for coffee and with nothing else to do, sat in their parking lot while repairs were done. They worked on the coach for two hours and charged me five hours labor. If we hadn't been in the lot there's no way we would have known that, but we did. After arguing with the service manager he lopped off one hour but I was still not satisfied and told him so. You wouldn't believe his 'reasoning' for the extra hours. He simply shrugged it off and sent me on my way. I filed a complaint with the State's Bureau of Automotive Repair and after their investigation, I received a check from the service dealer for the remaining two hours labor. I feel I acomplished two things, first I got my money back but more importantly, that 'offense' goes on their record and hopefully they will investigate their practices and maybe the next traveler won't get gouged. Best of luck....Dennis 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philcarrell Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 My advice is file a complaint with the States Better Business bureau or the states Attorney Deneral consumer affairs division. A lawyer will charge you for what you can do free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onthego Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 ?Did you have to pay someone else to redo the the work. And would they be willing to go to court for you.(you may have to pay them for there time to go to court. Pictures of the bad work and pictures of the correct work. I vote to go Phil advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
throgmartin Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 As an owner of a service company I can honestly say that hiring a lawyer should be the last thing you ever want to do. Many companies in the USA have a strict policy that once a customer threatens them with a lawsuit they cease all communication with them. Secondly they force the customer into having to hire a lawyer to communicate with the companies lawyer. The customer now is left with attorney bills they have to pay just to try and rectify a solution. Your best bet is to skip the lawyer route and contact the State and initiate a complaint with the States regulatory board that oversees service centers ( typically a State automotive division ). In some States you can go directly to the Attorney generals consumer affairs office and file a complaint. They will start an investigation and work to get a settlement for you. Unfortunately shoddy work at service centers is getting more and more common. We constantly have customers bringing us coaches to fix the screw ups performed at other service centers. For me it can be heart breaking to see a customer pay for work that ends up being a mess and then have to pay us to undo what another technician does and then make the right repair. We see weekly just how bad some service centers are and the complete lack of pride in ones work. I get no pleasure in seeing customers pay for a fix twice. It flames me to no end. Skip the Lawyer idea and work with the State. They will do the investigation and leg work for you for free. Document everything with photos, paperwork, etc. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pampero Posted August 19, 2020 Author Share Posted August 19, 2020 Thank you all for the replies. I did look at the Estate Attorney General complaint forms and that is the way I will go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul J A Posted August 19, 2020 Share Posted August 19, 2020 4 hours ago, throgmartin said: As an owner of a service company I can honestly say that hiring a lawyer should be the last thing you ever want to do. Many companies in the USA have a strict policy that once a customer threatens them with a lawsuit they cease all communication with them. Secondly they force the customer into having to hire a lawyer to communicate with the companies lawyer. The customer now is left with attorney bills they have to pay just to try and rectify a solution. Your best bet is to skip the lawyer route and contact the State and initiate a complaint with the States regulatory board that oversees service centers ( typically a State automotive division ). In some States you can go directly to the Attorney generals consumer affairs office and file a complaint. They will start an investigation and work to get a settlement for you. Unfortunately shoddy work at service centers is getting more and more common. We constantly have customers bringing us coaches to fix the screw ups performed at other service centers. For me it can be heart breaking to see a customer pay for work that ends up being a mess and then have to pay us to undo what another technician does and then make the right repair. We see weekly just how bad some service centers are and the complete lack of pride in ones work. I get no pleasure in seeing customers pay for a fix twice. It flames me to no end. Skip the Lawyer idea and work with the State. They will do the investigation and leg work for you for free. Document everything with photos, paperwork, etc. The state attorney general route is one way to address that issue. My experience in trying that, as a full timer, or anyone who is not a resident of that state where the service was an issue is, the state attorney generals office has a priority to us their budget $$$ on residents issues first. That was told to my directly by a staff person that state att'ys office. Sad but that's the way it is. Paul A Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dlelsner Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 On 8/18/2020 at 11:44 AM, Dennis H said: This is just my opinion. YMMV. Suing for bad repairs is an exercise in futility and only pays for the lawyer's Mercedes and I realize I'm painting with a very broad brush. There are other avenues you might consider pursuing. Obviously if there are circumstances where something was not done where it's specifically spelled out in your CONTRACT then you might have an opportunity to collect some of your money back, less attorney fees. Finally, the lawsuit will be filed in the offending state so there will be travel expenses for you. Your attorney will have to be licensed in the State where the offense was committed and if your State's attorney is licensed in the State of occurrence, then there will be travel expenses for him/her also. You should consider many factors before going this route. First, any alledged grievance must be shown to be contrary to what is WRITTEN in the CONTRACT SIGNED by BOTH PARTIES. Simply your word against theirs won't fly in court. Second, you'll have to decide whether the "cost vs result" is worth it to you. Will you pay more in out of pocket costs vs what you hope to recoup from the service agency less your attorney fees. Thirdly, explore other avenues. I had a dealer in Sacramento overcharge me for a repair. I dropped the coach off at their facility first thing in the morning with a promise it'd be finished that afternoon. As we are full timers, we dropped the coach off, went for coffee and with nothing else to do, sat in their parking lot while repairs were done. They worked on the coach for two hours and charged me five hours labor. If we hadn't been in the lot there's no way we would have known that, but we did. After arguing with the service manager he lopped off one hour but I was still not satisfied and told him so. You wouldn't believe his 'reasoning' for the extra hours. He simply shrugged it off and sent me on my way. I filed a complaint with the State's Bureau of Automotive Repair and after their investigation, I received a check from the service dealer for the remaining two hours labor. I feel I acomplished two things, first I got my money back but more importantly, that 'offense' goes on their record and hopefully they will investigate their practices and maybe the next traveler won't get gouged. Best of luck....Dennis Dennis, may I ask the name of the Sacramento repair shop that did this poor work for you. I ask because I also had an experience in Sacramento. Was wondering if it was the same shop. (A well know shop that has an office/sales/repair shop in Grass Valley CA.) Dave Elsner Reno NV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis H Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 1 hour ago, dlelsner said: Dennis, may I ask the name of the Sacramento repair shop that did this poor work for you. I ask because I also had an experience in Sacramento. Was wondering if it was the same shop. (A well know shop that has an office/sales/repair shop in Grass Valley CA.) Dave Elsner Reno NV Dave, I'm relatively new to this forum so I'm not sure if we are allowed to name facilities or not, so until I get clarification from a moderator, I'll hold off identifying them. However, I did post an appropriate review HERE. That may help.....Dennis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onthego Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 Best to not name names on the form, use private e-mail. That is my own Opinion. 👀 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pampero Posted August 20, 2020 Author Share Posted August 20, 2020 Thank you all for the replies. I did look at the Estate Attorney General complaint forms and that is the way I will go. 13 hours ago, Dennis H said: Dave, I'm relatively new to this forum so I'm not sure if we are allowed to name facilities or not, so until I get clarification from a moderator, I'll hold off identifying them. However, I did post an appropriate review HERE. That may help.....Dennis If we cant't tell who did bad, how other would not fall in the same pit? Don't tell does not defeat the purpose of this forum? Just asking Bad experiences should be saying. I wish someone would have told me about this shop. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onthego Posted August 21, 2020 Share Posted August 21, 2020 After you win in court then you can till all of use to avoid that shop. Correct me if I’m wrong. I didn’t see were you said that you confronted the shop about there bad repair. Hopefully you did, and ask them to correct the problem repairs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis H Posted August 21, 2020 Share Posted August 21, 2020 12 hours ago, Pampero said: Thank you all for the replies. I did look at the Estate Attorney General complaint forms and that is the way I will go. If we cant't tell who did bad, how other would not fall in the same pit? Don't tell does not defeat the purpose of this forum? Just asking Bad experiences should be saying. I wish someone would have told me about this shop. Unless it’s an emergency I always check RV service reviews.com Sort by location and look for a shop in the area I’m in. These are, for the most part, honest reviews from rvers...Dennis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scotty Hutto Posted August 21, 2020 Share Posted August 21, 2020 On 8/19/2020 at 10:09 PM, Dennis H said: ...so until I get clarification from a moderator, I'll hold off identifying them. However, I did post an appropriate review HERE. That may help.....Dennis There's no explicit rule against identifying bad service; however I think the way you handled it is better. My preference would be to share things like that privately or via an appropriate channel like you did. That said, we've had posts talking about specific towing companies, etc. that did a bad job, etc., and they were left up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis H Posted August 21, 2020 Share Posted August 21, 2020 Thanks Scotty. Frank pretty much said the same thing. Kudos to you both. Thanks for answering....Dennis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ray Davis Posted August 21, 2020 Share Posted August 21, 2020 Wasn't there a thread on here not long ago where some service company went after a customer that was bad mouthing the company . The customer settled for a pretty significant sum . Does anyone else recall that or did I dream it ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis H Posted August 21, 2020 Share Posted August 21, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, Ray Davis said: Wasn't there a thread on here not long ago where some service company went after a customer that was bad mouthing the company . The customer settled for a pretty significant sum . Does anyone else recall that or did I dream it ? That was a different matter altogether. The party in that complaint posted false information and after notice, continued to embellish what happened and was sued for defamation etc. Posting exactly what happened in a specific case cannot be litigated. Further, when a complaint is filed with the State entity, such as the California Bureau of Automotive Repair, BAR, that complaint, investigation and result is kept on file for the offending entity. Additional similar complaints can result in significant penalties for the offending entity......Dennis Edited August 21, 2020 by Dennis H 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dl_racing427 Posted August 22, 2020 Share Posted August 22, 2020 18 hours ago, Dennis H said: That was a different matter altogether. The party in that complaint posted false information and after notice, continued to embellish what happened and was sued for defamation etc. Posting exactly what happened in a specific case cannot be litigated. Further, when a complaint is filed with the State entity, such as the California Bureau of Automotive Repair, BAR, that complaint, investigation and result is kept on file for the offending entity. Additional similar complaints can result in significant penalties for the offending entity......Dennis Anything CAN be litigated. Even if you win, it'll still cost you legal fees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pampero Posted August 24, 2020 Author Share Posted August 24, 2020 On 8/20/2020 at 11:26 PM, Onthego said: After you win in court then you can till all of use to avoid that shop. Correct me if I’m wrong. I didn’t see were you said that you confronted the shop about there bad repair. Hopefully you did, and ask them to correct the problem repairs. Well, Yes I did talk to the shop twice, once because I had to turn around, and the second time when I got home and I found out all the "bad" things he did. He offered some kind of "bring it back", but after I saw his work I will not allow him or his "crew" to put a foot in my RV. As per the Attorgey General, I will sen the shop a letter of complaint; he may consider and give me my money back. But looking at the "rules" I can describe everything they did and just no put their name down. W Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onthego Posted August 24, 2020 Share Posted August 24, 2020 Sound like you have your bases covered Good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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