And y'all ripped up. You need advice so you don't have come running.
Just as fas as we can, Shooter's gonna help come Man Dix is the
Troubleshooter Show. No Tom Martino, Hey Tom Martino here, Welcome to the
show. Three oh three seven one three talk seven one three eight two five
five. Solveum problems, answering questions, taking complaints. We're gonna go right
to the phones. I do have a guest today from fix At twenty four
to seven Fixmi home dot com. Uh. This hour brought to you by
the people who are the best at your uh at your stem cell therapy that
I found Denver Regen dot com. Yes, still doing stem cell therapy,
Denver Regen dot com. Let's go to the phones and find out what's on
your mind today. John says, I have any with a bad contractor?
Now, By the way, in addition to being with fix At twenty four
to seven, my guest has also been She's been pretty cool. As far
as in journalism, She's covered a lot of stuff. So you've had a
as far as a bad contractors, I know you've covered these stories. It's
all over the You mainly worked in Dallas area, right or okay? As
a journalist, yes, okay, so bad contractors are all over yes,
I mean obviously they actually travel. Yeah. Now, do you have strong
laws in Texas? We don't have strong laws here, you know, I
don't know the exact laws in Texas every time we see a storm come through.
But I mean I'm all over the country. It really differs right now,
you need to look them up. John. By the way, we
have, what's the only thing we have here is the Contractors Trust Act,
which basically says, but no one enforces it. You have to go to
court to enforce it, or you have to really get a lot of victims
for the Attorney General or a district attorney to take a look. It can
be criminal. But what it says is if you take money for a certain
job, it must be held in trust for that job. In fact,
it goes on to say you can't even use it for another job, and
you can't put it into general cash flow. And there's a lot of strict,
strict regulations on it, but people never ever ever enforce it. Now,
I don't know what John's calling about, but I just wanted to mention
that the strongest laws for contractors in the entire country Florida. Really, in
Florida, there are actually contractors or there were last time I looked, that
actually faced a life sentence. And now how can that happen? Well,
have you ever heard of three strike law? Three felonies you get life.
Those felonies could be with a home contractor. I knew a contractor I never
followed up after this that was facing his third felony for taking money, doing
something, doing it bad and cheating someone. And he literally thought I could
be facing a life sentence for a con Can you imagine that you're in prison
and somebody says, why are you here? And he says, uh,
plumbing. I mean, I don't know, basement model. It's a bit
extreme, you know what, it makes sense for Florida, just with the
weather that they happen around the old people, both of those, I guess
I'm one of them. So here here's the deal. Seriously, John,
what's going on with your con There's nothing worse. Let me just say this,
and John, you just hit a nerve with me, because there's nothing
worse than a bad contractor. And I'm going to tell you why. And
I don't even know what your problem is. But like we talk to consumers
every single day that spend you know, ten grand, they lose it,
or twenty grand or twenty five grand or thirty grand, pick a number,
and they're never going to get it back. These contractors simply go out of
business, stay filed bankruptcy. Even if you get a fraud judgment in court,
that what they have to do to pay you back. The restitution laws
are so lenient that you really can kiss the money goodbye again. I don't
even know what John's calling forst off, shut up, go ahead, John,
Hey, good morning. Can you hear me? Hey, man,
I can hear you. What's happening? No, I'm calling because I've got
a bad contractor here in Colorado Springs. That. Uh, First of all,
I'm a disabled veteran, so buying a home, you know, most
veterans use their their VA benefits to do a VA homelong And in the VA
home long process, the home has to praise for the cost or the value
of what you're purchasing. So I had a home build here where the where
the contractor? Well, John, John, you left a few blanks.
So did you get a VA loan to do that? I had applied for
a VIA loan, but I did not purchase the home. I used the
VIA escape clause to cancel the contract. Okay, but at first you had
a VA home loan. I had an approval for a VIA home loan took
okay? Correct? Okay, so with that, because I've never heard of
that before. So you get pre approved and then when you go to build
that house. Are you saying you get pre approved and then the contractor builds
the house and then you close on it. Is that what you're talking?
It's not like it's not like you took out a construction loan. You went
to a contractor and said, I'm pre approved, build me a house.
Correct? And when when you said build me a house and I'm sorry,
but I need these details. Is it like in a subdivision where you picked
a model and they were going to build that house. This was just east
of Colorado Screens on thirty five acres. But okay, so it was totally
custom In other words, it wasn't like you went to a home subdivision and
you picked from a model. No. Correct, This was supposed to be
an award winning builder here and talks. Okay, gotcha? So keep going.
What's happened. And by the way, who is the builder, high
Point Homebuilders? Okay, so go with your story. Okay. So originally,
you know, when you do that exactly like you described, you pick
everything out and yeah, you have a base price and everything is included in
that base price. In this contract, there was a sceptic allowance of eighteen
thousand dollars. What kind of an allowance? A sceptic allowance for the cottage?
Okay, would be put in? Yeah, and it was. You
know, I have a whole different you keep going, but I do want
to I'm putting a note here. I need to talk about this, the
allowance thing. Keep going. What happened? Then? Well, he turned
the permit into I want to say he I'm referring to the owner of High
Point Homebuilders. He turned the septic term it into El Paso County with the
septic design in August of twenty twenty one, and approximately May the end of
May of twenty twenty two, he calls me and says, the septic is
going to be sixty six thousand dollars. Well, and the and the the
allowance was seventeen eighteen eighteen okay, almost four times the amount in the contract.
Yeah, and and let me let me just say this now, since
I use these calls not only to help the caller but to educate our people
that so they don't fall into traps when it comes to home. This is
really important John, And I'm sorry I'm taking your time, but I'm going
to let you finish. But here's what happens when you contract for a home
and you have allowance items. I want to explain this to everyone. The
bid or the estimate or the contracted price is a fantasy. Okay, in
all cases, it's a fantasy, and builders use this to lure people into
a contract, so they commit to it and in hopes that they won't back
away. But even if they back away, let me explain something. The
builder uses the perspective buyer in order to get a construction loan, so that
builder benefited from you even if you don't buy the house. So if you
go and they they do, they literally do a bank loan based on your
qualification, and then in the middle of it, if you walk away,
they can still finish the house and sell it and sometimes even for more money.
So what is an allowance? What they say is, oh, you're
going to have an allowance for hardware like hardware and bath hardware, or door
hardware or windows. Sometimes they do allowance for painting. Sometimes they do allowance
for carpeting. Not all the time. Sometimes they're fixed prices, but many
times there are allowances, and what the contractor is supposed to do is give
a good faith estimate of what that allowance would cost. Now in the contract
you signed, no matter what. If this unless the builder's a complete moron,
sorry to my YouTube morons, but unless he's a complete moron, this
builder built into that contract wording that said these allowance items are simply allowance items,
and if they go up beyond his control, you either have to pay
it or you walk. So I want people to know when they see an
allowance for a septic system at eighteen grand and it turns out to be one
hundred and eighteen grand, if it's not the builder's fault, it's not the
builder's fault. Now, if the builder saw you were over solid rock and
this septic system and was going to cost oodles of money, and they were
disingenuous in their estimates, you could do something about it. But most of
the time, when you're building a house, you don't exactly have excess money
to go after a builder, So keep going. Now, what happened,
Well, what happened is, you know, we we couldn't come to terms,
and I canceled the contract. Yeah, I did not ask for any
of my money back because I knew he was Wait a minute, how much
money had you paid thus far? That far? I was about twenty thousand
dollars. Well, you should get your money back. You'd be canceled because
he's going to sell the house. But I mean, did you cancel according
to the contract? I did? I canceled in what I thought was according
to the contract. And what was the What was the clause you used to
cancel? I used the Uh, the builder had not performed, so I
used the performance clause. And how did he not perform? Well, my
thought was he had the septic design nine months earlier, and you know past
some homebuilder has been doing this thirty years. He should have known him his
alignance. Okay, that's that's not a bad that's not a bad tactic.
But if he had this septic system designed that much earlier, my quick question
to you is, why did it turn out to be five times the cost
or whatever? Why he tried to use the excuse at one point that he
didn't look at it. He had his office personnel just send it to the
county. So when he estimated what did he best, what did he base
the allowance on? He said he had built, you know, probably ten
homes in this community because it was a community of homes on on large acreage.
And okay, so the average of the septics, why was yours so
much? Why? He said it was because of the enormous leachfield. But
I went and found a home that he put in two months before he got
this design. So he put a home in I'm down the road in twenty
twenty one with the exact same size Leachfield, and he actually, it's a
funny story. I ended up hiring that person with my current company, and
I don't want to mention them by name on this call, but I ended
up hiring an individual that canceled that contract on that same house with him because
he charged him. He put in his contract a fourteen thousand dollars allowance and
then he issued him a change order for twelve thousand dollars. Sob okay,
I get it now, this could be a fraud in the inducement. It
could be I don't see why you left twenty grand on the table. Hold
on and I'll come back to you. I don't know where we're going with
this and what I can do to help you. If you're calling about your
twenty grand, I think that's a good call to make. But we'll listen.
We got a full lines. Let me, let me take this break,
and we'll come back to you, because I do believe you got screwed
here. But you got to show a pattern of deceit. Okay, that's
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You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance check
up free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much
your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three oh three, seven
to seven to one. Help. You'll think you're his only customer when you
choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax
Alliance three all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martino here
three three seven to one three talks seven one three eight two five five John,
what can we do for you? You had a contractor you got out
of the contract. You left twenty grand on the table. You were upset
with his allowance. Again, most of the time builders when they do allowances,
have escape clauses so they're not held responsible. And it would be I
think more money than it's worth to try to prove that he purposely low balls
allowances. But it could happen. So where do we stand right now?
So where we stand right now? As after I canceled, I received a
demand letter from his attorney and what was the demand for demanding that I return
and purchased the home. Oh now, so that's called they're they're demanding specific
performance. Correct. Correct, So there was nothing else for me to do
but return and have the home appraised. Wait a minute, so you wait,
wait, wait, so you you got frightened with this letter and you
went back and decided you were going to go through with it. I went
back and said I would go through with the appraisal to see if the home
appraised. If the home had a praised, me and my wife were going
to purchase the home. What did it? A praise for it? A
praise? It A praised less than the cost? Really? So it really
really? I mean okay hmm, less less than the cost other than the
other than the sewer or the you know, the septic what went over They
didn't. The praiser just gives you an overall value for the home, and
the sales price he was selling it to me was over that value by about
ten thousand dollars. Yeah. But but all of this was known to you
before you did it. No, what do you mean? No praise at
home? What's that? I did not know the appraised value of the home,
but it was What I meant was it was open for you to know.
There was nothing hidden. I mean, how did your how did your
lender approve you for that home without an appraisal? They approved me for an
amount? Okay, so it wasn't approved for that home. I get it,
I get it, you get young. I understand you were pre qualified.
You were not approved, Okay, pre approved or prequalified if you pre
qualified? Okay, So now what but what do you want? Now?
Hey, it has when BA, it has to appraise. If it doesn't
appraise, then as a veteran, you can walk away from the home.
Well, hold on, hold on, hold bro hold on. The VA
can't tell that builder how to do business. When the VA says you can
walk away from the home, they have no They have no jurisdiction to tell
you that. All the VA can say is you can walk away from us.
You don't have to go through with the loan. But they can't tell
that builder that they have to let you out. There's I don't know of
any law that says that. Now, I'm not Maybe there is one,
but I don't know of any. Did your attorney say there was a law
of such a law. Yeah, it's in the Code of Federal Regulations,
Chapter thirty eight. But hold on now, wait a minute, does it
actually obligate the builder to release you from the contract. I don't know how
the federal government could do that. I mean I your attorney told you that
under the law that this builder must release you from the contract. That's wonderful.
Then then why are we having the conversation. You already won? I
did, but the builders and uh I spent over two hundred dollars two hundred
thousand dollars in legal fees against this building. No, no, wait a
minute, John, did you win? I want? Yes, in court?
I did win. Okay, what did you win in court? The
right to walk away? The right to walk away and my twenty thousand dollars
back. But wait a minute, what attorney would have you spend two hundred
thousand dollars to get twenty thousand back? Robinson and Henry, why did you
hire them to do? What did they advise you? This was going to
cost a lot of money, they advised me. Then I would get all
of my legal fees back. Oh wait they wait, wait, they actually
told you that? Yes, they told me that all the way up until
three weeks before trial. After I had spent one hundred and fifty thousand in
legal pieces, and what did they say? You wouldn't get your money back?
The partner I was dealing with, I don't know why he left the
firm, but he immediately left the firm and I was assigned to a different
partner three weeks before trial. Okay, here's what I want to know.
You you won, you actually won the case, but spent two hundred thousand.
So right now, you didn't have to pay the builder, You got
your twenty grand back, and you got to walk from the contract. Is
that right? Correct? What are you calling about now? Because the builders
out of it? What are you calling about now? Well? I'm calling
for two reasons. One, I want I wanted everyone to know about the
vascape clause and in that, well, it didn't do you any good?
Oh the VA skate clubs. Didn't you do any good? Nothing? It
didn't do you any good. It didn't actually, yeah, it did not.
It didn't. You You could if truly there was a law there.
I doubt there is, and I doubt I think your attorney has interpreted it,
but I'll look at it. I think there would have been a summary
judgment you wouldn't have gone through. There is no fact finding when there's a
law on your side. There's no fact finding. The attorney the judge to
make a summary judgment. There was no summary judgment. There was a there
was a finding a fact correct. The judge found the finding a fact that
the judge ruled that I think you was that I use my via escape clause
appropriately. Then why didn't your attorney go for a summary judgment before you even
bothered spending all that money? We did, but it was never focused on
that. I don't know, okay, and I can't go back anyway,
So listen man. By the way, I applaud you for your a disabled
veteran, I honor your commitment. I don't know what I can do to
help. What are you hoping to accomplish? You want to let people know
about the escape clause, but the escape clause won't get them out of trouble.
As you just demonstrated, they can still get in a lot of trouble.
What they have to do is first get an appraisal of the project and
then have escape clauses in the contract that says if you go over allowances or
in fact don't accept allowances, only accept solid bids. That's one way to
protect yourself. But now that we're here, what do you want at this
point? Because you just blew two hundred grand over two d Yeah, oh
my god, where'd you get the money? You know? I had you
know, about half of the money you know, in cash and the other
half I I've had to take out looms. You're not going to like my
next recommendation, bro, No, uh, you know what my next recommendation
is going to be. I imagine, But I don't go ahead bankruptcy,
you know, otherwise you're going to be in debt the rest of your life
for this unless I sell my home which I'm gonna have to sell my home
in Downside. That's where I'm at because of this. But one thing I
do want to point out for listeners tom As this builder to be approved to
build and sell to veterans using VA, they have to apply for a builder
number saying they will follow all the VIA regulations. Yeah, but they could
easily show they could easily show that it was beyond their control. Well,
part of the VIA regulation state that he has to have that VA escape clause
in his contract, which was partially there but hidden, and my experts test.
Okay, that's good. But here's the point. Even with the escape
clause, you had to fight to get it enforced. I did, and
I did it for other veterans because I know of about thirty. But I
don't think it'll help other veterans. I am telling you that today another veteran
could do the same thing, and tomorrow another veteran could do the same thing.
The only thing that's going to help a veteran is education. Because even
with that escape clause as you call it, it's not automatic. As we've
just found out, you had to You had to spend two hundred grand to
get it enforced exactly. And that's that's the reason I'm calling Tom. I
don't know that you can't help me, but at least the word can get
out over you. Yeah it ken, Yeah it can. And I'm telling
you, man, oh my god, I mean, I feel I feel
terrible for you, but I do want to get the word out. I'm
going to research this escape cloth. Could you do me a favor? Could
you give as much of the citation to Kachina off the air, because I
don't want to recite a lot of this is where I can look that up
and I agree with you, but I'll okay, good, good good if
you put it in your original email she has it hold on three oh three,
And I just want to do that and then and then I'll get back
to you if if I have some ideas. This is as I said,
this is terrible. Now. Kara wants to talk about a family employment program.
George wants to talk about Jewel autobody. Stacy called three weeks ago about
a divorce. She wants to give us a follow up and all of that
is coming up on The Troubleshooter Show three O three seven to one, three
eight two five five. Go with a sure thing Denver's Best Roofer Excel Roofing
dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an
insurance checkup free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too
much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
to seven to one. Help. You'll think you're his only customer when you
choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax
Alliance three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hey Tom Martino here
three three seven one three talk seven one three eight two five five George wants
to talk about an autobody shop. But by the way, during these hundred
degree days, if you had a membership. Now, I do not generally
believe in like warranties and services and that kind of stuff. Memberships into a
company like fix It, where you pay a certain monthly fee and get services
for it. In other words, if you multiply the amount you pay in
a year and then talk and then divide the services you get into it.
If the price you pay is equal or better than normal, then it's a
no brainer because you're paying for something, but in addition to it, you
get other benefits. So it fix It. They have a very They have
a special right now on their memberships. First of all, we're gonna give
away some free ones right just listeners, right now? What do they they
have to call? I want to give how many are we giving away?
We're giving ten away just for Martino listeners. Ten away? Okay, Yeah,
So that's a free membership for the year. And then they get the
most important thing, I think the services they get, the water heater service,
the electrical the electrical panel, the furnace and air so so those those
are that Yeah, so that's worth what you're paying. But here's the deal.
Priority appointments, Tom, this is so huge, well yeah or whatever.
You can't get to everyone. So do they preserve the first few hundred
or so or I don't know how many, but certain percentage of appointments for
the members? Right? The way it works our office managers, what they
have is they see that we've got a member, and then you get priority
automatically. Most that's part of it, all right. Yeah, Well,
so, by the way, if you want to be part of that is
fix myhome dot com and we give out the number two right seven two zero
five two six thirty nine thirty nine. If you're one of the first ten
callers right now, you'll get a free membership. There's absolutely no obligation.
Free membership seventy zero five two six thirty nine thirty nine. We're going to
fill those up quick now. George, what's going on with Jewel autobody?
I don't know if I've ever heard of Jewel. What's happening? Man?
They've had my truck for a month, oh man, only a month?
Only a month? You know what, I am getting this complaint. Honest
to God, the complaints we're getting about body shops, and it's not the
quality of work. We're getting complaints about how long the damn stuff is taking.
Yeah, what's going on with you? Or I'm handicap? Every time
I call over, they say they're working on it, and then I go
by there on weekend and they're sitting in the back chocked up and they're not
working on it. They've write to me every time I call. Well,
when you say they're lying to you, Okay, let's talk about that.
Is it their fault it's taking this long? Or is there truly a delay
on parts? What do you think? I don't know because I talked to
them they lie to me. Well, what do you mean they lie to
you? They say they're working on it, and then I go by there
on the weekends trucks sitting in back tarped up. Oh my gosh, Okay,
now what's wrong with your truck? The finance got here, the wheels
caved in and like I got like the sidewipe. Now is your so is
your insurance paying or the other? No, my insurance is paying very the
I now they paid them twenty thousand dollars and insurance don't want nothing to do
with me no more because they can't do nothing, the more because I didn't
go with one of their recommended bass. Well, no, your insurance will
never help you. But what does so but here, Well, they don't
help you really with with many people anyway. I mean, even if if
it's a preferred shop, they say, well, you contracted him, but
there's not George, I don't want to give you a lot of false hope.
If they're truly waiting on parts, there's not much you can do about
it unless I mean, they have no reason. They have no reason to
delay this unless they spent the money and they don't have the money to fix
it. Is that what you think happened? I don't know. I don't
know. I called this one guy, Joe, don't he told me if
I kept calling him, assume about the truck, he said he'd take his
turn. That's mean, come on, how did you find Jewel Autobody?
My wife, Petter car worked there and they did a good job. A
couple of friends of mine their cars taken there and they did a good So
I don't know what the guy got. Wait, This guy actually got upset
with you calling and said, if you call more, he's going to take
his time. Yeah, his name is Joe. Is he like just a
worker there or a manager or why some kind of I think he's a manager.
I don't know what he is. Well, then do you want us
to call over there, because all we can do is call and verify that
they're waiting on parts and try to figure out if we can find the parts.
I mean, we've helped in the past, but most of the time,
George, there's a legit weight on body parts. What year is your
truck? Twenty two nineteen? I mean twenty twenty two? What kind is
it? Dodge big Cord? What is the last estimate you got? That's
the estim I got was nine thousand, now went up to twenty thousand.
They get hold on, Well, it might be real. I mean you
you're so distrustful. I mean, will they listen if they didn't start it?
Will they will they give you your well your deposit? Did you make
a deposit? Or your insurance? Did I insure pay them all the money?
I didn't? Why? Why? Why did your insurance pay before the
work was done? I don't know. You have to call state BOM.
I don't know why they paid them because you authorized them too. That's the
only way they'll pay. No, they know I didn't authimize nothing. That's
what they got when they said an adjuster there. Hey, Doc, I
know you're there, Doc, come here, can wait? Listen. I
don't want to inflame the situation because apparently Jewel Autobody is pissed at them already.
But if we say to them, we're trying to help. We're trying
to help everyone out here because we're getting this complaint a lot and we're just
trying to figure out what's going to Yeah, the Jewel Autobodies about three blocks
away from where I live. I'll go all there on my way home and
talk to them in person and find out what's going on. Yeah, I
pass it every single day, you know. I mean, here's the deal
man. Just what what what I'm saying is we're gonna go in a friendly
way and say, look, you know this Dodge truck. What what color
is your truck? Doc will look for it and see if they're working on
it. What color is the black copper on it? I'll talk to George.
Talk to George off the area, you know. Listen, man,
We'll do what we can to figure out what's going on. But I I
just want to warn you and everyone if you have a car that can be
driven, what I recommend when it comes to autobody is go and get your
estimate and then have people do the uh, have people order the parts and
then come back. Now, Now do I did I take this break or
not? Man? I am really hurt and hold on. Go with a
sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent
until you're content. Please time for an insurance check up free no obligation comparison
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your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two d
News. You need it so you don't have run anxious stats. Can Shooter's
gonna help coming? Man, This is the Troubleshooter Show. Now Tom Martino,
Hi, Tom Martino here, Welcome to the show three oh three seven
one three Talk three oh three seven one three A two five five. This
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checks. So if you're on Medicare advantage. By the way, anyone on
Medicare can get a yearly free wellness check. Okay, those on advantage are
being called and this has started all over the country. But this is amazing
to me. What they did was and this story I should give credit to
these people. I don't know who they're with though it's on MSN dot com,
but the story people are Christopher Weaver, Tom McGuinty, Ana Wild Matthews.
I don't know if this matters to anyone, but I think they should
get credit. Andrew Malika and here's the point. And then there's a Mark
Mehrimont. They went out and did this investigation. So okay, these Medicare
advantage people are going out and doing free wellness checks in people's homes. They
are wellness checks are come along with Medicare, a yearly wellness check. Now,
because it's the advantage, they decided we're going to go one further.
We're going to go out to them. So a nurse practitioner or sometimes I
believe that even a nurse drops by and they do a wellness check. If
a diagnosis is made. And let me give you an example. For example,
this one case, the woman said, yeah, come on over to
my house. A nurse showed up, checked her over, asked her questions,
and then said, by the way, you have diabetic cataracts. The
woman says, yeah, I've had them for years. The finding got United
Healthcare Group, who insures this woman an extra twenty seven hundred dollars a year.
Now that because here, do you know what capitation costs are? Right?
Doc? You know what that is? Right? Capitation costs What insurers
do? They say to doctors and healthcare providers, if you have a thousand
I'm going to give very fake numbers. If you have a thousand patients,
we will give you a certain amount of money per each patient, and you
can spend it all on three patients, or you can spend it on everyone.
In other words, it's called capitation. It's up to the medical provider
to take these thousand patients, and let's say it's one thousand dollars a year
they get They get this one million dollars a year for all of their patients,
and if they keep them well, they get to keep a lot of
that million bucks. If they have to spend in the eighties. Tom,
Yeah, it's still going on. But here's the problem with cap costs.
So now if that person is diagnosed with something, you get more than a
thousand, You might get another thousand whatever. So it behooves them to find
diagnoses on people. But when you find a diagnosis on someone, you don't
necessarily even have to treat it, and you still get extra money for having
them in your corral. So they're going out now and they are finding people
as many as they can with problems and then upping their capitation costs they get
every month or every year for these patients, even if they're not treating those
conditions, because some payas have had those conditions but they weren't diagnosed under this
plan, so they never had them treated and they don't care to have them
treated, but still diagnosed and still being paid. The insurers are still being
paid for the risk as a result. As a result, they have found
fifty billion dollars paid out last year for conditions diagnosed and not treated. Holy
crap. See, if we got all the waste and the cheaters out of
our systems in government, we wouldn't have such a terrible tax burden. I
want to go to Karen. Now she has a problem with an employment program.
I'm not sure what this is, Carol, what is it? Tell
us about it? Him hia A m l I. I believe started last
year. And obviously they it's in an acronym for family, right, I
mean f A MLI. Yes, I'm not sure that what it stands for.
But it is different than FMLA. And what does family provide? Will
they basically pay you seventy percent of your salary while you're on medical leave for
up to twelve weeks a year in Colorado? Is it part of the government.
It is through the state of Colorado. It's called family Okay, And
so tell me about what's going on with it. So I found out that
I had to have a pretty major surgery, and from my HR department found
out that I was not eligible for FMLA because we did not have more than
fifty employees. Right, that's right, you have to It's only for large
employers that you get family leave, yes, and so, but I do
She did let me know I qualified for family So I applied and was approved,
went ahead and had my surgery June seventeenth, and then June twenty eighth,
I got a text message from human resources that my position had been eliminated,
which was a shock. It's two weeks out from the surgery. Wait
a minute, so this is not this has nothing to do with family.
It's just that your job was eliminated. Well, I did call family and
they said that it is viewed as a form of retaliation, so I would
have to just you know, do a major Sara. So what was your
condition? If you don't mind saying I had a pelvic surgery? A history?
Okay, yeah, now now well here's what I want to know.
This pelvic surgery. It's not a permanent thing. Could it be considered a
disability? No, it's actually going to improve my quality of life. Okay.
And when you announced you had to go out for surgery, how long
after that did they eliminate your position. I think I let them know in
May, about a month ahead of time, and about a month later it
was eliminated. They did move a part time pay in January, so this
is about six months after they moved me to part time pay. Okay,
so they were kind of moving toward that direction. Maybe they could make that
argument that it had nothing to do with your condition. Yeah, and they
said that it wasn't performance based. Okay, So then what happened? So
I get it, I get it. So so you you went, yeah,
okay, this is this sounds like a coincidence, but keep going.
What happened then? So then they offered me a kind of a low ball
severance offer of just one month of part time pay. And I've been there
for four years and I just want to know, like, what is a
fair severance offer? And is it legal to lay somebody off while they're on
medical leaves in the state of Colorado? You know, here's the general answer.
First of all, I can't tell you what's legal because I don't know
of any laws on that, and I'm going to have somebody look that up.
We don't have an active employment attorney right now that really, unfortunately represents
employees. All of the employment attorneys we know represent employers because employees don't have
money. It's a terrible situation employment law for the employee. But the short
answer is, I know people, they can't fire you, no, but
they can eliminate your position. Do you see that tricky thing there? Okay,
you see now you know who we should call Kaschina? We should try
to call somebody who does workers comp just because they would know about this.
And you know cliff Enton Enton Law, he does workers comp. We might
want to try him. Uh, who else does workers comp? On our
referral list? Let's try Cliff Enton to see if he's around. And I
do have to sign this severans letter by tomorrow or I well, are they
asking you to waive anything in that letter? What are they saying? They
do want me to sign an NDA? And then okay, but are they
asking you in this severance package that you won't sue them for anything? I
believe, so I'll have to go back and read it again. But the
other thing that I'm thinking about is when they merged with this other company back
in twenty twenty two, I lost around two thousand dollars worth of sick time
and that's always kind of stuck in my craw as not being right. Okay,
So so before you got your surgery they eliminated your position or after after
two weeks after the surgery, Okay, Okay, hold on, and we're
going to try to get an attorney on I'm going to take other calls for
you. Yes, sir A stands for Family and Medical Leave Insurance Program,
Family and Medical Leave Insurance Program. Okay, thank you, doc. I
wonder if somebody see she technically wasn't fired. They eliminated her position. But
the the the case they're going to have is they were going to do it
anyway, and they're going to show us evidence that they reduced her to part
time. And geez, I mean, what would you tell me this,
Kara, If they truly eliminated the position, how could you say it was
because of your surgery? I mean, in other words, they didn't hire
someone else. It's not that I know of no, so then that argument
would be pretty strong. How much is the total severance package? How much
in dollars? Thirty three dollars? Otherwise, okay, and you've been there
how long? Four years? I want to be honest with you. In
the employment world, four years is usually doesn't get any severance. I mean,
that's a very short time to be with someone, you know. I
mean, whatever they offer you is kind of gratus. It's not they're not
obligated to do it. I think they just want to dispense of any kind
of hassle you might give them. I don't know, but we're gonna we're
gonna talk to an attorney maybe and get some comments on this. I'm Tom
Martino three oh three seven one three a two five five. Go with a
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Hey Tom Martino here three oh three seven one three talk seven one three a
two five five. So Cliff Enton is an attorney at law that does personal
injury. He also does workers' compensation, so he may not handle cases exactly
like this, but I'm sure he knows about him and that's why I wanted
to ask him. High Cliff, how are you been doing? Hey Tom,
how are you good? Long time, no talk, but we get
good reports about you, so I'm happy to have you on board. I
wanted to ask you. There's a Family Act. It's kind of like the
Family Leave Act, but it's different. It's for people for smaller employers.
And this woman, Karen, went on this benefit and it's provided in the
state of Colorado for people that fall through the cracks. So she wasn't covered
by the Family Leave Act. She had to have surgery, and she said
a couple weeks after her surgery or a week after whatever, they eliminated her
position. So she her first question was, are people allowed to eliminate your
position when you're on a benefit, Like, let's take workers comps. Since
that your expertise, If someone's on workers comp can they eliminate someone's position?
They can, as long as it's not what's called retaliatory discharge. Then how
do you know, Well, it becomes a question of fact. You don't
know, because they're never going to say, oh, yeah, we're firing
you because you were on war comp or we're letting you go because you're a
war comp. It's it can. You would have to prove and Cara,
but Cliff, it seems to me though that if the entire position is eliminated
and they don't rehire someone, they would have the employer would have a strong
case, right, yes, stronger? Okay, what about what about family
leave and other benefits? Do you think the retaliatory provisions still? Kara was
told? I guess, Kara, did the state program tell you that if
it was retaliatory it would be a problem. I did call and they said
they would continue my payments for family regardless if I lost my job or not,
and that it was viewed as a form of retaliation. But I have
to actually submit a complaint and it takes a long time for them to review
it. I mean, you certainly could do that. You don't lose anything
by doing it. You know, I can tell you that their lawyers is
specialize an employment law comes to be able to give give you a reference to
one of those, But you know, it's it's hard, yeah, and
Cliff. Employment attorneys for employees right now are few and far between because they
mostly work for employers. Because they're the employees who are out of work,
they don't have money, and unless it's a really good case that they can
take on contingency with a lot of damages, it's hard to get an attorney.
But but I guess what you're saying is they can't fire you, but
you have to prove if it's if it's because of the leave, but you
have to prove it it's the burden is on you, right, And then
I'm not even sure what your measure of damages would be if you do prove
it. Maybe back wages, back back wages you know you may be able
to get. You can allege obviously if there's any discrimination, violation of of
of rules and acts. I mean, I know that when we settle a
work comp case, a lot of times the employer will want, uh,
what are called employment waivers because they want to make sure that if they're giving
you money for a work comp case in the settlement that then hey, you're
not going to come back and zoom for wrongful discharge, for discrimination, right
discrimination, set whatever. So it is pretty common. Now, what about
in general, like, when you have workers' comp cases? Do you often
not often, but do you have people fired or positions eliminated? Uh,
you'd be surprised the number of times that occurs to yes, And have you
ever successfully proved retaliation? Sure? Yeah, because sometimes it would seem pretty
hard to prove. But in other times, if they say they eliminated it
and then a month later they hire someone else. Yeah, but in work
comp, if they've eliminated if you're not at fault in call and in causing
determination like you know, you cursed out your boss, you play whatever,
something like that, then even if they eliminate your position or let you go,
then you're entitled to what's called temporary total disability from work comp. It's
way easy to deal with that in a work comp context than it is probably
in an FMLA context. Okay, I get it. Well, thank you
very much, Cliff. We appreciate it. That's end in law by the
way, Workers comp and Personal Injury three O three three three three two two
two two. That's nin e N T E N n in law dot com.
We appreciate it. We have more. Come and read up. Go
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You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate man
dot Com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero
sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martine, you're a troubleshooter, So Stacy,
I brought up your call here. You called a few weeks ago about a
divorce. Am I reading my notes correctly? Stacy? Your husband filed for
divorce on Christmas? Yes? Literally? Was he trying to be funny?
Or what I mean? Did you were served on Christmas? Yes, sir
god, and that was last year, in December of twenty twenty three.
Were you guys having problems or were you okay? So you kind of knew
something. We oh, well that's a problem, isn't it. It's a
problem for him for sure. But hey, Tom, maybe he's Jewish and
he served her after Honukkah. Yeah, we never know. Hey, Stacy,
he cheated on you. You guys were having trouble, and I'm sorry
about this. I don't want to make light of it. He served you
with divorce. You hired divorce matters, remember the call. You paid a
two thousand dollars retainer and what basically was your what was your problem? That
we uh, because I don't have any notes here that we assigned it to
anyone. Okay, So I had been at the house on June twenty ninth.
Well, we went to mediation on July tenth. Okay, we did
divorce matters, assign an attorney to you. Yes, And she walked out,
just walk basically walked out. You asked me to call the Colorado Bar
I did. I found Oh wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait
a minute. So when you said mediation, you're not talking about your divorce
you. I told you to call the Now I remember the Fee Dispute Committee,
because you thought you paid two grand and you didn't get anything. I
did, and I called. I called them, and right now she is
in major trouble because I called the Colorado dis bar and I spoke spoke to
on one and then I called the Supreme Court Grievance Committee. Right, yes,
we're over They call it oversight. Now I think, yeah, yes,
Miss Rosette said that she was supposed to give me money back. So
she's now being investigated because what she did was she she basically my attorney put
me, uh scheduled the mediation, charged me for it and did and there's
dropped the case on that day. But let me let me get this straight.
When your husband filed for divorce, did you did he agree to go
to mediation? Did you hire divorce Matters to represent you? Or did you
hire divorce Matters to do a mediation? I hired them to represent me because
the judge told me that, you know, try to get an attorney,
and I said, okay, I got it. So why were you upset?
If you pay them a two thousand dollars retainer, that's not a lot
of money for a divorce retainer. Why did that upset you? Because she
never did anything herself personally, only seen her one time, and she had
her pair of legal through the sworn affidavit and financial disclosure, and that's all
they did. I never seen her. I never talked to her anymore,
no kind of communication. And you felt so how much did you feel that
you should have been charged just for the pair of legal part because she didn't
represent me in anything. What she did was make it worse. She made
me go out through two and three in the morning to show that he was
still living in the house. I guess she spoke to the opposing attorney and
it kind of put her in a situation where she felt it was too challenging
for her, so she had Well wait a minute, so you went,
you literally went to arbitration at the bar. Yes, I did. And
what happened? And what did is she? She walked out? She walked
out. She sent an email to me and says she no longer is taking
my case. Well, but you knew that, that's why you wanted a
refund. Well no, I didn't know that. I wanted to refund after
I found that out. I didn't know she was going to do that.
The last thing that Wait, anute, why did she walk out? I'm
confused? Why did she walk out? She couldn't handle the opposing attorneys?
Okay, I'm looking at the team here. Which one is it on divorce
matters? It's Catherine Kendrick. Okay, I'm looking to see if she's still
here. Oh yeah, I see her, Catherine Kendrick. Okay, So
she walked out? Was there? Did the arbitrator make a decision she could
just walk out? No? No, the arbitrator. No, you were
in arbitration. And when she walked out, what did the arbitrator say?
You mean the mediator? Okay, I'm sorry. The mediator. Yes,
yes, she we didn't come to no agreement at all. Okay, it
was it was just like we knew we weren't going to come to an agreement
because he on June twenty ninth. I don't think you knew that he gave
me two black eyes. No, no, wait a minute, dear,
I'm Stacy. Just help me out. When I talk about mediation, did
you go to mediation with the attorney to get your money back with the bar
association, I'm not talking about there's two mediations going on. Or I didn't
do that. I'm sorry, No, sir, No, I didn't do
that. I'm in the midst of that now. Okay. So the mediation
you're talking about is the divorce mediation where your attorney walked out exactly. That
is unheard of. I mean wait, wait, you went to mediation with
your husband, with your husband and his attorney, and your attorney walked out.
Yes, why, she says she couldn't handle the opposing attorney's attitude.
She was too bullying and challenging. What okay, when you went to mediation,
who was you had? You and your attorney and your husband and her
attorney, right and his attorney yes, we're the four of you in a
room together, yes, including our mediator. Well, we weren't in a
room. We were on zoom because we had and who who was the mediator?
Glenna Baker. Okay, So where does it stand right now that mediation
broke down, Well, we couldn't mediate our hearing is in until the twenty
fourth of February of twenty twenty five. Did you hire another attorney? No,
because I ended up on the street because I ended up getting put out
of the house. Pros on both of us on Wednesday. On Wednesday because
the judge he had a personality, a mad personality before he came in because
it was getting moved to a different division. So he just stepped pros on
both of us. And we both had federal jobs. And my ex husband
will soon to be a start, was trying to get me. His attorney
wasn't saying anything, so he ended up with a pro I ended up with
a prro for nothing. So I'm going through an RFE right now and going
to do some other stuff to try to get and appeal this because this is
a nightmare. This is a nightmare, Stacy, it is. You need
an attorney, though, Stacy, you really need to find an attorney to
help you through the divorce. Yes, And you know what I've been looking
form. I just really got to put myself, set myself in the position
where I have somewhere to live. I've looked at us. Are you literally
on the street? Are you literally on the street right now? Pretty much?
Pretty much? Hotels? Father? Well, but hold on, why
were you kicked out of the house. I don't understand that part. I
don't know why I was kicked out of the house. He he his attorney,
He had his attorney, and his attorney thought he wasn't going to get
anything. And the next thing you know, the judge he starts yelling in
the courtroom and we're looking crazy. He apologizes to us on the sixteenth that
morning, and I'm like, I don't know what to do. I by
myself, and so he just drops two pros both of us, I mean,
just like that, and says, I'm sorry, ye, jac I'm
gonna be honest with you here. I mean, this is way too,
way too complicated. Really, I mean, you need an attorney who can
represent you. I mean, honest to God, you need someone to help
you. Because, first of all, I don't. I can't believe that
divorce matters. Yes, that her attorney would simply walk out because she felt
challenged by the other attorney and it was on a zoom call, and and
that the mediator did not I mean, I'm sean. So did your attorney
actually quit then? Right after that, yes, she did. She sent
me an email and the motion and said that she no longer can be the
attorney for my case because of the challenging and bullying of the other opposing attorney.
That's what she said, because of the challenging and bullying the other attorney,
and they simply dropped you. And you put in a complaint. I
hope you put in a complaint with the bar Association. Yes, I had.
And where does that stand? Right now? Where does that stand?
Rachel Winters? She has another last thing too. She's the investigator, Missus
Rosette, of this Preme Court bar, like you said, m the grievance
committee or the oversight committee. Yes, she said, that is not how
we do things in Colorado. No, it's not. You know what,
Listen, you got to stay the course there because that attorney should be censured
if everything you say is true on this and did you contact any I don't
know who the who the lead attorney is over at Divorce Matters. I mean,
I imagine they have a founding partner possibly, did you did you talk
to anyone there above her? Yes? I did, and they're still refusing.
And then my friend David Blake, he went there, crutches and everything,
just to talk to him. Nothing, and they called, is it
true? Okay the founding partner? Hold on, there's a managing attorney and
there's a founding partner. Did you talk to Douglas Thomas. Nope. I
didn't get to talk to him. I just got to talk to a person
under him, Emily, And they said yes, and wait, are you
sure it's Emily Annell? Did you talk to the yesh? Yes, I
smoked her. I have her on my email in your And what did Emily
say to you at Divorce Matters? She says she has to go with what
was discussed. They discussed it in their own little group, I guess,
and that there's nothing she could do about it. Well, no, listen,
I want to make something clear. There's nothing really wrong with Well,
I shouldn't say that this attorney could feel bullied and abused and not want to
deal with that other attorney. But they but in my opinion that what they
should do is assign another attorney or give your money back exactly. And that's
what missus Rosette said. But they're refusing, and well then you got to
continue. I don't know what to tell you. Got to continue the course
here. Meanwhile, I'll see if I can find someone who can represent you.
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nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hey Tom Martine here, three oh three
seven one three talks seven one three eight two five five. I want to
get to the phones and I want to talk to Joe. Joe, what
happened with your car accident? You have them my brother law or information,
and he was in the back seat because he no longer has a driver's license.
Well, they say I ran the red line, I went ahead and
Andy see to it. Okay? Is that all? Or was there any
injury or accident? Yeah? Me and my wife were both hurt? Oh
wait wait wait, wait when you when they said you ran the light?
Did someone hit you or did you hit someone they hit me? And and
did you get a ticket? Yes? Okay? And you and your wife
were both injured? Yes? Okay, So what is your question? Oh,
the insurance haven't He said they weren't going to cover us? Why beca
because we got a ticket? I yes, no, you're still covered.
But here's what I want to know. You said your brother. Hold on
this, this is important. Your brother in law was in the back seat,
right was he? Was he a licensed driver? No? Then how
can you have car insurance? I don't know. Inspired his license expired and
his insurance Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel roofing dot com.
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Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three three nine two zero
sixteen twenty two new so you don't have run as as we can, Shooter's
gonna help. Come man, this is the Troubleshooter Show. No Tom Martino.
Hey, I'm Tom Martino. Welcome to the show. This hour brought
to you by fix It twenty four to seven. I've been representing George with
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that's really important. So that's for right now. This time of year would
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Yeah, yeah, so free second opinions, no strings attached, yes,
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special on the membership you have to pay for, but right now it's free
until I tell you. Now, let's talk to this. This car accident
I'm very confused about, but I have my expert on and feel free to
chime in. Let me put that white chat. Yeah, you're on,
Hannah, So so jar me. Joe said he was driving his friend's car.
It was it was his brother in law and his wife was in the
car with him. His brother in law's in the back seat. But his
brother in law hasn't expired license. When did, Joe? When did your
brother in law's license expire? Are you there, Joe here? Over a
year? Did he lose his license or did it expire? Inspired? And
why did he not get a new one? Well, he's almost blind.
Oh that's a good reason. I mean, he probably got like twenty forty
villion, but he don't qualify to drive. Okay, so he probably drives
like Mark in his big motor home. I'm just kidding about it. I'm
just joking. Hey, So, so Joe, listen, listen, So
he doesn't drive, Jeremy, are you allowed to have a car that's licensed
and insured if you don't drive? If you yeah, I mean you could
ensure a vehicle that you don't drive. You would typically need to list who
is driving on that on that policy, though, like, like who is
listed, Joe, do you know on his policy for a driver? Yes?
Okay, Now, you were in. Now, Joe was in an
accident and got a ticket for running a traffic light, and his insurance says,
we're not going to cover you. Is that right, Joe? Yeah,
it's State Farm. That's my brother in law's insurance. Now, my
my insurance covered me and my wife and our insurance covered her. Shane Farm
ain't done nothing. Okay, the physical Now, hold on. Here's what
I want to ask. Why won't they cover What reason did they give you
for not covering you, Joe? Because I got to take it now,
Jeremy, that's not a good reason. Right, Well, I guess I'm
confused. What what are they not covering him for? Yeah? What are
they not covering? Medical bills? Are they? Let me ask you this?
Are they? Hold on? Are they covering your the car? Your
brother in law's car? Well from me, my voices? Okay, all
right, Hi Tom? Hi? What what is your name here? My
name is Julie. Hey, Julie. Why what are they covering your brother's
car? I assume it's your brother. Yes, it's my brother, but
I don't know because we're confused because they say no, and he said yes
they did, but they he had to go pick up the ticket, I
mean price of it. But since both Joe and I were injured and in
a hospital, we have nobody here to take and he didn't drive, so
they said since he didn't pick up he didn't pick up his check, that
they weren't going to cover nothing. Wait wait, wait, that doesn't make
that doesn't make sense. I want to ask a few questions, Julie.
When was this accident? How long ago? September twenty fourth of last year?
Okay, twenty three? Okay, okay, Now what I want to
know is this the other car? What happened with the other car? I
have no idea because basically, Joe was unconscious and I was in bad shape,
and they took all three of us and won ambulance before the police ever
got there. They took the fire departments had to take us out of the
car, pry us out of the car. So it was a pretty bad
accident, right, And I think it was the other guy that was at
fault. Well yeah, but you're but but Joe got the ticket. And
here's what I want to know. What happened to the car? Did your
hold on? Did your brother have it fully insured? What year was this
car? I'm not sure what year it is, but yeah, he had
full coverage on it. He was carrying full coverage on it, including collision
coverage. Kill it's a twenty eleven, so he probably do you know if
he had collision coverage or not? Do you know? Uh? Yeah,
because he had a two hundred and fifty dollars inductible for collision. So has
his car since been fixed or replaced? No, the insurance totaled it.
But they were supposed to give him a check for it, and they never
gave him the check. He says, well, they never gave him che
because he never could go down there to pick up the check out. I
get it, I get a hold on. You're right, they should get
him the check. We can handle that. We can help your brother get
paid. But now, did he have med pay medical liability? No,
it's no, it's it's specifically called medical payments. Yes, he had.
It's number C on his card. It says medical payments. And what does
it say under medical payments? It doesn't say anything. This is on his
card and it just says medical payments. It says nothing about it. So,
Jeremy, do you know what they're talking about? Jeremy is with a
compass insurance group. What is she? What is she talking about? On
his card it says medical payments. Does that mean he has medpay? No,
he had for himself, but for nobody else. No, Well that
that's not so either, because they don't. Hey is per person. But
if there's nothing listed on the card, then I'm assuming he doesn't have the
medpay coverage. Usually there'd be a limit listed. There is that where you're
also seeing the deductible at two point fifty? Yes, listen, I think
if it's blank, my assumption would be that there's no medpay coverage on that
policy. See, the reason they're not paying it is because he doesn't have
the coverage, not because of the accident. And also, well it is
because of the accident too, because the other In other words, it's your
fault. If it was the other party's fault, you could go after the
other party for your medical payments. But usually with medpay coverage, it doesn't
matter whose fault it is. And that's probably why they're not paying is because
you don't have it. But here's how we can find out for sure.
Let me ask you this, Julie, your brother is your brother pretty competent?
Can he talk and all that? Well, I don't think he's too
clear. He doesn't understand much. Okay, would you be able to get
a copy of his insurance policy? I guy, his insurance card, not
his card? Well, I don't know. Would his card be the same
as the decks page? You tell me, Jeremy, we'd want the deck
page for this for sure, Julie. Do you know if he has an
insurance policy anywhere he can look at or you can look at. Uh,
they're usually they're usually PDFs. Now they're usually electronic, Jeremy. Does anyone
mail out a policy anymore? Yeah, there's still some companies that eat.
Yeah, because we don't have computers, so they have to mail ours to
it. Okay, if he has a policy, the front page usually have
the policy or the second page is called declaration page, and it's a summary
of the insurance. If you can get a hold of that, we can
help you. Okay, if you can get a hold of that, but
we need to know what coverage you have first, because it's set you.
Here's my first blush. I don't think he had medpay, although if he
had collision on a twenty on an accuse me on a thirteen year old car
Maybe he did have medpay. I don't know, but you need to look
at his policy, and if he has medpay coverage, they would have to
cover you. I can't see where they'd get around it, do you,
Jeremy, Well, just to understand too, I mean, most policies,
the medpay coverage is really it's like five thousand dollars, that's what most people
have. And it's not designed to cover your medical bills. It's designed to
cover your expense. You're out of pocket expense, your health insurance isn't paying.
So there's just to make sure that they're understanding. Medpay is not a
big coverage. It's not. No, no, it's not, but it
is certainly something. So Joe and Julie, how much of your hospital?
How much of your medical bills? Mine is one hundred and fifty thousand,
And I don't know what Joe's is because we have never seen. Okay,
now, do you guys have do you guys have any kind of health insurance
or medicare? We're both on Medicare? Is Medicare paying any of that?
They paid a portion of mine? Okay? And so is anyone trying to
come after you for money. I'm not sure. I've not seen a letter
or anything. We get calls every day, but I'm asking is anyone trying
to collect? Is anyone I'm trying to collect from you? Yes? But
it has nothing to do with medical Oh what does that have to do with
at some credit card? They say that, Joe owes, But we never
had that credit card. So we've been forget that for now. For now,
you can forget that. But here's the deal, Joe and Julie.
How old you guys? I'm sixty one and Joe is seventy eight. Okay,
so he robbed the cradle. Listen, here's what you do. Basic.
Basically, here's what you do, Julie, seriously. Now, what
you need to do is how are you on Social Secure? How are you
on Medicare at sixty one? At sixty one years old? It's a disability?
Oh okay. What you guys need to do is basically nothing, because
we're going to check the coverage for you if you get a copy of the
policy, but they're probably not going to collect a dime from you anyway.
Do you guys have a lot of money stashed anywhere? No? Do you
own a home? Yeah, but it's but the mortgage is killing us on
it. How much it equity do you have? They say there's like two
hundred and three thousand. Okay, so you guys are uncollectible. Do you
know what that means? That they can't get anything out of us? That's
right, because all of your benefits come from the government. You don't have
enough equity and you don't have any savings or investments, so they can't get
anything from you, so they won't bother So why do you care if the
insurance covers your medical bills or not? Uh? Kill us? The one
that called you, I'm not sure, no, no, no. What
I'm saying is I don't want you to worry. I don't want you to
worry about it. That's what I'm telling you. Yeah, okay, okay,
but I do want you. I do want you. You're not gonna
have to pay anything. I want you, though, to get a copy
of your brother, of your brother's insurance if you can, and call us
back, and we'd be happy to have Compass take a look at it.
Jeremy. In general, though, if you're not if you're not licensed,
you can still have a car and let others drive it. Yeah, I
mean this definitely can go from company to company. But yeah, like we'll
have people who's still in the car. They no longer drive, maybe they're
getting old or whatever the case may be. But the insurance company is going
to want whoever. So let's say you have your daughter drives you to medical
appointments a couple times a week in your car, but you're not driving,
They're gonna want you to have your daughter list It is a okay, all
right, Paul, But what about occasional use? If you just let someone
drive now and then, would they have to be named? No, that
would fall under permiss abuse. I think that those guys were probably covered.
We just have to figure out what kind of coverage they had. So guys,
get us that information. And by the way, thank you, Jeremy.
Compass Insurance Group Home of the Insurance Checkup three oh three nine ninety six,
nine thousand. We have more coming right up. Go with a sure
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Hi Tom Martinez here three oh three seven one three talks seven one three A
two five five. Do we still have free memberships to give away? We
have just a few chief Okay, we're not gonna say the number. Then
no, no, I don't want to because it's free. There's really no
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all free right now until we tell you not. You call seven two zero
five two six thirty nine thirty nine. I'd love your opinion on it.
After you've been a member. I'm a member. It's wonderful. Our members
love it. And time I think we got so excited we forgot to say
this is for fix at twenty four to seven. Oh of course, I
mean we're just synonymous. Of course, fix it. You're right, fixmihome
dot com. Of course. And then, of course, whether you're a
member or not, you get free second opinions. You got to be patient
on it, but honest to God, no matter what you're told, ever,
I always believe you should get second opinions. Anyway, Dominique, what's
going on with you? Dominique, welcome to the show. And Tom,
Hey, what's happening? Okay, So me and my roommates to my roommates
just moved into these apartments March fifteenk okay, so there's three of you,
yes, okay. Before we moved in, they told us that we had
to have all of our stuff set up, like our rest insurance or Excel
Energy like all of that stuff set up, which we did. Yeah,
okay, that March. When did you move in, Dominique, When did
you move in? March fifteenth this year? Okay, March twelfth. My
roommate Ash, she had all of her She already had an XL Energy account
from her old apartment, and I was moving out of my dad's house,
so I didn't even have any accounts set up, nor did I need to,
because she already had all the information and stuff needed to have the cap
transfers. Okay, so she she transferred her account to that new apartment.
Yes, and then and then the and then the idea was you were all
going to chip in for it. Yes, so okay. She has the
confirmation email from XL Energy saying the transfer is complete. You know, there's
nothing else needed from you, YadA YadA YadA. You know, like it
was pretty much over. She didn't need to do anything else. They were
just transferring the information it to the new part. March eighteenth, I had
to go to the office to find the rest of the paperwork because they forgot
to have a still out from paperwork. So I did that, and then
I finished moving my stuff inside the apartment. And then apparently three months later,
so the end of last month, we got a bill from the office
saying we owed them three hundred dollars for them paying our EXL energy bill.
I don't wait, wait wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait
wait, wait wait wait wait wait. Is they were paying your Excel energy
bill because apparently they thought you didn't have an account? Right? Yes,
But but the thing is is that we did well. Yeah. But here's
what I want to know. This is what's important, Dominique. Were you
also paying the bill as well? Yeah? I would send Ash the money
whatever moving? What was Ash was Ash? Okay? Ash is your roommate
when she transferred it to the new apartment Ash lived with you? Is that
right? Yes? Was Ash being honest with you guys or just collecting money
from you? No, she was being honest. She sends us like she
sends us all of the emails from Excel saying that everything was transferred and can
see And that's not what I'm asking. Here's what I'm asking. Listen.
It's very easy. You moved in March fifteenth. Sometime in June, you
got a bill, Okay, Yes, did you see that bill that Ash
got? Yes? And you paid a third of it, so we didn't
pay that bill yet. That's where I'm getting to. Well, Okay,
you've been there since March fifteenth. How many Excel cycles have you been through?
It seems like April May June and July. Right, Yes, have
you guys paid four Excel bills in Ash's name? No, the office has
because what happened was, so when we transferred the email, we got the
emails and everything she forwarded us on the emails of how we knew like everything
was complete and everything, and then what happened was because it was like the
online transfer, there was a delay on Xcel Energy side, and so on
March eighteenth, they decided to make an account under in my office. The
office apartment complex decided to make an account under my name without letting us know.
Okay, but Dominique, I understand, I understand the complication, but
no matter what, you don't have to double pay. So if you already
paid Ash, is Ash going to give your money back? Because Ash apparently
didn't have to pay what they were charging Ash for her old apartment. Still
they said that, oh, so you guys were paying, you guys were
paying. Didn't figure that out until the end of last month when we got
that three hundred dollars yesh okay Ash Ash Ash Ash the money that she was
paying on her old apartment. Was anyone living in that apartment? No,
So what happened was was the old apartment, So she was still on the
lease to the old apartment until April first, but she moved out early because
we moved in here March fifteenth. She gave the old office that she lived
at her keys early and she was like, I don't think I'll need to
be coming back, you know. And then they moved somebody else in while
she was still technically on the leaf. So what I think happened was because
she was still on the leaf at the old apartments, they still thought that
Excel the excel still thought that she was still there. No, I get
it. So somehow, let me let me get this straight. Then,
somehow Ash was charging you guys and paying her part of the old apartment while
the new management company at your new apartment was paying for the power on that
one. Yes, unknowingly, tho I get it. I get of course
it was unknowing. Of course it was. So now you need to pay
the management company for the power up till today. But at the same time
you need to get a refund for the money you guys paid to the other
apartment. Yes, but I also wanted to know if it was even if
office like apartment office management offices are even allowed to set up accounts like that
under pennant's name. No, they know, they can't send it. Hold
on listen. Yet, they can't set up an account under a tenant's name
without the tenant agreeing to the obligation. But they can set up an account
for the apartment and ask you to pay what you used, absolutely, and
I'll guarantee you. I can't guarantee you, but most likely in your lease
it says that they have a right to charge you for utilities used if you
did not set up your own account, which would include any kind of utility.
But will the management company? Does the management company understand the confusion?
I'm not short, So I went to speak to them yesterday about that.
I was asking him too if he was even allowed to be because they didn't
let me know, but that's what they were doing. I just got a
call from Xcel Energy when they say, hey, you know, like,
are you gonna, you know, finish setting up your account? And I
was like, what what do you mean? Yeah, I get have an
account with Dominique A Dominique this I want to I'm gonna I want to give
you some facts here about your account and what to do. So, if
you can take some notes, I'm really serious, I'll tell you how you
can fix this. It's it's not gonna be easy, but it'll be done
and then I can help you. I got to take a break first,
so hang on three oh three seven one three eight two five five. Go
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You'll think you're his only customer, and you choose Frank durand the real estate
Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two
zero sixteen twenty two. I'm Tom Martine. You're a troubleshooter. Listen to
make things clear. It's very easy and I don't want to go through dollars
and cents. But Dominique, when they moved into this new apartment, Dominique
in her roommates without knowing it, the management company was paying their electric bill
because the management company assumed that there wasn't an account set up, so they
set up an account and was paying for that. And now they want to
be reimbursed, and they should be reimbursed. Dominique and Ash and the other
girl, they all owe the management company whatever the management company paid, or
if it's a balance due to Excel, they owe for the energy they used
in the new apartment, no matter what. Now, as are as Ash
moving out of her old apartment, if she can prove the date it was
transferred and she has an email where Excel acknowledged that they're transferring the account from
that date forward, they should credit everything that was paid on the old apartment.
They still might owe some money because I assumed the new apartment with three
girls would be using more energy than the old apartment with someone. But you
know, we'll see. But what we need to do is get someone to
explain it to Excel. Now here's what I want to know, Dominique,
did Excel did Excel say anything, Did you guys contact well, actually it's
Ash who needs to contact them. Did she contact them and say, listen,
you were applying my payments to my old apartment after you told me you
transferred the account. What did say? They told her that it was back
payd from last like the last month that she was there, and she was
like that I transferred it. Well, that sounds hold on, that sounds
logical because you do pay electric in the rears. That does sound logical.
Here's all that matters. Okay, here's what matters. Ash needs to figure
out the money that she owed to Excel on the old apartment, that's all.
And if she charged you guys for that, she needs to give the
money back to you because you were paying for her old electric bill. You
lay out the months. Here's what you do. How long was she in
that old apartment? Do you know how long Ash was there? Maybe two
years? Okay? What Ash needs to do is go back six months of
bills and she needs to see what she was paying. Because Excel is right,
you pay electricity in the rears. So the payment that you pay in
July is for usage up to a cutoff date sometime in June. So if
that's true. But I don't know how it could go on that long.
For example, you guys were paying made the beginning of April and then moved
or beginning of March. I'm fire, and then moved out the middle March
fifteenth, and then she was also getting charged for April, even though she
had already put the transfer in. Yeah, but the April. Listen,
if she moved out of her apartment, let's say, no matter when,
whenever she moved out, she would still owe money to Excel on that apartment
for the past thirty days. She wouldn't owe every month after that, but
she would owe for whatever billing period she was residing there. It's not it's
the billing period. It's the consumption period, not when they issue the bill.
So only you can figure only she can figure that out. She can
ask for an account audit, but for Excel to say that she was paying
for her previous months, that's ridiculous. If she moved out April first,
Okay, the most she's gonna owe is for March and half of April.
Excuse me, it is for is for before February and half of March.
If she moved out, or maybe even all of March. It doesn't matter.
What I'm saying is she doesn't owe for May, June, and July.
For God's sake, she wasn't living there. Are they saying every penny
she paid was for back Excel bills. Well, that's ridiculous. What do
they mean by that? And the thing is she also had her she always
has all of her bills on autopay, So she's like, why didn't you
guys just take out all the money, bro, It doesn't matter they took
it out or not. Okay, that doesn't matter. If it was on
auto pay and they did not take it out, she owes it. Whether
or not they took it out or not, it's not the issue. The
issue is was it owed and was it paid? She needs an audit of
that account. Honest to god. It's between It's really between you guys and
Ash right now. And if Excel overcharged her, they should credit her on
this new account or I don't know what else to tell you, but Excel
is saying everything she paid, she owed, and you're saying, no,
she paid extra. Whatever it is it is, and Excel should be willing
to give you a full and complete audit. And if not, doc,
why don't you explain it to them? Just help them on a conference call,
maybe with Excel Energy to lay it out. I'm Tom martine more coming
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two zero sixteen twenty two. Yeah, you need that? Who you don't
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Come Man Dix is the Troubleshooter Show. Now Tom Martino, Tom Martino
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What club do you call it? What do you guys call it? I
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But why wouldn't you get it free first fix myhome dot com seven two
zero five two six thirty nine thirty nine. Jeremy, I got some questions
about insurance after we had that discussion earlier in the show. By the way,
this is Jeremy, our insurance expert at Compass Insurance Group. So here's
the deal. We said, you can own a car, and there are
plenty of people who are older, they can't drive anymore, but they own
a car and they want to insure it. And then they have designated drivers
or permissive drivers from time to time to help them out. And somebody said
this was very enlightening. They didn't know that their mom has a car and
they want to use it, so they were very happy to know that.
So I'm looking for my text skin I'm sorry, okay. And then on
that note, somebody asked car insured fully my brother, me and my sister
hold on Okay, so they want to know this she can no longer drive?
This is mom? And then how many of us have to be insured
of the siblings because do we have to like insure every one of them on
the policy? How does that work? Yeah, that's a good question,
and I think it's important to know. So really people should talk to the
agent or the company because there is going to be some variants from company to
company, so all this pergy kind of generalized. Companies typically are going to
want people who have any kind of regular access or regular use to be on
there. So if you had four siblings and you know, one of them
takes the parent to the doctor's appointment every Monday and another one takes them to
a different one every Thursday, you know, maybe those two need to be
added and then the other two. It's really kind of a you know,
once in a whild thing. Then maybe that company is going to want those
two to be added. I think the important thing is to just communicate that
because a lot of times people don't and just kind of hope for the best,
and that's not something we would typically reckon it, okay, And then
in line with that, I got another text and by the way, people,
I should mention this at the beginning of the show. In addition to
texting us to the iHeart texting app which is five seven seven thirty nine and
putting Tom there, you can also text my Google number. That's where these
are coming through seven four seven. And I have a question, is there
a such thing as somebody wants to know as an open policy? Can they
have an open so they don't if they have caretakers and things. So those
aren't as typical on personal lines as they are typically in a commercial lines policy.
So it really more comes down to how a company's defining their permissive use
in their contract. So permissive use is typically going to be something where your
neighbor needs to borrow your truck to go to home depot. That's fine.
You don't need to add your neighbor to your insurance policy to borrow your car.
Most companies, if not all, at this point, are excluding permissive
use from any drivers in the house. So a lot of times it comes
down to household but as far as a specific open policy, those aren't really
something we see on person Okay, it's the way you can see on commercial.
Now, next question. Having this sparked some kind of a nerve here
because I guess a lot of people have elderly folks and stuff. They have
cars. Somebody wants to know if my brother lives with my mom still and
he's forty, and he's not he's a licensed driver, does she have to
have him on the policy because he lives there. Now, this is a
good topic because we always talk about parents when their kids become the driving age
and have licenses, their insurance changes because you have to tell your insurance company,
right correct, Okay, So does that work for an adult child like
this guy that's forty years old living with his mom? This is really I
know I say this all the time, but this really is company specific.
So with even our companies, most of ours at this point would require that.
So he's forty, he has his own insurance. If he lives in
mom's house or whoever it could be, you know, his brothers, anyone's
that company is going to want him to be listed or excluded as a driver.
Now, I definitely have some companies that don't that will say, hey,
he's got his own car, he is his own insurance. That's fine.
We may have him listed on there, but they're not rating him for
it. So this one really is company specific. And if you're with and
I see this all the time even with my clients, where they'll call up
and let's say they're with a company that does require that, and the rate
goes up a bunch, and it's like, why are they paying because they
live together, Now they have to pay more money. This guy's yeah,
he's living in the house, but he has his own car. We will
move them to a company that maybe doesn't require that. So that's a big
one where if you're in that situation, verify how your company's going to handle
that or require that to be and if it doesn't line up for you,
that's a great time to look elsewhere to go to a company that's not going
to have that requirement. All right. Now, along the same vein,
let me go to the next one. Will my insurance cover me if I'm
driving Mom's car and she doesn't have medpay but I do. Your med pay
can potentially extend if the driver's policy doesn't have it. That's a tough one
because the medpay is really more in the vehicle. We've seen that pay on
someone's insurance pay out, like as a pedestrian. So it's not something I'd
go as far as to say yes it would, but it would be a
potential to look to see if there's coverage. Okay, now on ride shares?
This is my question. This is not a text. I know we
have coverages that extend to our rental cars if we have a good enough policy,
So when we go on vacation and rental car, whatever we have on
our personal car can extend to a rental car. Right, Okay, does
any coverage extend to ride share? Let's say I have a way cool?
Well, I mean I don't know. Let's see if even under insured or
uninsured and let's say ride share or whoever hit ride share or any of them
aren't adequate for my needs. Can I go to my own policy for under
insured, uninsured or medpay? Yeah, you could, I don't know.
The medpay would be a lot more likely where you can see coverage from that
the uninsured mot rist it could act as a backup a second very if there
wasn't enough coverage or potentially not no coverage by it. There's so many factors
that go into that that it's not something where I'd say absolutely, but I
do think you it would be somewhere to look to get coverage in that situation,
okay. And on homeowner's insurance when when when the homeowner is insured for
personal injury, what does that mean? So personal injury on homeowner's insurance is
actually libel and slander. So yeah, that's what people That's what this one
person is confused about because they they happened to notice that, so they wanted
to know what is and like, you're getting hurt. It's not okay,
So explain when you would use that coverage from your homeowners. Let's say you
go on Facebook and say something about someone and they sue you for it,
or your kids do or something like that. It's become a lot more prevalent
with social media to the point where we're seeing a lot of companies so that's
a liability coverage, just like if your dog bites someone or whatever the case
may be. But with social media being so prevalent now and this claim being
so prevalent, a lot of companies have separated that liability from the general you
know, liability coverage that comes on there. And the reason they'll do that
is either they're not going to cover it, They're going to cover it for
a lower limits. I'll see a lot of deck pages that people send in,
or they might have five hundred thousand in liability, but then the personal
injury might be twenty five thousand or fifty thousand. So it's the insurance company
saying, hey, this is becoming way more common than it was in the
past, and so we're not going to include it in the general liability.
Let's explain that specifically. Let's explain that specifically. What we're talking about is
the trouble you get into for calling people out. And I want to if
you hang on, because this is really important. This is something, like
you said, is happening more now than ever, and a lot of people
don't even know they have that coverage. One guy even had to fight with
his neighbor. His neighbor sued him for saying something about him, and he
said he went through his entire case and realized he could have been paid by
his homeowners. He wants to know can he go back and get paid retroactively,
but I want to talk about that coming up. Three O three seven
one three eight two five five. Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer
Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time
for an insurance check up free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass
Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three
all three seven seven to one. Help You'll think you're his only customer when
you choose Frank durand the real estate man dot com to list your home with
Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martinez,
your troubleshooter. I'm part of a Grossmanwellness clinic Grossmanwellness dot com. And
because of that, you can ask him if I am, and I've given
him permission to say yes I am, because I am. I pay a
few hundred bucks a month. Now I'm going to tell you like I think
the fees are around three hundred to four or five. You can get different
levels. I have the one where I get blood work every three months.
I get my prescriptions and I get my supplements and I get my consultations.
The theory is not much can happen in three months that you can't fight or
battle or prevent. And I love it. And I can text them right
now and say, hey, I'm feeling a sore throat. What should I
do? Seriously, it's wonderful and it's a doctor in the pocket Grossmanwellness dot
Com. I'm serious, it's a wonderful service. Now. Jeremy is with
Compass Insurance Group, and man, whenever we talk about insurance, we get
incredible inquiries. This thing about personal injury that we got opened up a can
of worms. We'll probably talk about it again when Brian's on the show or
something. But personal injury people misunderstand. You are actually protected if someone accuses
you of libel or slander or personal injury of that kind, and your insurance
company will defend you. But this kind of lawsuit is becoming way more common.
People say on Facebook, I know Mary blah blah blah, I know
Johnny did this, or their kids or this, and there you know,
it happens so much TikTok the same thing. So it used to be insurance
company has never had these cases. So they extended the coverage as a matter
of normal everyday business. Now, I think, and I don't want to
open up anything with me, but I think in my case, because of
my years and the media and what I do, I think there are special
exclusions and I have to carry special coverage. But right the normal person is
covered. But you're saying that's even that's even changing now, right it is.
So that's why you're seeing that coverage more and more because companies, so
it could be three options. One is it's just still included in their liability.
So whatever your liability is, personal injury is a part of that.
What's much more common now is it's its own coverage. So you need to
make sure that you have personal injury on your policy. And then you could
also see times where your liability is one amount for general liability, but your
personal injury liability limit is lower, and so you want to be aware of
that as well. Again, it used to be you never saw these claims,
so the coverage was extended like candy. But right now I want to
know this, are there any policies that specifically exclude social media. I'm not
aware of any that they would just exclude it by not having the personal injury
coverage and Jeremy, when does the umbrella kick in? So the good question,
So the umbrella is going to kick in as long as the underlying policy
covers it. And that's really the important part to that. So if you
have an umbrella but you don't have personal injury, then you're self ensuring.
You know, typically the first three hundred thousand or whatever your umbrella is requiring
you to have. So you need to just because you have an umbrella doesn't
mean you're you know, through the woods. You need to make sure you
still have personal injury on your primary home policy for that umbrella to cover it.
So what about businesses to ask about kind of ask about businesses. If
you own a business and somebody on social media does all that crap about you
and it's not true. If a business goes after that person, that person
could go to their homeowners to be covered if they have the personal injury.
That's where it would potentially cover them. Any kind of liability is not as
well defined as like property damage, where it's like these type of perils.
When you get into libel and slander with intent, it can get a little
bit dicey. But yes, the theory would be the same, like posting
a review or something like that. So I'm gonna ask a question for Tom's
got such expertise on this, but for the average person listening to this,
what you're saying is if somebody disparages somebody and then you are sued for that
or you are in trouble for that, You're insurance covers your homeowners. Your
homeowners covers you for that, covers your defense and the damages if you have
the coverage, like right, Jeremy correct? And what would be the reasoning
for the injury? You mean, why was it institution to begin with?
I don't know. That's a good question. I can see why they would
cover somebody getting hurt on your property, or why they would cover somebody falling
down your stairs, or why they would cover stuff like that. But it
is a good question. How did that ever come about? Where that became
part of homeowner's insurance? It is a good question. I think the I
mean, I don't know. Originally, I think where you're seeing the personal
injury being listed separately comes from a need. So as there is more of
a likely that you know, there's just more frequency of claims. It's kind
of getting it's meeting that need. Now. I don't know how long personal
injury has you know, for different companies, just been a part of their
liability, right, But it's a lawsuit, right, so it's like we
use typical the dog bit someone and kid fell off the trampoline, you know
whatever these liability cases on a home are. But you know, with social
media, we're just seeing such an uptick in it. They've broken out that
cover same as sewer line, right like forever sewer lines weren't covered. There
is a need for it, and insurance companies have found a way to add
that onto the policy. Jeremy, thank you so much. He's hold on
real quick. Ross. What is your question for Jeremy, Maybe he'll answer
it right now, go ahead. A quick question in relation to yesterday's show,
having for example, three claims in a five year period and probably being
dropped. If I have a home insurance in one year and a car in
a second year, is that considered two claims or is that is it one?
Is it, Jeremy, if they're bundled together by the same company and
you have homeowners and car insurance with the same company and you have that's a
good question. But you have claims on you know, the house and the
car. Are they bundled together as a high risk No, where you would
get into trouble potentially. So no, the answer. If you had two
home claims and an auto claim, they're not looking at it as three claims,
right, Okay, separate In that regard. We're seeing more and more
companies where they will only ensure your home if you also have the auto.
So you could have a really bad driving record and they drop you from the
auto and then in turn, now you're not eligible for the home. But
the claims are separate as far as that goes. Some companies do treat homeowners
and rental property claims all together for eligibility, so that's a whole different thing.
But when we're talking about home an auto, they are separate. All
right, Well, thank you, I mean Ross, that's a good question.
So three claims in five years? You know, Like I said that,
this whole insurance industry I think needs needs a whole complete reorganization. The
way the way they can take payments and I again I'm not gonna preach,
but for thirty years they can take you know, payments from people and then
cancel them. You know it just seems weird, but anyway, thank you,
Jeremy. That's not what you guys. You guys simply sell the stuff
and help people. And if you want an insurance check up, that's three
oh three nine nine six nine thousand more coming right up, Yeah, dum
so you don't have to run in. Just as fast as we can.
Shooter's gonna help. Come. Dix is the troubleshooter shore No Tom Martinez,
Tom Martino here at three all three seven one three talk seven one three eight
two five five. What's on your mind? How can we help you?
Give us a call and we would be happy to discuss your consumer problem,
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nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Another thing, we got a few free
UH memberships we're giving away for fix at twenty four to seven. And I
call it the whatever it's called, well, I call it the it's for
service. It's a club. It's it's something you belong to, a loyalty
club where you pay a small amount every month. Although now we're giving away
a couple of free ones we've given away. Yeah, just for us,
right, just for our listeners. So if you call after the show,
it ain't going to work. So you call seventy zero five two six thirty
nine thirty nine, say you want the free What club do you call it?
What do you guys call it? I always call it the Green Bubble
Club. What do you call it? I like Green Bubble Club. It's
a green club. It's a green club. So you join, you get
priority pricing, priority appointments, discounts on any replacements, plus four major services
a year. Like your power panel. You're going through completely your water heater,
including a flush, your hvac in the prior to winter and your air
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free ones. Now, after we give away all the free ones, we'll
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it free for fix myhome dot Com seventy zero five two six thirty nine thirty
nine. Jeremy, I got some questions about insurance after we had that discussion
earlier in the show. By the way, this is Jeremy, our insurance
expert at Compass Insurance Group. So here's the deal. We said, you
can own a car, and there are plenty of people who are older,
they can't drive anymore, but they own a car and they want to insure
it. And then they have designated drivers or permissive drivers from time to time
to help them out. And somebody said this was very enlightening. They didn't
know that their mom has a car and they want to use it, so
they were very happy to know that. So I'm looking for my text skin
I'm sorry, okay, And then on that note, somebody asked car insuredfully,
my brother, me and my sister hold on okay, So they want
to know this she can no longer drive, this is mom, And then
how many of us have to be insured of the siblings, because do we
have to like ensure every one of them on the on the policy? How
does that work? Yeah, that's a good question, and I think it's
important to know. Really people should talk to the agent or the company because
there is going to be some variants from company to company, so all this
pergy kind of generalized. Companies typically are going to want people who have any
kind of regular access or regular use to be on there. So if you
have four siblings and you know, one of them takes the parent to the
doctor's appointment every Monday and another one takes them to a different one every Thursday,
you know, maybe those two need to be added, and then the
other two it's really kind of a you know, once in a while thing.
Then maybe that company is going to want those two to be added.
I think the important thing is to just communicate that because a lot of times
people don't and just kind of hope for the best, and that's not something
you would typically right, Okay, And then in line with that, I
got another text and by the way, people I should mention this at the
beginning of the show. In addition to texting us to the iHeart texting app
which is five seven seven thirty nine and putting Tom there, you can also
text my Google number. That's where these are coming through seven four seven,
And I have a question, is there a such thing that somebody wants to
know as an open policy? Can they have an open So they don't if
they have caretakers and things. So those aren't as typical on personal lines as
they are typically in a commercial lines policy. So it really more comes down
to how a company's defining their permissive use in their contract. So permissive use
is typically going to be something where your neighbor needs to borrow your truck to
go to home depot, So that's fine. You don't need to add your
neighbor to your insurance policy to borrow your car. Most companies, if not
all, at this point, are excluding permissive use from any drivers in the
house. So a lot of times it comes down to household. But as
far as a specific open policy, those aren't really something we see on personal
okay, the way you can see on commercial Now, next question. Having
this sparked some kind of a nerve here because I guess a lot of people
have elderly folks and stuff, they have cars. Somebody wants to know,
if my brother lives with my mom still and he's forty, and he's not
he's a licensed driver, does she have to have him on the policy because
he lives there. Now, this is a good topic because we always talk
about parents when their kids become the driving age and have licenses, their insurance
changes because you have to tell your insurance company, right correct. Okay,
so does that work for an adult child like this guy that's forty years old
living with his mom. This is really I know I say this all the
time, but this really is company specific. So with even our companies,
most of ours at this point would require that. So he's forty, he
has his own insurance, if he lives in mom's house or whoever it could
be, you know, his brothers, anyone's that company is going to want
him to be listed or excluded as a driver. Now. I definitely have
some companies that don't that will say, hey, he's got his own car,
he his own insurance. That's fine. We may have him listed on
there, but they're not rating him for it. So this one really is
company specific. And if you're with and I see this all the time even
with my clients where they'll call up and let's say they're with a company that
does require that, and the rate goes up a bunch, and it's like,
why are they paying because they live together and now they have to pay
more money. This guy's yeah, he's living in the house, but he
has his own car. We will move them to a company that maybe doesn't
require that. So that's a big one where if you're in that situation,
verify how your company's going to handle that or require that to be and if
it doesn't line up for you, that's a great time to look elsewhere to
go to a company that's not going to have that requirement. All right.
Now, along the same vein, let me go to the next one.
Will my insurance cover me if I'm driving Mom's car and she doesn't have medpay
but I do. Your MED pay can potentially extend if if the driver's policy
doesn't have it. That's a tough one because the MED pay is really more
in the vehicle. We've seen that pay on someone's insurance pay out like as
a descreen. So it's not something I'd go as far as to say yes,
it would, but it would be a potential to look to see if
there's coverage. Okay, now on ride shares, this is my question.
This is not a text. I know we have coverages that extend to our
rental cars if we have a good enough policy, So when we go on
vacation and rent a car, whatever we have on our personal car can extend
to a rental car. Right, Okay, does any coverage extend to ride
share? Let's say I have a way cool? Well, I mean I
don't know. Let's see if even under insured or uninsured, and let's say
ride share or whoever hit ride share or any of them aren't adequate for my
needs. Can I go to my own policy for under insured, uninsured or
medpay? Yeah, you could, I don't know. The medpay would be
a lot more likely where you can see coverage from that. The uninsured motorists,
it could act as a backup, a secondary if there wasn't enough coverage
or potentially not no coverage. But there's so many factors that go into that
that it's not something where I'd say absolutely, but I do think you it
would be somewhere to look to get coverage in that situation. Okay. And
on homeowner's insurance, when when when the homeowner is insured for personal injury,
what does that mean? So personal injury on homeowner's insurance is actually libel and
slander. So yeah, that's what people. That's what this one person is
confused about because they they happened to notice that, so they wanted to know
what is and like you getting hurt, it's not okay, So explain when
you would use that coverage from your homeowners. Let's say you go on Facebook
and say something about someone and they sue you for it, or your kids
do or something like that. It's become a lot more prevalent with social media
to the point where we're seeing a lot of companies, so that's a liability
coverage, just like if your dog bites someone or whatever the case may be.
But with social media being so prevalent now and this claim being so prevalent,
a lot of companies have separated that liability from the general liability coverage that
comes on there. And the reason they'll do that is either they're not going
to cover it, they're going to cover it for a lower limits. I'll
see a lot of deck pages that people send in or they might have five
hundred thousand in liability, but then the personal injury might be twenty five thousand
or fifty thousand. So it's the insurance company saying, hey, this is
becoming way more common than it was in the past, and so we're not
getting included in the general liability. Let's explain that specifically. Let's explain that
specifically. What we're talking about is the trouble you get into for calling people
out. And I want to if you hang on, because this is really
important. This is something, like you said, is happening more now than
ever, and a lot of people don't even know they have that coverage.
One guy even had to fight with his neighbor. His neighbor sued him for
saying something about him, and he said he went through his entire case and
realized he could have been paid by his homeowners. He wants to know can
he go back and get paid retroactively? But I want to talk about that
coming up three three, seven, one, three eight, two five five
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don't pay a cent until you're contenth time for an insurance check up free no
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Dan McKenzie McKenzie Law. You can find him on referralss dot com.
Eight three three co plans eight three three co plans. Okay, so we
have some questions here. Gally has a question or has a problem with Renewal
by Anderson. Gally, what's going on? Gali? Sure hear me?
Yeah, what's happening? Gally? Oh? Hi, good afternoon. How
are you. I'm doing good? What's going on? Oh gosh? Thank
you for taking the time to talk to me. I we purchased windows from
Renewal Anderson back in twenty nineteen. Okay, now usually again again, I
don't have any special connection to them, but they're a pretty good brand name.
I wouldn't recommend them, Tom, but really tell me what's going on.
Yeah, so you know, we have a nineteen sixties home. We
had the original windows. So in twenty twenty one we came home and our
big window had about thirty flies on the window. Now, wait a minute,
you bought these in twenty nineteen. Mm hmm okay, and then when
you came home and then you said you had a bunch of flies on your
window. Yep, okay. I called renewal and I said, there's flies
getting in through our main window. They came out fixed. The issue.
Now where was when? When? When you say fake, where were the
flies getting in? I'm curious, that's a great question. He just said
he puts something that was missing into I don't I honestly don't know the trim
somewhere. He said, they're getting in through there. So this is around
where they put the Was this a fixed window or was this an open window
that opens and closes, opens and it's a sliding okay, and so around
the frame probably, uh, there were they were seeping in through there.
Yep. So that got resolved the next year, same around the same time.
It's always around, you know, summer. Now we've had ants coming
in through that same main big window. We've I've had about six service calls
for them to come. Now, is it always this one window where this
is happening? Yes, yep. I have tons of pictures right now,
there's a felt. Okay, how many windows did you have replaced with renewed?
I had, let's see one four and this is the only one giving
you trouble. Yes, okay, now you had them. They came out
and sealed around the window once, and then you had ants after that mm
hmm. Every year since then and each time they get But what I want
to know is this, is this something they did wrong? Well, that's
what I'm trying to tell them is there's obviously something wrong withinstallation or just with
the window itself that's allowing these ants to come in. They're not only coming
into the window, but they're coming into my home. I woke up.
We don't have a big house, so they're going into our kitchen, our
bathroom from this window, and even in my bed. I wake up with
one crawling in my ear three weeks ago. Are they only getting in there
through that window? Yeah? Yes, scaly. Did you have an exterminator
come out? Yes, they've come out. We've had the extreme. Well
what does an exterminator say. They're usually pretty good at seeing what's going on.
What does the exterminator say, Well, the exterminator. Well, part
of what Renewal is telling me is that in twenty nineteen when they replaced this
window, they quote unquote disrupted the ants that were in the wall. But
that wouldn't be there, that wouldn't be their fault though that that wouldn't really
See. What I'm getting at is this, if your house had that problem
and they if they simply installed the window, and they did it properly in
a way, in a way, they're not really responsible for that unless they
did something to contribute to it. So what do you think they did wrong?
If we had to pin it up? There's never been ants that I've
lived at this hometown for eleven years. I've never had ants come through that
window with the original No, I know what you're saying, What the hell
could they have done? Though? That's what I don't understand. Do they
give you any idea of what's going on. No, they're blaming it on
that I have house plans. They're blaming it on everything, but the window.
I had an exterminator come out Tuesday afternoon and she saw the ants coming
through the screen. There's through the what they're not the screen? But where
okay? But but where are they Okay, it has to be around the
frame they're getting in. Is it calked around there? I mean, do
you actually see where they're coming in? Yes, My mom's husband is in
roofing and he was just over there because again we have twenty okay, so
what does what does your mom's husband say? So he saw the hole where
in the screen, and then he said there's something about with the trim or
the panel that's loose, and he's seeing them go under there and go in
to the window. So I mean from outside on the wall they go through
and get in, right. The exterminator said, it's nothing that there's not
ants in the wall. They are coming from outside. She okay, okay,
Well an exterminator would know that. So the ants are crawling inside from
the outside through because it's not sealed properly mm hmm. And there's malfunction like
the window and the screen itself. There's there's an opening there and each technician
has missed it obviously because they're still coming in through the window. Well,
this is so odd, Gailic. This is really odd. Tom. If
the exterminator was able to identify where they're coming in from, then the she
can she should be able to point out to the technician where the where the
defect is. Have you done that, Gailey? They don't call me back.
That's why I'm trying to get a hold of somebody. Mercy of them.
They don't call you can have somebody. We can have somebody help you
out. Thank you. I mean, we're we'll call over there. They're
not a bad company. And and again, it's not a defective window.
It's an installation. And again I don't want people thinking I have any special
allegiance or any kind of I don't know these people, but I know that
it's a pretty damn good window, and usually I don't. I just think
it might be some kind of installation. Who did the installation for you?
What company? Renewal? It was actually called Renewal renewed by Anderson. Okay,
who can we get Kaschina. Let's give this to somebody, but let
me know who, because I don't want to load up anyone more than we
can probably give this a dollar. Yeah, I think so. I mean,
the the bottom line is, let's just see what the heck's going on.
We may have to have our people at K and H go over and
look at the installation or something, because listen, it can't be unsolvable.
For goodness sakes, now, listen, I mentioned I mentioned that fix it
had free memberships. We're done with the free memberships now. However, till
the end of the day, we will have a special on memberships that gives
you four services a year. That's the HVAC, the AC they furnace,
the AC, the electrical panel, and the water heater every year for services,
plus priority appointments and prior preaty pricing and discounts on replacements. How much
a month? If they call, they got to mention Martino, I have
to say, Martinez before the end of the day. What are we calling
the end of the day? Five four think five o'clock three time? How
much will will they get us at fourteen ninety five? It's normally twenty nine
nine, Okay, fourteen ninety five a month is screaming deal. Yes,
and you, of course you're not obligated for any long term agreements. So
it's fourteen ninety five a month. That's pretty damn good. And that's fixed
myihome dot com seven two zero five two six thirty nine thirty nine go with
a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a
cent until you're content. Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation.
In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of
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You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate
Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two
zero sixteen twenty two. Shooter, Katie, what's going on with Little Tin
Auto? Hi? Katie, what's going on? Hi? What's happening in
here? One second? Yeah, So there was a gentleman that reached out
to me on next door. Well, actually I reached out to him on
next door. It was a guy named Chris who you spoke with. And
I believe you guys were live with Little Tinado. I don't know, I
don't remember it right now, but go ahead, go ahead, okay,
okay. So one of my stepsons we ended up for graduation, getting him
a rebuilt engine, and we decided to do the work with Little Tin Auto.
Now, when you say decided to do the work. What was that
for the installation? Yes? Sorry, let me rephrase. Sorry. I
did a little nervous because I'm one no, no, go ahead and I'm
sorry. So no, it's okay. So my stepsn's truck had some issues.
So my husband and I decided, Hey, let's go ahead and research
either a new engine or an engine rebuild. So we reached out to Littleton
Auto Repair in Littleton and worked with a guy named Dave Garlic and got a
quote. It was around thirteen thousand or something like that. Now was that
for the So they were going to source the engine, plus they were going
to install it. Okay, hold on, hey, Kachina, do me
a favor. This is perfect. We can start her out on card day
because we had the experts in and we can ferret through this and give her
a lot of time. Let's do that. Don't forget till the end of
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