Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  01/16/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  9/5/22 I spoke with ************* from Diminished Value of Oregon about filing a claim for my vehicle's diminished value after my car was hit by a school bus. *** had me pay $299; after that, he was **** After reaching out to him multiple times (and threatening to go to BBB) via text, email, and phone calls, he finally responded on 11-21-22, telling me he was out of town testifying on a court case. He told me he would be back in a few days and would follow up. I have not heard from him again. He will not answer my calls, emails, or texts. Yet still has my money.

  Business response

  01/19/2023

  I sincerely apologize to the client for not receiving a callback and appraisal as expected. There was possibly a problem with her receiving her appraisal on December 6, 2022 due to the email we had on file going to a school's dot EDU address, which can sometimes have a firewall in place to prevent larger files or multiple files that *** be malicious. The phone number we had listed went directly to her school's main line. The client did call twice on October 23rd, 2022 when we initiated the appraisal, and again on November 19th when I responded on November 21st - unfortunately I was out of town at this time testifying. According to my CRM, I did leave a message, but don't know if she received it and never heard from her after that time that I can find in our records.
  
  The cause for the delay in completing the appraisal until December 6th was mainly due to lack of documentation of mileage at the time of loss; however, this is not my fault but rather an issue with the auto body shop and adjuster for not documenting the miles as they are required to when they produced the official documentation. I was eventually able to obtain a photo of such information to allow for completion.
  
  The extra delay in completing the appraisal was due to the fact that it had been a few months since the loss occurred, making it difficult to develop an accurate value based on the time of loss. Moreover, due to the volatile market and unprecedented fluctuations in values which we have been facing, I could not simply rush through this process like many companies *** do. Instead, I take great care in ensuring that all documentation is precise and properly put together as this is fundamental for your claim.
  
  As for the threat of going to BBB without any prior contact from us regarding such an issue, I do not recall it ever being mentioned before. It would've certainly been helpful if she had contacted me directly by phone or text as she had done previously regarding non-receipt of appraisal instead of going straight away to submit a complaint at BBB.
  
  I have since reached out to the client and sent all documents related via her Gmail account which she has already confirmed receipt of them.

• Initial Complaint

  10/24/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I paid ************* for a total loss appraisal after my vehicle was deemed totalled. I paid *** $500 to do the appraisal on 12/17/21. *** told me he ran into some hiccups and was working on my claim, but after 7 months of excuses *** stopped returning texts. According to his terms and conditions I sent him an email trying to resolve this, after 4 weeks and no response I sent the email again. Once again I received no response. *** has a clause in his terms and conditions that does not allow you to file a dispute with your credit card company. I paid *** the day he sent the request for payment, he has given me every excuse in the book as to why he had not been able to resolve it in a timely manner. He told me originally this was a quick process, well it's been over 10 months and now he has become unresponsive. I tried to resolve this the easy way with no luck so now I am filing a complaint with the bbb in hopes that they can help me before having to discuss alternative options. At this point I just want my money refunded and for the bbb to be aware that this is how *** is doing business.

  Business response

  10/28/2022

  We did miss his emails on September 20th and October ************************************************** the invoice that the client initially received. This is not the normal email that we normally use to communicate with clients. It was replaced with a different email approximately a week after the invoice was initially issued.

   

  This is a total loss claim, and the client hired me to produce an appraisal under his appraisal clause in his insurance policy. The client's insurance company refused to move forward with the appraisal clause which under Oregon law they can do. I was initially told  by the client's insurance company that this was a 3rd party claim and not a policy claim.

   

  It turned out that the client's insurance company was actually a subsidiary of the PARENT insurance company that was handling the claim. The confusion was over the subsidiary insurance company which the policy was under, providing a different claim number than the parent company that was handling the claim.

   

  I reached out to the ******************************** aka ********************************************, they stated that, "A court case called Molodyh ** Farmers is definitely that mutual agreement is required for any dispute resolution process, including the appraisal clause. In addition, Bulletin 2020-1 states that mandatory arbitration will not be permitted in insurance policies. This applies to the appraisal clause as well, and is applicable on both sides. Both the insurer and the insured HAVE TO AGREE for an appraisal process to occur. The client's company would not agree to appraisal clause.

   

  It took me a few days to respond to this complaint as I've been on the phone with the client's insurance company for literally hours over the past few days trying to sort this out. I found the actual reason the client's insurance company wouldn't work with me was because the client had hired an attorney on his personal injury claim and the attorney's letter of representation overruled my letter of representation because he's an attorney, and I'm just an *************** ********* companies are normally only allowed to communicate through that attorney once they have received documentation that an attorney is representing the claimant.
  

   

  I have the client's claim back on track and the client's insurance company has hired an appraisal company for me to negotiate the claim. When an attorney is involved in a claim, it's the attorney's responsibility to know everyone involved and to inform the insurance company they can work with our company. I was never informed the client had retained an attorney that was representing him.

   

  Unfortunately, out of sheer bad luck, the client reached out to the one bad email in a single document. Although I take full responsibility for this miscommunication, we do have multiple safe guards in place to prevent this type of thing from happening. Mainly, our main phone line is answered 24/7, 365 days a year. Our main email address is set up to redundantly inform us repeatedly even after it has been answered to prevent someone from accidentally falling through the cracks. I do provide my cell phone number and allow texts, but clients are informed that this is not for any official use, and to use our main phone line or main email address for any official communication. 

  The problem has been resolved and we expect the claim to be resolved quickly.
  

   

   

   

   

  Customer response

  11/03/2022

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. Through this process we determined there was a hole in the communication system, *** sent me screenshots to prove his response was valid. I have decided to have *** see this process through because I feel he is skilled in his field and will do a good job negotiating the claim. I hope the discovery of the communication gap will help improve the process for his future clients. On my end he made me aware of the better channels to communicate with him so that nothing gets missed. I will send an update as well as a review once this is fully resolved because I feel this was an honest mistake and want people to understand the results he can get when working on a diminished Value or total loss claim. 
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***************************

• Initial Complaint

  05/15/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I contracted Diminished Value of Oregon for an estimate of Diminished Value on my 2018 Tesla Model 3 that had been in an accident. The appointment was on 4/7/2022 at 4PM at his business address. *************, the business owner promised an estimate to be completed on 4/15/22. He did not provide an estimate at that time, promised it a week later. I have contacted him multiple times without a completed document that I paid $750 for. I attempted to contest the charge to my credit card in early May, but was unsuccessful.I believe that I am either owed my money back, or a completed estimate as promised.

  Business response

  05/17/2022

  As soon as I received this complaint, I reached out to the client since the appraisal was sent back in April. FYI, lately it isn't business as usual and appraisals are taking a lot longer than usual. With the appreciation of used car values, which is unprecedented, we've received countless new objections by insurance companies. Some logical, and some completely dumb. The main objection I'm seeing is that since the vehicle has increased in value, there shouldn't be any diminished value. But, since diminished value is based on the date of loss, and is a rapid depreciation in value that occurs within seconds, even a large increase in value doesn't offset the diminished value. Let's say a vehicle has appreciated $20,000 over 6 months. Not many vehicles have done that, but I just want to show how ridiculous the insurance companies' claims are. $20,000 divided by 6 = $3,333.33. Divided by an average of 30 days = ******. Now, Inherent Diminished Value is based on the value of the vehicle one second before the collision and one second after with the assumption that the vehicle has been completely brought back to 100% pre-loss condition. So, that would mean that a $20k increase over 6 months in relationship to the date of loss and the claim would have a maximum effect of about $****** for the day, or less than 7 cents if you based it on an hour. But, remember, Diminished Value occurred in approximately 3 seconds. So, that is the weird objections it's taking time to over come. Most appraisers who do DV are just hoping that you get their assessments quickly and you'll be happy with them. But, I think it's all about making sure I do my job well enough that my client gets paid.

  In ************************ case, During the research part of the appraisal I found that there had been two previous insurance claims on his Tesla. The first one was a glass claim and the second was a minor fender ****** where the bumper cover was damaged. So, I had to do additional research to determine the residual diminished value the vehicle had, so I could determine the Pre-loss value and in turn determine the Diminished Value. Seems complicated? It is. That's why most appraisers don't bother taking the time to do due diligence. It cuts into their bottom line. It did take longer for me to complete the appraisal, but it is a very credible appraisal because I didn't rush to ************ up and send it. I did the work I was hired for.

  As to communication. I have an answering service that is available 24/7. And I usually answer my cell phone or reply by text immediately if I can. ******************** had not contacted us before filing a complaint to let me know. I am a one man show. I don't have a large staff like many of the large appraisal companies out there and it sometimes takes me a while to get back to a client. But, the quality of my product is like purchasing a ******** **** S-class compared to a Pointiac Fiero from the high volume appraisal companies. Which appraisal would you pay if you were an insurance company? One that is 77 pages long (that's how long this appraisal was), answers the questions why there is a loss, provides evidence to the fact, and where the appraiser took the time to do due diligence? Or a high volume generic diminished value assessment?
  

  Customer response

  05/18/2022

  Withdrawn by the complainant as this was entered in error. Diminished Value of Oregon has sent the required files, but the email was rejected by my email server due to its size. I should have attempted to contact *************, the owner before submitting the complaint. Upon discovery of the issue, *** rectified the problem within an hour and provided proof that the report had been sent per commitment.

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩