Quote From: maxcapI am so happy that Dr. Phil and his team stepped in to help these people! It is hard to know where to turn when you are in trouble, then it's even worse when you are given hope from a crook(s) just to have them make off with what little you have left or sometimes more of your future income or as I am experiancing...preventing you from working at all!
Warranty companies can do the samething those crooked contractors did! I had an older S.U.V. that the repair was more than I could afford (a front diferental, $1300) and it seemed logical to get into an economical newer used car with fewer miles than repair the older S.U.V. with all the gas expense.
I am in sales & must drive alot, a new car was not a practical decission for me because of the high milage I put on these cars. I went 6 weeks stranded, with out work trying to come up with money with no way to get it. We're a 2 income family. We used every penny we could for a down payment on a "good" used 1999 Ford Taurus at a small used car lot in Emory TX.
We had our own mechanic look over the car. It was noted the fluids were normal colors and he thought the car seemed solid.
We needed a car really badly to get both of us on the road again. This was survival! I agreed to make payments every 2 weeks knowing it would be tight for the next 7 months, but it felt better to do that than be strapped on a new car payment for years. I agreed that part of the 7 months would be to cover a "GOLD" ($500+ we added to the finacing!) warranty with Penn Warranty Corparation.
I was told by the car lot owner, Penn Warranty Corparation was a great company they had used for thier customers for years and would protect me from future car break downs like the one I was coming out of. They (Penn) would provide me a rental car if I should break down so I could work! He just knew how hard the last few months had been for me being stranded. HA! Big mistake! I was a fool!
After having the car ONLY 2 WEEKS and at least 100 miles from home this car began to miss, and run rough with the warning light on! A call was made to the car lot, with out any offer of help or advise, my fiance took the car to a garage, just making it there as it was starting to over heat!. A test of the coolant was made, it had turned brown instead of the green it was a few weeks ago. It was found to be a blown head gasket. But of course we had that "Gold" contract from Penn Warrany Corparation to fall back on. NOT!
The Penn Warranty office had the mechanic send a statement of what "he thought" the problem was...but warned him not to do any work or taking apart anything. His "guess" was a thermostat. Then the company gave permission for him to take the engine apart. When asked about a rental car so we could still work, we were told that the engine being taken apart was not the repair! That it was diagonostic and the repair for this would only be a few hours, not long enough to be given a rental car! They didn't even send an inspector out to see my car!
This has been going on for FOUR WEEKS now and the car is torn into peices and the work is not authorised after daily calls to Penn Warranty offices. The mechanics at several shops have said taking apart of an engine is REPAIRING it. Also the mechanic that has our car said he has worked on 4 90's Ford Taurras this year for the same problem and its pretty common and shouldn't be causing this big of a deal!
Penn Warranty Corparation has ignored notes faxed by the mechanic telling them the cause was NOT the thermostat. After he got permission from Penn to take the car apart
a test was made of the thermostat in boiling water by the mechanic which proved to him the thermostat did not cause this malfunction. The thermostat is a $5 part! The coolant had exhaust leaking into it and Penn Warranty says they cover damage due to leaks.
They just are dodging this and have been rude to the mechanic when he tries to talk to them. The job with heads reground would be about $1000. The other items found and on the bill brings it to about $1300 (gee thats almost the same amount my S.U.V. repair would have been!)
Penn Warranty Corparation managers have told us to get a lawyer. We called the car lot owner, he is siding with the Penn Warranty Corparation (after all they pay him to sell these fraudulant warranties!) They even skipped 3 chains of command according to thier "Gold" contract and sent us from customer service straight to dispute with out an inspector to look at our car! We are being called liars and accused of trying to pull a fast one! I just need a way to work again, thats all I want. I even asked the car lot owner for a "loaner" car from thier lot since Penn Warranty wouldn't provide me a rental car in the past 4 weeks. The one they offered wouldn't even start, the seat was broken and who knows what else would have been wrong with it that we would have been held responsible for! My fiance just walked away laughing at what a Cracker Jack outfit this place in Emory TX. is!
The car lot owner knows I have need for a car to work in order to pay him plus my other bills like rent! I have missed another 3 weeks going into 4 with out work. He is threatening to reposess the car (in parts at the garage!) and part of the work being adressed in our claim he admits to knowing about before we bought the car! He said he can fix this for under $600. Thats with out the issues he admits to knowing about and with out adding the towing and he admits the job would be from someone owing him a "favor"!
I don't have any buddies owning me favors so I am trying my best to work with the mechanic, pay the creep of a car lot owner, and I will let every one know what scammers Penn Warranty Corparation is and I base my opinions on the Googling I have done today as well as my own sorry experiance with them!
Thank you Dr. Phil for helping so many people and exposing crooks for what they do who and they are!
I to bought a 95 Ford Taurus in Jan. '04'. Against my better judgement I paid an extra $600.00 for a warranty but can't remember the name. The couple who took me car shopping after me talking to many dealers told me after I got back out to their car that usually those warranties aren't worth the paper they are written on. But I was glad part of the transmission was covered since that is what went wrong with my ' 91' Mazda protegle` after 350,000 miles. It served me well, but had so many things wrong that the transmission guy said it wasn't worth fixing. So I had to depend on other people to take me car shopping. The dealer said his mother owned the car and just wanted another car. We found it was owned by her and another man in a town about 45 miles away. I ignored that too. 9 months later the radiator blew and like you I called the warranity place and they didn't cover that. If I took it to one of two places they might find something which might be covered. Well that meant towing which they didn't cover and both were in bad neighborhoods. I had it fixed for about $500.00 which my Mom paid. She was living with me at the time. Last July ' 06 ' white smoke started coming out around the hood at a stop light. I got scared and popped the hood to let it out faster then the light turned green so I put on the emergency lights and was afraid it would catch on fire. I got out and a sheriff was behind me. Thank God. He directed the traffic while 4 super men got my car over to a convience store. The sheriff even had a female sherrif take me home which was almost 25 miles. I had just let off my son whose Honda was in the shop. so noone to take me home. Not many sherrif's do that anymore. I had my daughter-in-law use her mother's car to take me back and I took it to a mechanic nearby. He put in another radiator. Then the next day as my Mom and I were in a drive thru at a bank and the windows down b/c the A/C didn't work. All of a sudden water and coolant splashed out of the hood and went all over my Mom's arm and the door. I got out of line and parked. the bank let me use an office to make 4 phone calls- one to the mechanic, one to a towing comnpany close to the mechanic and one for a taxi and one to see ifa neighbor could take us home to save on a taxi but they weren't home. Two days later the mechanic called and said the thermostat was stuck just like yours. It was more money and I gave a neighbor a good deal of money b/c she drove me all that way in her SUV when gas was about $3.00 a gallon and I know SUV's take alot of gas. Then when we got there he said they turned on my car and let it idle just to make sure it was ok and it over heated real quick. This time it was the radiator fan and that's why my A/C didn't work. I got up there somehow the next day and it was suppose to take just an hour. I'm on oxygen 20-24 hours it turned into almost 3 hours. The main mechanic finally came over and I asked what was taking so long and he said they had to go somewhere else and get a plastic piece that went somewhere on or around or near the radiator fan b/c the car was 11 years old the plastic piece was brittle. Well thank you for telling me 3 hours later and I'm doing deep breathing trying to stay calm so I wouldn't use oxygen I didn't have. At least it was a well furnished garage with 4 mechanics so they were faster than one by himself. I had to charge about $650.00 on a major credit card to get it fixed. including the A/C. I've since cut up my credit cards. Said I would ride the bus. Big Joke! My son is going thru about the same thing as you and it's been 4 months and the man doing as a favor still hasn't gotten it fixed and now the steering column on my Ford has another " common" problem. The gear shift lever will only start when you turn it as far on as the lights then switch it from drive to nuetral and keep playing with it till it starts. A man my son knows that is different from the one that has his car said I could get anoter steering column from a junk yard for $50-75.00 and he would take the old one off and put another one on for $50-75. I feel like I'm putting in good money after bad. Please people don't buy those warranties from used car lots. They only cover things that never go bad. I wonder if the salesmen get a commission form selling them. I bet they do!
First, they lost their belongings in Hurricane Katrina, then, these guests say they paid thousands of dollars to a construction company that never made good on contracts to repair their homes. Seventy-eight-year-old Marion says she paid $4,000 to contractors who took her money and ran. Lena, 74, says she lost $29,000 to the same company. Julie and Robert say they paid the same contractors almost $50,000, and Lenny, 83, says he was taken for almost twice that amount. Does one of the contractors take responsibility in a phone showdown with Dr. Phil? Plus, Dr. Phil teams up with some special guests to give the hurricane survivors a few surprises. Talk about the show here.
