Its been a while since we had some of my quality artwork, and since I came to the end of my rope this morning about how bad these creepy windshield stalkers are I figured a visual will help get the point across of why not to use these types of shops.
Most of these scenarios start when you are doing a regular errand, such as going to the grocery store or the car wash. These people will literally break your windshield so they can get a commission for having it replaced. You see, most of the time they aren’t even employed by the company they say they work for. They’re an “independent contractor” out to make some cash by getting a commission to replace your windshield. They make a business of being in the right place at the right time.
Our crack investigative team has discovered that windshields don’t just break themselves when these people are around. We have received reports about people breaking windshields just to get a $25 commission. Please read our “based on true events” dramatization to see how easy it is to get duped.
Here we have poor unsuspecting Gomez enjoying a nice car wash. Little does he know that a creepy windshield stalker is just waiting under a rock to pop out and cause havoc!
As soon as you try to leave the creepy windshield stalker jumps out and tells you something scary that makes you stop. I imagine it like my next fine drawing.
At this point, many people will stop and see what this crazy person is talking about. They will tell a potential customer anything, make up fake laws, tell them lies about windshield safety, anything to make a sale.
This creepy windshield stalker will sweet talk these poor unsuspecting customers until they get their way. Many people think it’s free, and don’t see that these creeps are calling their insurance companies. These companies are very crafty and have each of these “independent” contractors sign a waiver for each claim they pull in stating that they are liable if the claim is found to be fraudulent. Any company that makes each of their “employees” sign a waiver for each claim they produce is BAD NEWS. If they company will not stand behind their employees, will they stand behind their repair?
If I had it my way, we could have TG, the TeleNinja, go out and put a stop to these people before they rake in another unsuspecting consumer. Until that day happens, be careful of these people and always protect yourself from windshield and auto glass fraud.
Read more from
Rachel Letourneau.
System Process Manager, Rachel has been with Teleglass for five years. In addition to making a mean birthday cake, Rachel has an extensive grasp of the auto glass business. Find her on Twitter:
@rachelcrocker.
Tagged as:
Creepy Windshield Stalker
Hey, folks, time for another update on the state pages. This time, it’s for people who need a windshield in Alaska.
That was the view from Wonderlane’s hotel on Christmas Eve, 2008. The photo is of the beautiful Chugach Range Mountains. If you look at our Alaska autoglass page, this is how our version ended up:
This is one of my favorites so far. Wonderlane – thank you for sharing!
Read more from
Rachel Letourneau.
System Process Manager, Rachel has been with Teleglass for five years. In addition to making a mean birthday cake, Rachel has an extensive grasp of the auto glass business. Find her on Twitter:
@rachelcrocker.
Tagged as:
Alaska
Today we’re updating the Vermont windshield page. Here’s the original photo:
Click the photo to view walknboston’s pictures on Flickr. This one is of Mount Abraham, and we found it a perfect fit for our Vermont auto glass page. We really had very little to do to make this great panoramic shot work for the web site; here’s what it looks like post-crop:
Thanks very much, walknboston!
Read more from
Rachel Letourneau.
System Process Manager, Rachel has been with Teleglass for five years. In addition to making a mean birthday cake, Rachel has an extensive grasp of the auto glass business. Find her on Twitter:
@rachelcrocker.
Tagged as:
Vermont
I recently posted a blog about how a particular auto glass company is going around the parking lots in search of windshield replacements. When they came to our door we sent them packing. We discovered that someone at our neighboring business was not so lucky. We nabbed these photos just a few minutes ago of what a non-qualified auto glass technician looks like on the job, a real life example of a creepy windshield stalker.
1. It is clearly raining out, so he put up a tent in an attempt to keep the job dry, however, he had the glass in the rain and never dried it off. Also, you can’t see from this photo we snapped in our covert operation, but he has no gloves on and has put his hands in the urethane.
2. I like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones as much as the next guy, but this fellow is supposed to be replacing a windshield, not replacing mic’s as a roadie.
3. Cleanliness is next to godliness, or not if you are a windshield stalker.
4. I wanted to call this company and tell them what they are doing is unsafe, however, when you are too afraid to put your name on the side of the van, your uniform, and leave no record of who or what you are, probably due to the horrible installation I just witnessed, what can you do?
This is what happens when you use an unqualified shop to do your windshield replacement, or windshield repair. They do the work in adverse conditions, handle materials poorly, and ultimately will be held liable if this customer is seriously injured in an accident. Don’t put yourself at risk by using one of these creepy companies. Make sure you use a quality company with an excellent reputation before you go with the convience of a door to door windshield salesman.
Read more from
Rachel Letourneau.
System Process Manager, Rachel has been with Teleglass for five years. In addition to making a mean birthday cake, Rachel has an extensive grasp of the auto glass business. Find her on Twitter:
@rachelcrocker.
Tagged as:
Creepy Windshield Stalker,
windshield replacement
Today started like any other Monday, until just moments ago, we caught a glimpse of a real life creepy windshield stalker. The scary part was that this fellow looked like any other auto glass tech out there.
Believe it or not, TeleGlass was the intended target of one of the creepy windshield stalkers! Let me explain.
Our building displays the name of our parent company TGSC Services Group on the awning in the front of our building in Burlington, MA. So a not so savvy creepy windshield stalker might not have known right away that we process auto glass orders and auto glass claims in this facility. He also might not know that their auto glass company is on our Fraud Squad’s radar for questionable sales practices and for attempting to file fraudulent auto glass claims. I will call him John Doe for the purposes of this blog, but here is what happened.
One of my accountants who was sitting out in our reception area stated a man walked into our office saying, “Hi I am John Doe from XXX Auto Glass, just checking to see if anyone here needs a windshield repair or windshield replacement.” Honestly, the nerve of this man! Does he not know that people and companies like him are causing rates to go up from coast to coast? My accountant told him to hit the trails and go back to where he came from and that if we need auto glass we will use someone who has a good reputation, not someone who ends up on our fraud list.
Beware of these auto glass companies and remember,
- If they say it is FREE then they don’t need your insurance information.
- A good auto glass company does not need to resort to slimy sales tactics, like bombarding customers at work, the car wash, or at the gas station.
- If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
If you feel like you are being pressured by one of these sales people, let your insurance company know so they can keep track of these shops and as always, if you need a quality auto glass shop, TeleGlass can help you with that.
Read more from
Rachel Letourneau.
System Process Manager, Rachel has been with Teleglass for five years. In addition to making a mean birthday cake, Rachel has an extensive grasp of the auto glass business. Find her on Twitter:
@rachelcrocker.
Tagged as:
auto glass Fraud,
Creepy Windshield Stalker
Today’s Ask TeleGlass question was not asked by one specific person, it is however a question we are asked constantly by consumers. “If a windshield is not cracked, not chipped, but has tiny pits all over the windshield, is that something that is covered by insurance?”
The short answer to this question is that each insurance company has their own criteria as to what they will cover and you would be best off checking with your insurance carrier to answer this question.
The licensed insurance adjuster in me would tell you that your comprehensive insurance coverage (which is where your auto glass coverage lives) covers the auto glass when it is broken. In a nut shell, your insurance company insures you against things out of the normal course of events with your vehicle, and the insurance company would make your vehicle whole again after a loss. For example, some crazy kids go and vandalize your vehicle and break your door glass and you have comprehensive coverage, well that is covered. You didn’t plan on that happening, and there was nothing you could have done differently to prevent this from happening.
A pitted windshield however, is one of those things that does not happen overnight. Pitted windshields, or sandblasted windshields, look like little diamond specks all over the windshield, especially when it is sunny out. Pitted windshields occur over time and are often considered normal wear and tear on the vehicle. For insurance coverage, you can view a pitted windshield like you view rust on a vehicle. Rust on a vehicle is an occurrence that can happen over the life of your vehicle, and rust is something that would not be covered under your insurance as it is normal wear and tear on a vehicle.
Even though pitted windshields are often considered wear and tear on a vehicle, at TeleGlass we can still help you replace that windshield by providing you with a great price and a quality shop to get that windshield replaced.
Read more from
Rachel Letourneau.
System Process Manager, Rachel has been with Teleglass for five years. In addition to making a mean birthday cake, Rachel has an extensive grasp of the auto glass business. Find her on Twitter:
@rachelcrocker.
Tagged as:
Insurance,
Pitted Windshield,
Windshield
Attention all auto glass people! As many of you know I write a particular line of blogs surrounding TG, the TeleNinja and the crazy auto glass shenanigans he gets into with his group of friends. I take a photo I have found and create an alternate version as to what caused the vehicle in the photograph to have such an unfortunate auto glass breakage.
I am looking for photos of strange and unusual ways for auto glass to have broken and the best ones will have a TeleNinja blog written about them. Send your crazy photos to rletourneau@teleglass.com and we will get working on those crazy stories!
Read more from
Rachel Letourneau.
System Process Manager, Rachel has been with Teleglass for five years. In addition to making a mean birthday cake, Rachel has an extensive grasp of the auto glass business. Find her on Twitter:
@rachelcrocker.
I am always looking for a unique windshield situation, and today I found the mother load! I discovered a curious story about a rash of windshield damage that went through Washington state in 1954. The story goes that people started to noticing that their windshields were chipped, and small pits appeared on their vehicles over night. Not to uncommon, but then people across several counties noticed their cars also had curious windshield damage, and by the end, 3,000 people stated they had windshield damage.
The article found on History Link stated “Initially thought to be the work of vandals, the pitting rate grows so quickly that panicked residents soon suspect everything from cosmic rays to sand-flea eggs to fallout from H-bomb tests.”
The craziest thing I read in this story is that people thought that bugs were laying eggs in the windshield and they were all hatching at the same time. How crazy is that?!
So what was the mysterious cause of all the mysterious windshield damage in 1954 Washington? Aliens? H-bombs? Turned out to be a big heap of nothing!
It was determined that the folks up in Washington suffered from mass hysteria and that the windshields were chipped and pitted from normal events, but that collectively, everyone seemed to notice all at once and went a little crazy about it.
For everyone out there with chips on their windshields, instead of going crazy and hysterical thinking an alien chipped your windshield, let us help you repair those chips. And who knows, perhaps we shall hear from the windshield chipping alien in the future…
Read more from
Rachel Letourneau.
System Process Manager, Rachel has been with Teleglass for five years. In addition to making a mean birthday cake, Rachel has an extensive grasp of the auto glass business. Find her on Twitter:
@rachelcrocker.
Tagged as:
Pitted Windshield,
Washington,
Windshield,
Windshield Alien
We recently heard a story from a very upset insurance customer of ours stating that a car wash in Colorado is telling people that the state of Colorado provides free windshield chip repairs. Sound maybe too good to be true? Sound a little fishy? Well it is!
This is a case of a creepy windshield repair stalker. We’ve blogged about the creepy windshield stalkers out there, and now we want to make everyone aware of the latest windshield repair (cough) “sales technique” going on.
If you read our blog you have seen how much we talk about safety and quality. You’ve read about how to research the integrity of the service people who fix windshields, and this is another case where we need to warn everyone to be extra careful.
That doesn’t mean that the customers of this glass company car wash might not end up having a windshield repair with no out of pocket costs. It’s possible, but it’s still not free. Your insurance company pays. You might say to yourself, “I pay the premiums, so I deserve a windshield repair!” No argument here! Where you do need to be careful is in the selection of who does the windshield repair. A creepy windshield stalker might charge your insurance company more than a reputable provider does. If that happens, the insurance company adds it to their data base of claims. When it comes time to reassess their rates, they look at all the claims they pay. If they are paying more than they have to, so will their customers. They have these super smart geeky math types who work there called “actuaries,” and it is the actuaries’ job to make sure that the rates the company charges will pay for all the claims. In the end – it’s the policy holder who pays. Every time.
Remember folks, nothing is free. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If you want a quality windshield repair, do not use one of the fly by night companies that promise you something free. Use a quality provider and let TeleGlass help you book that repair with confidence you can trust.
Read more from
Rachel Letourneau.
System Process Manager, Rachel has been with Teleglass for five years. In addition to making a mean birthday cake, Rachel has an extensive grasp of the auto glass business. Find her on Twitter:
@rachelcrocker.
Tagged as:
Creepy Windshield Stalker,
windshield repair
At TeleGlass, we process so many auto glass repairs that I wanted to touch on some of the more unique auto glass repairs; classic cars and their glass.
With TeleGlass’ experience, we know many vendors who handle classic and obsolete auto glass parts. This comes in handy when you have a customer with a 1934 Ford Sedan, or a 1954 Packard Convertible with a broken windshield.
What makes a vehicle a classic? That truly depends on who you ask. Some will tell you that a vehicle is an instant classic if the public considers the vehicle to be “collectible.” Some will tell you it depends on the age of the vehicle. When it comes to autoglass, here at TeleGlass a classic car is one that is either older than 20 years old, in mint condition, or a vehicle that was produced in small quantities. For example, the 1934 Ford Sedan had less than 10,000 produced and can fit all three criteria.
[click to continue…]
Read more from
Rachel Letourneau.
System Process Manager, Rachel has been with Teleglass for five years. In addition to making a mean birthday cake, Rachel has an extensive grasp of the auto glass business. Find her on Twitter:
@rachelcrocker.
Tagged as:
Classic,
Repair
