I worked in Customer Service in Sears, Costa Mesa, California in the early 80's. A man was sent to my desk and sat down across from me. I got my forms ready to fill out with his complaint, etc. He started talking so fast with a decided accent that I had a hard time understanding him. H wanted Sears to pay for having a chest of drawers refinished. He had bought it from Sears. He had also bought his ladder, his pants and the paint that had spilled on the chest top and down the front of it. Seems he was wearing the Sears pants, opened the Sears paint, climbed the Sears ladder, started to paint, knocked the bucket over and in trying to catch it, he fell off the Sears ladder and split the Sears pants. By then I was about ready to explode and dampen my SErARS office chair. I called my boss over, she was about to collapse trying to keep her business attitude. The customer meanwhile had decidedwe owed him new pants and paint. We looked up his credit record and saw that he was a good customer, always paid his bill, etc. My boss gave him a credit slip. I didn't follow through to see how much she gave him but it was another Policy Adjustment. Regards, Belle

Belle, Although I have never worked in Customer Service, I was an insurance claims adjuster for fourteen years. Belle,your story is not unlike some of the claims which our company got in. Sometimes it really made me angry to see these people get their claims paid for, which sounded as though they were such a bunch of lies. We did have a policy of paying insureds..even when their stories sounded as silly as the one about the man, the paint & his clothes. I have often wished that I have kept track of some of these claims. They would made for a good book. One fellow (An Assigned Risk from the south side of Chicago) put in claims for the theft of 4 Cadillacs & our company paid for every one of them...EXCEPT for the last one. This gentleman made the mistake of coming into our office, thinking that he would just pick up his check, rather than wait for it to come in the mail. Thank goodness, I was not handling that claim. Another gal..fairly new, got that one. She was smart enough to go to one of the supervisors & this supervisor didn't take any guff from this guy. The insured got his story confused & he was told by this supervisor to 'hit the road'. Normally, this wouldn't have been the case. However, seeing that this guy was an Assigned Risk & he had already collected 3 times on the theft of his Cadillac, our company had enough ammunition to turn this man down. IMHO, we should have turned him down on the second claim..but he was smart enough to follow all the rules; i.e., calling the police, waiting for the car to be recovered, etc. I do remember, however, when we got claims in from people that the adjusters didn't really feel as though they should collect on them. Many times the company would still pay these claims b/c like Belle, these people had a record of paying their premiums on time...or they had never had a claim with our company. There were instances, however, if an adjuster felt strong enough about not accepting a claim, that he or she would give that claim to a supervisor & that person would back them in denying the claim. That's what this one person had done, when this fellow had come in to collect on the loss of his 4th Cadillac. ~Jen in AZ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Belle Shepherd" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 11:15 PM Subject: [SOUTHERN-CHAT] Human comedy > I worked in Customer Service in Sears, Costa Mesa, California in the > early 80's. A man was sent to my desk and sat down across from me. I got > my forms ready to fill out with his complaint, etc. He started talking so > fast with a decided accent that I had a hard time understanding him. H > wanted Sears to pay for having a chest of drawers refinished. He had > bought it from Sears. He had also bought his ladder, his pants and the > paint that had spilled on the chest top and down the front of it. Seems > he was wearing the Sears pants, opened the Sears paint, climbed the Sears > ladder, started to paint, knocked the bucket over and in trying to catch > it, he fell off the Sears ladder and split the Sears pants. By then I > was about ready to explode and dampen my SErARS office chair. I called my > boss over, she was about to collapse trying to keep her business attitude. > The customer meanwhile had decidedwe owed him new pants and paint. We > looked up his credit record and saw that ! > he was a good customer, always paid his bill, etc. > My boss gave him a credit slip. I didn't follow through to see how much > she gave him but it was another Policy Adjustment. > Regards, > Belle > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message