Chris Harmon writes:
I stopped at Dick’s for a soft drink. As I got out of my car a 20-something fella came trotting over asking if the car I was in was mine. I said yes then he said he had noticed a couple of dings and scratches and said he could fix them on the spot. I replied with a firm and annoyed NO. He didn’t try to convince me. I watched where he went and it was to his fancy black shiny pickup with Washington license plates parked along the footpath on Dick’s property. There were 2 or 3 other young hotshots hanging out ready to scam someone. I had a previous encounter last year by same type of people in a similar shiny black SUV vehicle with California license plates at Bartell’s in Roosevelt district. Beware of shade tree body shop fixer uppers.
I’ve had related emails in the past from folks who were not so savvy as Chris, and lost some money to these folks.
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I don’t know about these guys, but in some cases a proposition like that can be your chance to interact with the Roma peoples. (AKA gypsies.) I’ve gone there, and I’m not going to say it’s like going to Holman’s Body and Fender (just to pick a particularly illustrious example), but he did fix a big dent in a door and some other stuff, at reasonable cost. This guy was more middle aged; while I think younger guys commonly do a fair amount of the actual work, I’d expect to be dealing with the father, so the situation in this account doesn’t sound too promising.
Got trapped at the traffic island roundabout by QFC by a car with a gentleman who would not take ‘no’ for an answer about my denty car. Apparently my neighbors must always travel with lots of ready cash in their wallets for such situations. I do not, no matter how sweet the deal. He was baflled, and then angry. His car was rather denty, I might add. Something about the shoemakers children going barefoot I guess.
As another member of the denty and seriously high mileage car association, I have also had my share of parking garage, parking lot and stoplight offers from at-the-ready bodymen. Some have been more self-promoting than others, but all have accepted my polite declines. I think it is just fine if these guys drive better cars than me. Almost everyone does. It doesn’t necessarily make me think they are out to scam me. Then again, it doesn’t necessarily make me think they are not. Just another piece of city life.
Isn’t this just Yankee Bootstrap Lifting Upness (or something like that) in action? I mean, not taking ‘no’ for an answer is rude, but otherwise, whatever, right?
My only caution is if they are gonna pull a dented black plastic bumper (as a dude in the Renton Fred Meyer parking lot did for me a few years ago), be aware that they may put a strange “buffing” compound over the final job, which they will tell you to wash off in a day. The only purpose of this compound, AFAIK, is to prevent you from seeing that the process leaves ugly grey/whitish marks all over the now smoothed-out bumper. Which I think is perhaps unavoidable, and still better than the dent, kinda – but hiding it is rather slimy, IMO.
/r