Fly-By-Night Hail Gypsys Swarm Upon Milledgeville, GA

As is the case whenever there is a hail storm of any signifigance, the sucking sound of wind can be heard in the wake left by the mass entry of out-of-town dent guys chasing a quick buck made at the hands of unsuspecting body shops and car owners.

This is the exact situation I(a long-time Middle Georgia native)have witnessed over the last two days following the storms that brought hail and hail damage to the state of Georgia. Within two days rookies looking to score thier first homerun and veterans of the "in town fast....outta town faster" hail chasing community wound up in Milledgeville, GA. Paintless Dent Removal (PDR) is a craft where skill level varies as widely as it does between Tiger Woods and your Uncle Bob. They may both know how to play and play often, but one is actually proficient. Over the years some have polished their pitch and perfected their marketing skills to the point of convincing body shops that have never encountered such a scenario that every dent technician's skills are equal. With nothing to verify their claims, many boast that their skills are above average and use their years of experience as evidence.

Considering most towns rarely get hit twice in a decade, it is easy to play the game mentioned above. In a country the size of ours, these dent gypsys can afford to burn a bridge, only because they know they will never run out of bridges.

As an international award winning PDR technician (here's the story), the part that bothers me the most is that the shoddy work these guys leave behind, leaves a lasting negative impression on the community they burn and often the idea that PDR is not an efficient or effective method of removing dents and dings.

Body shop owners usually are caught in the middle and end up playing an unknowing role in their own role as a victim too. Most shop owners never see the kind of chaos that follows a major hail storm. With lines of customers impatiently waiting for claims, insurance adjusters overwhelmed with work and PDR companies blowing the phones off the hook, the body shops usually cave within a couple of days to an offer of a "helping hand" from an unknown stranger that lives who-knows-where hundreds or thousands of miles away. (Read what one body shop owner says in Nebraska about a similar situation. It's the last paragraph.)

These dent pimps ususally talk of all the storms they've worked, the hail they've seen, the shops they've helped, building a sense of ease and comfort in the shop owners mind without an ounce of hard proof. Months later, customers return with cracked paint, burned clear coat, broken clips or unauthorized holes in unintended places. This is where the shop owners find they've been snookered, but many months too late.

After the realization of being a chump sets in, the second round of repairs, at the cost of the body shop or car owner begins. Usually it involves painting parts of the car that should have never needed painting or replacing small parts that were broken while removing the headliner or trim pieces. Both are expensive and the hassel factor is high.

For this and other reasons, body shop owners should always use their local PDR technician. We all know that one local company usually can not handle the volume of work a large hail storm brings, but if the local dent company is hired to do the work, they can hire the sub-contracted dent technicians and provide quality control for the shops and car owners. The local guys have a vested interest in the long term relationship unlike the out-of-towners and will back up any work the subs do. If problems arise later (and they will), the locals boys are their to deal with it.

So Milledgeville, Eatonton, Lake Oconee and the rest of Middle Georgia, do your homework and track the local PDR technicians down. If your shop assures you of the techs they are using, remember...it's only because they believe the smoke they were blown.

Dent Tricks is a PDR company based in Macon, GA since 1998. We have repaired hundreds of hail damamged cars and thousands of dents. As the winners of the 2005 and 2007 International Dent Olympics in Clearwater, FL, our emphasis is on quality and customer satisfaction.

Please visit our website at www.DentTricks.com or call us with any quetions at 478-405-8000.