Reviews by chaz

chaz says "good company and agent, but more flexibility needed" about Farmers Insurance

chaz — Wed, 21 May 2008 19:36:53 GMT

After having a terrible experience with State Farm, we switched to Farmers and have multiple policies, 4 cars, homeowners, and an umbrella policy. Overall I'd give Farmers a very good rating on their coverage, but there are a couple of things I'm concerned about and do not know if it's typical of all insurance companies. I'm not sure how credit ratings affect insurance rates, especially if payments are always on time and the insured has a clean driving record. However, we had a crazy item on our credit report that Farmers used to raise our rates, and the problem was that there was no way we could appeal the ruling even though I took our credit report to our agent and showed her a sterling credit report. The problem on our credit report was a $40 medical bill that we actually paid twice because we got so tired of trying to deal with inept clerks and insurance companies, and the credit report said we paid it late (the second time we paid it--which I have both canceled checks on). ......

chaz says "excellent free game site" about Pogo.com

chaz — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:24:53 GMT

Pogo is a great site to play rubber bridge. There are many other games on the site, but I spend most of my time playing bridge. I've become acquainted with people around the country, and Pogo allows the players to make a friends list. Players are alerted if there are any of your "friends" in the game room when you enter, and you can check to see if they are playing at any Pogo site.
Each player is rated based on wins and losses, and each foursome can be limited to skill level. When the table is opened the first player can set the criteria for scoring and rating the game. New players attempting to join must be accepted by the first player who opens the table, and each player's edited profile shows bidding systems used and win/loss/unfinished game percents. The unfinished game percent is a critical score because people who have many unfinished games are often problem players. Players can play against computers if they don't want to be rated for a game, but the computers......

chaz says "Why did it take me so long to find Carrabba's?" about Carrabba's - Independence, MO

chaz — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:41:26 GMT

For quite some time my husband and I ate at Outback, a restaurant next to Carrabba's in Independence. We never tried it, but fortunately, my daughter wanted an evening out together when her husband was involved in a sports activity and she chose Carrabba's. Since then we have dined there often. I wish I could say I'd tried a variety of dishes, but I love chicken bryan so much that I order it each time I go. The quantity is so large that I always take home enough for another meal. If you don't like goat's cheese, you might not like the dish. The sauce is out of this world, but it's sometimes necessary to ask for extra sauce, because when the restaurant was very busy, the amound served was sparse. The house salad is different from Olive Garden's, but it's excellent. At first I thought it unusual to have sliced carrots in the salad, but that adds to the crunchy sensory delight of the salad. Their bread is wonderful and servers are most generous to bring more. The biggest surprise......

chaz says "worth a repeat performance" about Princess Cruises - Grand Princess

chaz — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:41:26 GMT

Several years ago I had an unpleasant experience on Princess when one of the staff was rude when I questioned why nothing was done to recognize our 25th anniversary on the cruise. It was a long 16 day cruise, and I was really irritated that lots of travelers received free bottles of wine, etc., for no special occasion. My husband and I were ignored and then treated rudely when I questioned it, especially since Princess throws away lots of bottles of champagne on a trademark champagne waterfall.
Consequently, my husband and I didn't take a Princess cruise for several years until I found an interesting one leaving Galveston, a convenient port, at a fantastic price. That prompted me to try Princess once more. We had such a great time that we signed up to take the same cruise again 3 months later at a much higher price because Princess decided to leave Galveston as a departure port. And because it was such fun, we're taking another Princess cruise this fall. The cruise staff was......

chaz says "what a corrupt company" about State Farm

chaz — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:41:26 GMT

Although this incident is not recent, it is typical of State Farm. Two other State Farm insured home owners had the same experience we did with their roofs.
We had roof damage from a hail storm, and all our neighbors who were not insured with State Farm received new roofs. Since our neighborhood requires wood roofs, it is costly to replace them. State Farm declared our roof could be repaired and not replaced. Two different roofers told us it was too damaged to walk on in order to repair and needed to be replaced. State Farm would not budge and insisted on a low dollar payment to have the roof "repaired." We knew that was not accurate because we had several estimates to repair or replace the roof and all the companies agreed it needed to be replaced. In fact, we could find no one who would agree to repair it. Forced to take their low estimate, we paid 4 times what they gave us and had the roof replaced, but State Farm did not know we had done that. After receiving the check......