Uh-oh. Day of dread. Today was laundry day which is probably my least favorite activity that cuts into our crowded schedule of doing nothing except what we want to do. It sucks.
We started by gathering up all the stuff that needed to be washed and dropped into the campground laundromat where Peggy delightfully agreed to handle the clothes while sending me off to deal by phone with the contractor back home working on our pool and with the Good Sam Club Insurance. The part dealing with the contractor went very well. The part about the insurance company did not go as well.
Back on April 15, 2015, the electrically operated shade canopy on the side of our beloved trailer and home failed in the midst of a storm in King’s Mountain State Park in South Carolina. One minute there was a nice canopy. The next minute there was an expensive-sounding noise outside the trailer despite the fact we were almost alone in the campground. When we wandered out into the inclement weather to see what caused the ruckus, we were presented with a tangle of support arms and torn canopy cloth where there had been a nice shady thing before.
We sort of re-attached the canopy to the side of the trailer through an unorthodox use of stainless steel kitchen table knives and plastic zip-ties. It looked as if the failed canopy cloth and support arms were adequately secured for travel so we departed on April 16 for Charlotte, NC, to get to a repair facility that could replace what was necessary. The outfit, GGT, was quite cooperative after I gave them $500 to get things started. They indicated that parts would have to be ordered and delivered but they were nice enough to have a mechanic remove the carcass of the former canopy from the side of the trailer so we could continue on our journeys while we waited for parts. We traveled for two weeks and returned to Charlotte on May 1.
Unfortunately, at that time we found out that the replacement canopy and support structures ordered were not really the right parts but we had GGT install the new stuff even though the canopy was now a bit smaller and draped at a different angle such that our door brushes the canopy fabric when we extend it all the way. They only took another $1301 to install the new, not improved canopy because we were unwilling to spend another 3 weeks hanging around NC awaiting parts. At the time, I figured I would just be required to eat the cost. Alas, I was wrong, maybe.
When I happened to check out our Good Sam RV Insurance policy, I found canopy self-destruction was a covered loss and phoned the insurance company to file a reimbursement claim. It was at that time that the underwriting insurance company, National General, started their strategy of ignoring me and shuttling me through various persons, none of whom was any help whatsoever. They were quite nice about it – they were merely useless about getting my claim processed. Initially, they assigned me an adjuster named Andrea Crews who I believe may not exist. She was to contact me within 48 hours but 48 days later I had still not heard from the phantom. I made several calls to find out the status of my claim but was unable to speak with anybody possessing a brain so my efforts were for naught. Finally, I spoke with one of the drones at National General on June 24 and was assigned another adjuster named, of all things, Mileygha Wofford, who was to contact me within 24 hours. Of course, that did not happen. So today, I contacted the Good Sam organization who were quite nice about connecting me to another useless person at National General who tried fruitlessly to contact either one of their own adjusters or one of their own managers, all of whom are also phantoms because they were all “either on the phone or away from their desks.” I asked the nice, helpless person I was speaking with if she had ever actually spoken with anyone from her claims department and she dutifully lied that she had. I stated that I believed she was quite fortunate because I had been unable to speak with a human in the claims department in two months
I also tried National Substandard’s line again and was told by about the 50th moron that she was sending an email to the managers to get them to respond to me within two hours. At this time I went to help Peggy with the wash, which was almost completed. The laundry is located under the office facility in a dungeon so, sure enough, when somebody finally called back within about two hours, the call went to voice mail and my seven return calls within two hours to the person, Jennifer Birch, went unanswered because she was “either on the phone or away from her desk” despite a further recorded allegation that her office hours were from 8:30 to 5:30 eastern time Monday through Friday. My last desperate call to her was at 5:20 but it went to the phantom’s voice mail, just like the rest.
I can give my extremely small group of dedicated readers the following advice: Never use Sprint as your phone service provider because it only works where you don’t need it to and never buy insurance from National General unless you want to feel abused.