It is a sad day when, after 27 years as its customer, I should feel so aggrieved with its service that I need to go both to the media and the police to report that NRMA and its smash repairer have STOLEN my car.
Yet, this is the background to this story.
On Thursday, April, 11 2024 at 9:20am, I was Uber-driving along Hutchinson Walk, off Gadigal Road, Zetland, to pick up a ride, when a council worker employed by City of Sydney tree contractor, TreeServe, opened his truck’s door just as I was driving past, taking out my Clio’s passenger side rear view mirror, and damaging all of the panels along that side.
The driver, TreeServe employee, Peter O’Keeffe, instantly accepted responsibility, and I got his licence details, registration number and everything I needed for making a claim on his insurance.
On getting home, I reported this first to Uber and then to the NRMA, and the NRMA organised for a tow truck to take my car to Epsom Smash Repairs in Collins Street, Alexandria.
On Friday, April 12, however, I went to check the damage to the Clio at Epsom Smash Repairs, to find that it and the NRMA had already determined my car to be a write-off and had – without any authorisation from me, and not even any question as to whether I needed to retrieve any property from it – transported it to a company called Vehicles Milperra, also known as Pickles, where it remains to now.
Apparently, this is a usual stitch-up by which NRMA customers are undone.
As I was told by the bloke I believed to be the boss of Epsom Smash Repairs, when its smash repair partner and the NRMA agree that a repair to a car is not worth doing, they send it off to Vehicles Milperra, from which it can be sent overseas to be used in countries with less stringent vehicle regulations. Thus, presumably, as someone at NRMA previously made this cunning commercial arrangement, they are also likely benefiting from the outcome of such sales. This is certainly a question worth investigating, and one to which the media’s curiosity should be pointed.
That nothwithstanding, as neither NRMA nor Epsom Smash repairs had received my approval, nor even sought it, I now have to report my car as stolen.
Moreover, as the insurer of the guilty party, Zurich Insurance, shows no inclination to retrieve my car from Milperra to get to work even on appraising it. Yet, the NRMA’s one competent person, a Sebouh Alexanian, who I met when I went to retrieve my valuables from my car has told me it is protected and still sitting there, awaiting collection.
Instead, one week after the incident, I am suffering both the theft of my car by the organisation I thought was insuring it, the inconvenience of not being able to retrieve it, and the loss of income from not being able to work for a week because I have no car in which to do this.
Is anyone surprised that until it fixes my problem to my satisfaction this stitch-up by my 27-year insurer, NRMA, is causing me to want to use every tool at my disposal – media, social media, and this site, Shonkr.Com – to want to discourage others from doing business with it?
Come on, NRMA, with your formidable resources, surely you can do better than this in preserving your once-proud commercial reputation.