Our house in NC was damaged as a result of Hurricane Florence (~14 September 2018). We had a large nationally known damage mitigation company come to the house in order to render assistance approximately three weeks after the storm. Without a complete itemization, the basic summary of what they did was tear out some wet sheet rock on the walls and ceilings, a bit of insulation, spray for mold, and run some dehumidifiers. Three men spent one work day doing the demolition and spraying for mold and the dehumidifiers were running for approximately four days.
The company was to directly work with the insurance company for services rendered, making the settlement transparent to us. I found out this week that our desk insurance adjuster was "released" at some point and we now have a new adjuster assigned. Apparently the mitigation company had attempted to reach out via e-mail to our "released" adjuster and was never able to make contact. I also received a generic, un-itemized invoice today from the mitigation company for approximately $16,000. I was appalled and immediately called the company to ask for an itemized list of services rendered.
When i received the itemized invoice, I noticed at least half of the things they were attempting to bill/charge for were never even rendered. It's not as if it were a mistake, theses are clearly things that never came close to happening. I haven't totaled it yet, but it's likely at least $8-10k. My guess is that the damage mitigation company planned to "work" directly with the insurance company and claim that they did all this work and pocket the money. It appears that they were trying to capitalize on the natural disaster and knew that insurance wouldn't ask too many questions (seeing as they're a known business).
Clearly, because the mitigation company was never able to contact insurance, they simply billed me the invoice (albeit ~2 months late. Now i've got a $16,000 invoice on my counter in which the majority of things listed never even happened.
My plan is to work with my new desk adjuster and the mitigation company and come to a solution without lawyers. My primary concern right now is the invoice being sent to a collection agency and me and my wife's credit taking a hit. I know it's a huge pain to reverse erroneous credit dings. Any help is much appreciated!
TL;DR: House was damaged in hurricane. Damage mitigation company was unable to reach insurance adjuster and are trying to bill for multiple things that didn't happen (~$16,000). Requesting suggestions for next legal steps and advice on how to prevent a hit to credit score if company throws this bogus bill into collections.
I've cross-posted to r/legaladvice as well
Submitted December 03, 2018 at 09:29PM by RatTarts https://ift.tt/2SpZH0Z
