Rodent damage scam

On October 11th I brought my 2017 Tundra in to Lassen Toyota in Albany, Oregon for an oil change. I received a call from the service rep saying it was done, but they found rodent damage in the truck and because it might be unsafe to drive, she recommended leaving the truck with them and they would submit the claim to my insurance and fix the damage.

I asked what the damage was and was told the headliner and HVAC assembly needed to be replaced. I found it hard to believe that the headliner needed to be replaced, as it still looked brand new, so I came in to see it. The mechanic came out and showed me the space in the headliner where rodents could have been, however I saw no indication of rodent feces. At this point I decided to hold off until the final estimate.

While contemplating this, I decided in the meantime I wasn't going to drive around with a cabin air filter that had been damaged by rodents, so I bought a new cabin filter and replaced it myself. During the replacement I examined the blower fan and upper area, and found no other evidence of rodents, no feces or nest building, and there was no unusual odors. In addition, while running the truck with a visual inspection of the blower running it seemed to work and did not appear damaged in any way.

A few days later I was told by the service rep that the estimate had been submitted to my insurance, State Farm, and had been approved, and Lassen Toyota could proceed with the repairs. Having not been presented with an estimate, I asked for it to be emailed to me. Upon receiving it, I found that the total repairs came to $7,400 (approximate) for replacing the HVAC blower assembly, headliner and firewall insulation.

Concerned about possible unnecessary work being done, I consulted an independent Toyota mechanic who told me that if there hand been any rodents in the headliner, there would have been not only feces, but urine marks--and there was none, it looked brand new. Furthermore, he said if the blower was not damaged and there was no indication of nesting or other infestation and it was working fine without unusual odors, he didn't think the HVAC blower assembly needed to be replaced.

There is also one factor which Lassen Toyota was not aware of that convinces me that there never has been any rodents in my cabin: Since I've owned the truck, I've had an open container of dog treats in the cabin, and I'm sure that if any rodents had entered the cabin they would have gotten into those dog treats--and I'm positive that the dog treats were never touched.

So to end this story, State Farm mailed me a check for $7,400 based on the Lassen Toyota estimate, and upon receiving it I called them, told them that I replaced the cabin filter myself and was not going to have any of the $7,400 worth of repairs done because I thought it was unnecessary and amounted to a scam, and I had the check voided. Unfortunately my trust with Lassen Toyota has been SEVERELY broken.

Any suggestions about what to do with this info?

 

https://www.bbb.org/us/or/albany/categories

https://www.bbb.org/file-a-complaint


Welcome from NY.

 

Forget the BBB, report this to the state DOJ. Auto repair and insurance fraud are both a big deal:

https://ktvz.com/community/communit...r-scams-top-oregons-consumer-complaints-list/

https://www.doj.state.or.us/consume...d allegation report,your fax to ATTN: HOTLINE

 

Welcome from LA (Lower Alabama) and thank you for sharing! I wonder how many of these claims that stealership has gotten away with?

 

Places like that need to be put out of business