Any one ever heard of freeway insurance? I can definitely say I've heard of them for many, many years and when you see tons of commercials on popular insurance companies, it automatically creates a sort of kinship of trust. But before I begin my loooong... story, just note that Freeway Insurance is nothing more than a "BROKER" charging people between $380 to $600 for their brokerage fees. Which basically just means they find the insurance company for you. The same way they found me the horrid fraudulant and overpriced insurance company called Anchorgenral.com. They beleive that a 5 second type in their computer sytem is worth you paying them up to $600. LOL, I could of done that myself!
My Story
One day I found myself in a bit of a crunch financially and I had to choose my bills wisely, unfortunately for the time being I had to let a bill or two go for the time being. Well one of those bills was my car insurance. I think many of you can relate that when you are a single women/mom making minimum wage, it's not hard to often find yourself in this position. I'm not gonna lie and say this had never happened before. In my 50 some years of life and struggling, I had to switch out insurance companies many times throughout a lifetime. However, this time my last insurance just decided to blow the whistle on me and call up the dmv to tell them "Hey" reagan has no insurance. So this put me into another bit of a crunch. I mean, it is what it is. So I only had a short amount of time to find anther insurance company before I found myself in real trouble, so I went online and filled out some questionnaires. What happended was, literally not even 5 minutes had passed and I received a call from no other than freeway insurance. In my mind of course I was thinking, wow, this is great! I can do this and be done with it quickly.
Freeway insurance was able to give me a quote over the phone for $85 upfront. I had then told them well you see I only have $5o on me at that time and reminded them that all the other insurance companies I've dealt with don't usually come with an upfront fee due to my age, my driving record, the age of my car and the fact that I am only requesting liability. So in any case the women said, I''ll tell you what, you bring what you have in your pocket and we will take that, no problem. I said great! I'll be there tomorrow morning. Well showing up there was fine. They had seemed to be very polite, very cordial and even funny and personable. I was at ease thinking this is great. It's one less thing to worry about. So my friend and I sat there for 45 minutes or so chit hatting with the lady as I'm filling out the papers and what not and a little towards the end I go to hand her the $50 I was told to bring, so the women at the desk said oh no, it was $85 upfront. I then told her the women on the phone quoted me to bring in what ever I had on me which was $50. She looks at me and says, oh no, we don't do qoutes over the phone and the lady you spoke to is not here. I said, well, she gave me a quote and did not mention this to me. She said well, it's true. So She then said it is going to be the entire $85, I looked at my friend and said well I'm already half way done here so I guess I'll have to borrow the other $35 from my friend sitting there with me and just get over it. About 5 minutes later she says oh by the way, we are going to need another $280 towards the down. We will give you 2 weeks to come up with it so no worries. I said HUH? First I was told it would be $50 (or whatever I had on hand, the first quote was $85, now you're telling me the entire down is going to be $360? I said for what??? I mean this was insane and the entire meeting was set up on lie just to get me there and waste an hour in a half of my time. The friend that I had dragged along with me was my ride and he was already late for work, I could not drag him through another minute much less day fo this since I was with no insurance to drive.
So then this woman assured me that I could make payments, they would not start for 2 weeks and she said even if it took 3 months I could take as long as I want, no rush and they would not close my account.
Instead of making my friend go through anymore lateness to his work and wasting anymore of his time or my time, I agreed very unhappily.
THE LIES FROM FREEWAY CONTINUES..
Next lie comes shortly after. Then the freeway insurance broker asks how I want to pay these fees per month? by credit card, or by mail or direct deposit? I said I do NOT want to use my credit card at all. This will be check by mail. She agrees and says no worries. Less than 5 minutes later she asks for my debit card. I said why do you need my card? you said I would never have to pay through the card? She said, oh no this is just for verification and I promise you, we will NEVER (quote) use it for anything else or EVER take money out of it. I said you are sure? She said Yes, you will never have to worry about that. This is only to verify your information. We do not use these cards ever. So I said ok and I reminded her that I would never have the money in that card to pay it.
ONE WEEK LATER....
Now remember in the previous paragraph where the the lady told me I could begin making payments on the $280 additional down payment little by little starting in 2 weeks from the time I was there? Well within ONLY 1 week I was getting notices from my bank that these people were trying to debit my credit card for the ENTIRE $280. YES!!! This is right after the broker has specifically PROMISED me they ONLY needed the card for verification purposed and how they would NEVER take out anything from my card.
The lies were just adding up like HOTCAKES. So I then called the freeway office and they refused to deal with me on the phone about it. They insisted I walk in. So I did. The lazy I talked to this time was someone new and the lady who signed me up was not there. I asked this women WHY in the world are you guys trying to take the entire amount out of my card, first of all knowing I do not have it in that card, secondly you guys PROMISED you only wanted it for verification purposes and THIRDLY you guys said I would not even begin to get a bill for 2 weeks. It's barely going on one. I told her I was also told that you guys would give me mutiple weeks to pay it off in small increments. So I asked here nicely if she could please stop debititng my account.. Her answer to this was, oh well if you don't have the money in there, then you don't have to worry. But as far as stopping it, I can't. It will just keep trying to take out money until you pay the entire thing off. So I saw yet again there was nothing I could do so I had to just deal with it .
3 DAYS LATER...
So about 3 days later I received a letter from freeway insurance stating that I owed $280 and it was now dilinquent and they were going to put this on my credit report. After this I had had it! I went in the office with my friend, we went straight to the manager named ( ) and told him what was going on. He had this little side kick smart allec guy sitting next to him and his little buddy's answer to me was ,you should of read the fine print. So our answer to that was, well we were going by what your staff was telling us. And so we asked him, are you saying that anything your staff tells us cannot be accounted for? That we shouls expect that anything coming out of their mouths are lies? Because we were specifically going by what we were being told. With further smerks, the main manger said "What do you want me to do about it"? We said, well you could take to your staff and confront them on these lies we were being told for a start. He then wanted to take no reliablity for what they told us, he was extremely aggressive, had a bad attitude and his partment was gigling telling us it is our fault for not reading the fine print. so my friend then asked himthis, so are you telling us that anytime we come in here to talk to your staff we should bring a lawyer just in case you are lying? Should we everyone have a lawyer so they don't get scammed as we did? The friend laughed the etire time, completely unprofessional to the point where my friend was upset. Let it be know this was not a big cursing match going on, however, the manager decided he no longer could help or wanted to help and no longer wanted to deal with this matter so he kicked us out of his offfice.We were noth apalled.
TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT
We then later contacted their office and threatened to report them to the board of insurance. And literally you could hear the fight in their voice. I got a call not even 5 minutes later from the original girl that signed me up, BEGGING for us not to report them. She said she would waive the entire fee. So we agreed. The letter funny enough was ready to go and we had already actually tired to send it out right before her begging momnet but something went wrong with the computer and it never got sent. (Lucky for them).
Ihad also made a cal to the freeway head office and the guy there pormised tha the manager would be punisged for his actions (Yeah right) and he also promised that we would NEVER hear from freeway again. They would never again sent up any ype of letter much less a credit report threat letter. BTW an insurance company CANNOT put it on your credit report FWI. So always be aware of that. Even the main office main acknowledged that.
FREEWAY & ANCHORGENERAL AFTERMATH....
So after a couple months had passed, I suppose the jerk off manager wanted some type of revenge for them losing their broekrage fee so they have sent me threatening letters of my insurance being dropped for 2 years STRAIGHT. And EVERY YEAR Anvchor General has raised my bill little by little about $25. I have NO tickes, NO accidents, In my 50's, My car is OLD, and I only use liability. I told them also aboutt he freeway letters each month although I have NEVER been late on my insurance the entrie 2 years they could not care less!! They are scumbags. you know the old saying... Birds of a feather...
Here is a picture of the letter from Freeway Threats I have received EVERY MONTH for 2 years
THE GREATEST OUTCOME OF IT ALL..............
I finally said SCREW ANCHOR GENERAL AND THEIR $65 A MONTH LIABILITY CRAP with horrible coverage and went with Geico. My insurance is now only $42 a month with NO DOWN PAYMENT REQUIRED!!PLUS: Geico includes side of the road assistance,a rental car, way more coverage, cyclist coverage ande EVERYTHING Anchor General Does NOT! Look up www.anchorgeneral.com complaints same with freeway. That is the only way you will find the truth.
INTERNET MARKETING SCAMS USED BY INSURANCE COMPANIES
Big insurance scams make so much money, they hire a service called www.reputation.com which hides all the complaints so you will ONLY find them under specific keywords. The keyword to use behind ANY company to find out the TRUTH is either "Scam" or "Complaint".
