Laura
11-09-2007, 05:14 PM
A few weeks ago our garage was broken into. We live in an urban area, so we have an alley, and according to the police officer that did the report, people can rig garage-door openers (specifically a certain kind of Craftsman opener from Sears) so that they can drive up and down the alleys attempting to open the doors. If they get lucky, one opens, and they park their van right up next to the open garage door and loot it.
Well, they unfortunately got lucky with us, really lucky in fact, as my husband had thousands of dollars of mechanic tools stored in our garage. They took about $2500 worth, strangely leaving my new Trek bike, but grabbing as many of his tools as they could before a neighbor apparently saw them, thought it was suspicious and said something or just watched them for a while, and apparently the guys freaked out, closed the door and drove off. The neighbor got the license plate of the thieves, but I'm guessing nothing came of that, because the police haven't gotten back to us.
So.... we got a police report and everything, and after talking to our insurance agent, decided we would file a claim. Even though we have a $1000 deductible, we figured at least we would get $1000 to $1500 back. It took us a while to get the report together, and initially they just asked for the make, item name, model # and age of all the items. So, Fermin spent two evenings at Sears and some other places he buys tools writing down all the information for everything that was stolen.
I typed all this up and turned in a nice spreadsheet, and now I get a call from a different American Family guy asking me to fax in all the information that proves that we actually had these items. (***??!!) I mean, I understand they need to protect against fraud, but we have never filed a claim before, there is a police report with all this stuff in it, and frankly, who keeps receipts for this stuff? Besides that, if they were going to require that sort of documentation, they could have told us beforehand, as we probably wouldn't have gone to all the trouble to put this stuff together, as we don't have the receipts.
My husband could list off like every tool he had taken, but he doesn't have very many receipts. The other thing is that Craftsman offers lifetime warranties on their items, but you just bring the item to Sears and they just give you a new one, there are no warranty cards or anything. So I think we are SOL. When I was talking to the guy I tried to get him to clarify that we were going to need receipts and all that, and he was being purposefully vague I feel. I mean, if we're not going to get the money back, I don't want to go ahead and file the stupid claim, they could at least be a little clear so they don't waste people's time! :curse:
Well, they unfortunately got lucky with us, really lucky in fact, as my husband had thousands of dollars of mechanic tools stored in our garage. They took about $2500 worth, strangely leaving my new Trek bike, but grabbing as many of his tools as they could before a neighbor apparently saw them, thought it was suspicious and said something or just watched them for a while, and apparently the guys freaked out, closed the door and drove off. The neighbor got the license plate of the thieves, but I'm guessing nothing came of that, because the police haven't gotten back to us.
So.... we got a police report and everything, and after talking to our insurance agent, decided we would file a claim. Even though we have a $1000 deductible, we figured at least we would get $1000 to $1500 back. It took us a while to get the report together, and initially they just asked for the make, item name, model # and age of all the items. So, Fermin spent two evenings at Sears and some other places he buys tools writing down all the information for everything that was stolen.
I typed all this up and turned in a nice spreadsheet, and now I get a call from a different American Family guy asking me to fax in all the information that proves that we actually had these items. (***??!!) I mean, I understand they need to protect against fraud, but we have never filed a claim before, there is a police report with all this stuff in it, and frankly, who keeps receipts for this stuff? Besides that, if they were going to require that sort of documentation, they could have told us beforehand, as we probably wouldn't have gone to all the trouble to put this stuff together, as we don't have the receipts.
My husband could list off like every tool he had taken, but he doesn't have very many receipts. The other thing is that Craftsman offers lifetime warranties on their items, but you just bring the item to Sears and they just give you a new one, there are no warranty cards or anything. So I think we are SOL. When I was talking to the guy I tried to get him to clarify that we were going to need receipts and all that, and he was being purposefully vague I feel. I mean, if we're not going to get the money back, I don't want to go ahead and file the stupid claim, they could at least be a little clear so they don't waste people's time! :curse: