Can I rant about something NOT MB-related?

Be my guest !

Ok, here goes:

Back in Sept, S15 was at a team dinner prior to a football game. The boys went to a pizza joint.

One of the kids working at the pizza place (a senior) and one of the kids on the team (freshman) apparently had some bad blood between them and there was some taunting going on...senior to freshman and freshman giving it back to senior.

Remember, the senior wasn't part of the team and he worked in the kitchen of the pizza place.

Dinner over, boys who could drive were leaving. Other boys waiting for rides.

Senior boy comes out, taunts freshman boy and then goes back into kitchen and comes back out. Starts shoving freshman boy. Freshman boy shoves back. More shouting and shoving going on in parking lot. Parents are there (not son's dad..running late as usual...LOL) waiting to pick up and they are all sitting there WATCHING this happen.

Senior starts to shake freshman. My son decides :: to get involved and pulls senior off of freshman. Pulls him off with enough force to launch him into parked car of waiting parent.

Makes a big dent.

New car.

Ugh.

I don't remember exactly what ensued after that except that conversations ensued between parents of two fighting boys, my husband and the grandfather in the parked car waiting to pick up his grandson.

The agreement was that the three boys would split the cost of the grandfather's insurance deductible ($500) and the guy could take his car to the body shop.

At the time I wasn't nuts about this. I felt as though my son did the right thing. Senior boy went back into kitchen and came back out. Son is thinking...knives in kitchen..this could get ugly and no one is doing anything. Yeah, he could have/should have gotten a parent involved (at least that's what the folks on the 101 board beat me up about), but he just acted first and thought later. So like I said, I wasn't nuts about him coming up with $166 for this deductible. But we went along and made sure he learned something out of the deal.

So that was that.

I got a letter from a law firm the other day wanting collection on a debt of $1700 from an insurance company. This means that: A) the insurance company thought they had some sort of money owed to them by us and b) they never contacted us about it but instead went straight to collections? Or a lawyer?

I haven't yet talked to the person handling this case. We've exchanged voice mails and emails. So I don't know WHY this insurance company thinks we owe them $1700 on a debt that according to this letter, we agreed to pay?

On top of that, they got my son's name wrong.

That's my rant.

BTW, any lawyers on this site want to chime in? Now that I've spoken with the law firm.

This $$$ is the INSURANCE company coming after us for what they had to shell out to pay for the damage. Subrogation.

And even though I argued against it to my husband and anyone else who would listen last September that I did *not* want to have our son pay 1/3 of the deductible...well now there's precedent, isn't there?

And oh, how nice. The other two families have gone on record stating OUR SON started the fight. After we were nice enough to force him to pay 1/3.

No police report, it's heresay.

They're fishing.

Tell them to eff off.

OH,

Start a callout thread for Mr. W and I'll give him a heads up...He is an attorney, though his specialty is tax law...Not sure if he can help or not...Worth a shot I guess...

Mrs. W

ETA: 6yearsleft, Zelmo and BritsBrat are also attorneys...

Zelmo will know more than me...as he's been a litigator. But, in absence of experience, I'd tell them to shove off too. If they keep calling you and being persistent at all hours of the day and night, then you'll need a lawyer (a family friend who you don't have to pay would be nice).

I've had friends ask me about collection calls and I tell them to get the companies fax number so I can fax them a quick letter indicating they are "represented". At that point, they can no longer call you or otherwise harass you at home. Without exception, they drop the matter. Although this has involved matters less than $1,700, I'd guess $1,700 isn't worth their time to go about hiring a law firm to undertake suing you for this money (they could have in-house attorney's which would make it easier for them to actually sue you). However, my guess is they will most likely write it off.

They are just hoping to get lucky and get you to pay up.

If they DO actually sue you...you can THEN either fight it or settle for substantially less than $1,700.00. Dealing with the lawyers and settling the matter with them is much easier than dealing with the collections department.

Mr. Wondering

Speaking of rants...

I have wanted to say this for awhile.

Friendship is a two-way street and the posters indicating on MB that they'd never have even a fully repentent wayward spouses as their friends in real life...

are most likely doing any such repentent waywards a HUGE favor.

Mr. Wondering

I get exactly where the insurance company is coming from actually. By the three boys paying the deductible, they have admitted liability and the insurance company will pursue it's losses. It also comes down to what the guy said on the claim form which is probably that your son caused the damage by throwing te senior onto the car.

ITA!!!

I looked up their website and they are basically a collection agency with a few lawyers on staff.

What gets me is that this apparently went into "collections" from the insurance company without even a prior contact or bill being sent to us FROM the insurance company.

I also think they are blowing a lot of smoke. We're not going to do anything until we talk to the other two families to see if they said what the collection agency says they said. (they said the other two have paid their 1/3rd and that our son started the fight!)

But...


I worry about this, too. I was against paying our 1/3rd of the deductible from the beginning because of the principle of the thing. I remember posting about it on the 101 forum because I was ticked that H reached this decision with the other families without consulting me and I got soundly 2x4'd for my attitude. We did have our son pay the 1/3rd. And we did talk to him about trying to find an adult, etc. (regardless of the fact that there were at least 5 of them sitting there in their cars watching the entire thing...)

So precedent has now been set. But I told H that hell will freeze over before I will agree to ponying up $500+ for this. And speaking of that, is it NORMAL for the insurance company to come after its money like this? Isn't that why you pay premiums? Grandpa had a $500 deductible which three families gave to him. How did the insurance company find out about all of us? As someone mentioned above, there was no police report.

No police report but when you make a claim you say what happened.

Yes it is normal.

Rant:

Who the *^&$%#@!~ does Pat Robertson think he is??????

You're gonna tell the families of 100,000 dead people that they deserve the earthquake because of some supposed deal with the devil? Sheesh! No wonder some people roll their eyes over religion!

TEENAGE DRAMA QUEENS!!!!!......

(Especially the female ones!!!!)

Yeah I agree.

ITA also.
"Show me someone who has never made a mistake and I will show you someone who has never learned anything"

Luri, Pat Robertson has done more to hurt organized religion this week than any man I know. What an idiot. Hope there is a hell so he can burn in it.

OH- If they have your son's name wrong, next time they contact you, tell them there is no such person at this address or number and there never has been.

I have an email identifying my son as XYZ, which happens to be my husband's middle name. Weird. How the heck they got all this information is beyond me. Well, I guess it's not beyond me, since this stuff is so accessible these days.

I gave H the letter that the law firm/collection agency sent us and forwarded the email (which contains the incorrect version of my son's name). He is going to call the lawfirm/collection agency and tell them to pound sand, basically. I agreed to call the other two families here in town to see if they'd been contacted by this outfit and what they agreed to, if anything, though I'm not divulging my plans to them.

I need to check to see if the stories match.

Bottom line is that we paid the deductible. (against my better judgement and H is regretting his decision too...he said he thought it was the "right thing to do at the time" and I guess I can see that...). If the insurance company wants to go after someone to recover what they spent on the claim, they will have to find someone else to do it. It's going to be a huge PITA when it gets on our credit record and will necessitate letter writing to credit monitoring companies, etc.

I wish I knew a lawyer here who could fax in a letter per Mr. Wondering's suggestion. I know lots of lawyers...just not one I'm comfortable enough asking for that kind of favor.

And we wonder why people get frustrated on this board. Good one Pep.