A little more than six months ago I decided to purchase a motorcycle in order to have viable transport to work. A friend of ours had a motorcycle sitting in his garage for 5 years, a Suzuki GSXR 750, in need of cheap to own transport I bought it for less than half market value since it didnt run. I found after a bit more than 3k between shop repair, equipment, taxes and towing; I had a thrillride and transport all wrapped into one. After managing to get the title transfered into my name, getting it inspected, buying the minimum insurance and paying taxes to the state of texas I had a street legal motorcycle.
This was no overnight endevor and it was in a way the end of my relationship at the time. After having it for a few months it was stolen in early december, and while I should have had it locked and tracked. My situation resulted in procrastion until I awoke one morning to find it missing. I had to call the police to report it at 5am when we left for work at the time. The police bounced me around to a few different call centers having me repeat myself a dozen or so times, until finally getting all the information to let me go. The insurance company was of no help since I had not purchased theft insurance, and I therefore cancelled my 70$/month payment to them.
Around two months later I got a notice in the mail from a company called CCS known as credit collection services, which I learned meant that the insurance company had sold the debt I owed them to this agency. I called allstate and they told me that I had left an account balance unpaid contrary to my belief that I had closed the account. I found the allstate letter of debt in a pile of mail sometime later. The fact that they sold my debt within a month of my cancelation tells me they were not expecting to get that money. Why would they? They provided no actual service and incurred near zero costs, certainly covered by the money I paid them for the few months of insurance I did have. Insurance needs a digital upgrade.
From what I understand their contract says they can reduce month to month costs if certain criteria are met, in this case I think it was a year of service. having never learned this until talking with representatives post theft situation. Legally it is my responsibility to know what is in these contracts, I guess I should have read all those iagree statements when I created my account.
Fast forward 6 months and I got a call reporting my motorcycle had been found wrecked at the scene of an accident. The rider had been taken to the hospital and the police identified the motorcycle was stolen by its licence plate number. It was then towed by the first available tow truck to their yard, in this case the winner was North Houston Freeway Auto Storage.
Having learned this I called them, and was immediately put on hold. After a few minutes I was greeted again and provided information to verify the vehicle was there. They would not send me pictures or verify its location in the yard, or offer to purchase the wreck for anything. Since I am no longer in texas I had to get a notarized form to authorize my friend who still lives there at this time to see if it was worth salvaging. So I went to UPS signed and mailed the form to her. She went as soon as she got the form. While it appeared to be salvageable we called a friend who suggested it was not worth the hassle. I figured that would happen as the reviews for this facility were excactly as I feared.
My friend here is a motorhead and fixed his bike up to track status, he convinced me to see if I could have the wreck shipped to us for salvage. I love a good project like this, so I made a listing and necessary arrangements. When I was figuring out how to pay the storage facility they only accepted money from the person removing the vehicle; I asked the cost to remove my bike which sat at the facility for 8 days total. They wanted 454$ to get it out which when added to the 800$ transportation to its new home is outside of the wrecked value of the vehicle.
I collapsed, there is simply not enough value in the wrecked motorcycle to justify spending everything I had and borrowing money to get it to me. What i've learned from this ordeal is that the legal system is just as good at stealing one's property as opportunists. Never expect or trust anything legal related, avoid signing contracts, move beyond the centralized ledgers and into the resource based economy.
