New Resin Makes Cracks Disappear
DISAPPEAR has long been a bad word for windshield repair, until now. New chemistry has been able to eliminate what is called the head-on angle. Crack repair like the legs of a star-break has always been able to disappear from the profile but not the head-on angle. See The United States Windshield Repair Guidelines written for DMVS to inspect windshield repairs for details of the head-on angle and profile.
Knowing what causes the head-on angle is how Ultra Bond figured out how to virtually eliminate it, which could not be done with the chemistry windshield repair has used for the past 35 years. Customers are calling it awesome and miraculous.
This new windshield repair resin is a hybrid called Hybrid Crack Repair and can make clean cracks up to 12-14 inches disappear. Almost all cracks up 12-14 inches and less are clean. This chemistry is different from the chemicals that have been used for the past 35 years for windshield repair. It is a mixture of two chemistries. We were able to extract the best characteristics of two chemistries without compromising strength. The mechanical strength of this resin like other Ultra Bond resins is near that of new glass and usually the glass breaks before the bond.
Hybrid Windshield Crack Repair MSRP is $100.00 for the repair of floater cracks and edge cracks. Cost to repair a crack is about $1.50 and it takes about 20 minutes. You can do three crack repairs in the time it takes to do one proper replacement with properly designed crack repair tools and the customer is very satisfied with the savings and results. For more information click here. To order click here.
Ultra Bond Tech Prevails against Belron dba
NEW ZEALAND - Ultra Bond Licensee Darrel Hore of New Zealand filed a complaint against Belron dba Smith and Smith for deceptive and unethical business practices in advertising and telling consumers that repairable windshields needed to be replaced. Belron dba Safelite does exactly the same in the U.S. After the ruling Smith and Smith operations manager had a meeting with Darrel and told him they (Belron) were going to get long crack repair banned worldwide and wanted him to cooperate with getting the standard changed. The New Zealand/Australian Standard allows for crack repair up to 14-inches (350mm). Belron and Safelite are presently attempting exactly the same in the U.S. with ROLAGS, which is modeled after the New Zealand/Australian Standard. Below is the complaint and ruling.
DECISION
Meeting 12 May 2009
Complaint 09/144
Complainant: D. Hore
Advertisement: Smith & Smith
Complaint: Four radio advertisements for Smith & Smith promoted their services. The advertisements contained largely the same message but contained different wording.
Advertisement 1: Contained the line “Many drivers ignore windscreen chips but something that starts out small can turn out big because if a chip turns into a crack the only option is to replace the whole windscreen”.
Advertisement 2: Contained the line “Unfortunately, even a small vibration or change of temperature can turn chips into major issues. Once the chip comes a full crack there is no choice but to replace the whole windscreen” and also “…and if you are fully insured with Smith & Smith the repair’s usually free”.
Advertisement 3: Contained the line “…it was just a small chip but this morning the vibration of going over a judder bar turned it into a crack. She had no option but to replace the whole windscreen” and also “…and if you are fully insured, with Smith & Smith the repair’s usually free”.
Advertisement 4: Contained the line “A small chip in your windscreen can turn into a big crack and a big headache because you have to replace the whole windscreen” and also “…and if you are fully insured, with Smith & Smith the repair is usually free”.
Complainant, D. Hore, said:
“The advertisement claims that if a windscreen chip turns into a crack that it can not be repaired and the windscreen has to be replaced..
This is incorrect and under the Windscreen Standard AS/NZS 2366.2 1999 we are in fact aloud to repair cracks up to 350ml outside the critical vision area. This is very misleading and customers believe the only option they have is to replace the whole windscreen.
If you ring Smith & Smith and ask about long crack repairs they tell you that they do not have much success doing long crack repairs. How ever there are other companies that do have plenty of success, so there advertising is very misleading and many people are having there windscreens replaced unnecessarily.
They also state that Smith and Smith repairs are free under insurance when they perform the repair. And the way it is said it implies that it is free only if they do the repair.
Any repair company can actually do the repair and on bill to the insurance companies who will pay for the repair.
In actual fact it really isn't free because the insurance company is actually paying for the repair on the customers behalf who have actually already paid for there excess in advance each year when they renew there insurance and take out glass cover.”
The Chairman ruled that the following provision was relevant:
Code of Ethics
Rule 2: Truthful Presentation - Advertisements should not contain any statement or visual presentation or create an overall impression which directly or by implication, omission, ambiguity or exaggerated claim is misleading or deceptive, is likely to deceive or mislead the consumer, makes false and misleading representation, abuses the trust of the consumer or exploits his/her lack of experience or knowledge. (Obvious hyperbole, identifiable as such, is not considered to be misleading).
The Advertiser, Smith & Smith, said:
“We refer to your letter and its attached complaint from one of our competitors, D. Hore of Crack Specialists (2003) Limited.
Crack repairs and windscreen Standard ASINZS2366.2 1999
This Standard does state that cracks of up to 350mm may be repaired where they are outside the critical vision area.
At Smith&Smith® we do repair windscreens, but for quality reasons we do not repair any cracks, or chips larger than a 50c coin.
We are not alone in taking a more conservative approach than that allowed under the Standard. One of our principal competitors in the vehicle glass repair segment, Novus, promotes its windscreen repair service by saying that "if the damaged area on your windscreen can be covered over by a credit card, the chances are very good that it can be repaired".
A credit card's longest side is 85mm, which is well short of the Standard's 350mm maximum where the crack is outside the critical vision area. We attach the relevant page from www.novus.co.nz.
Our current radio advertising
We have been running four different radio advertisements recently and we are not sure which prompted D. Hore's 3 March email to the ASA.
That said, when we received the ASA's 18 March letter we conducted an immediate review of our radio advertising. Like all advertisers, we are focused on promoting our business through short key messages about our products and people. In doing that, we are also committed to meeting our legal obligations and we are highly sensitive to any allegation that our advertising has misled the public in some way. For that reason we took a conservative decision last month to discontinue one of the four advertisements (the script is attached and marked "discontinued"). We do not accept the discontinued ad was misleading, but in case it was arguable from a certain perspective, we elected to focus our radio advertising on our other three ads on air at the time.
We do not consider our advertising misleading. We also attach the scripts of the three radio advertisements which were still on air until the end of last week but which have now stopped:
• two of the three refer clearly to there being a "big" or "full" crack which necessitates windscreen replacement;
• the third script is simply an anecdotal account of a specific notional customer's experience where she had to replace her screen given the extent of the damage it had sustained.
When this current run of advertising ends this week, we intend to create new radio advertising for future release which is our common practice. We can assure the ASA that that advertising will be mindful of industry practice and regulatory standards like ASINZS 2366.2.
Free repairs if fully insured
This aspect of our advertising has been run across many countries worldwide. All of our current advertisements make it clear that if the customer has full vehicle insurance, then the repair is usually free for them because they don't have to pay for it.
While this feature of our advertising might be something our competitors could say to the market as well, we consider that we can only speak for ourselves given the arrangements we have with insurance companies. It is for other vehicle glass companies to decide whether they wish to and can make the same or comparable claims, and some do…
…We are mindful that every trader has an obligation to act with particular care when representing any goods or services as available for "free".
Before running the "free repairs if fully insured" aspect of our advertising for the first time in early 2008, we obtained a written opinion from Dr James Farmer QC who opined that the claim was not misleading. We are happy to share a copy of Dr Farmer's opinion with the ASA in confidence, if the Authority would like to see it.
Procedural matters
The three attached radio scripts were created by advertising agency, Radiation. This response is for them as well as for The Radio Network.
May we note that this is a competitor complaint. Through Chapman Tripp we have offered our view that, as with the Supreme Screens matter (08/644), this complaint should be determined by adjudication. We understand, though, that the ASA has resolved to treat the matter as a consumer issue. We respect the Authority's decision to proceed this way and we support self-regulation. That said, we hope that the ASA's processes are not exploited by competitors who might see merit in cascading complaints about advertising.
Please let us know if we can provide any further information or explanation around the advertising in issue.”
The Media, The Radio Network, said:
“Thank you for your letter in regards to the above.
Smith & Smith Glass is a client of The Radio Bureau and is looked after by
Carat New Zealand and we expect agencies to fully understand rules and regulations of advertising.
The Radio Network accepts finished material for broadcasting in good faith.
I will leave it to The Radio Bureau, Carat New Zealand and Smith & Smith Glass to argue the case.”
The Radio Bureau said:
“…TRB placed this advertising in good faith and given the technical nature of the complaint, we will leave it up to Smith & Smith to respond. Obviously TRB will abide by the decision of the Complaints Board”.
Deliberation
The Complaints Board read all the correspondence relevant to the complaint, and listened to the advertisements. It noted that the Complainant, D. Hore, was of the view that the advertisements were misleading with regard to the claims they made about the need to replace windscreens with cracks in them, and the cost of repairs for those with insurance.
The Chairman directed the Complaints Board to consider the complaint with regard to Rule 2 of the Code of Ethics. This required the Complaints Board to consider whether or not the advertisements contained anything that was likely, either directly or by implication, to deceive or mislead the consumer.
Turning to the first claim in the advertisements, regarding the need to replace windscreens with cracks in them, the Complaints Board noted that they all contained largely the same claim. This was that small chips on a windscreen could turn into cracks, and that once this happened, people had no choice but to replace their whole windscreen. The Complaints Board noted that two of the four advertisements referred to a “full crack” and a “big crack”, and that the other two referred just to “a crack”. It noted that one of these latter two advertisements had been taken off air by the Advertiser. The Complaints Board noted advice received from both the Advertiser and the Complainant that under the relevant authority standards, cracks of up to 350mm could be repaired, as long as they were not in the critical vision area.
The Complaints Board considered the consumer take-out of the advertisements. It was of the view that consumers listening to the advertisements would understand them to mean that if any crack, as distinguished from a chip, developed on their windscreen, then the windscreen would have to be replaced. The Complaints Board noted that two of the advertisements referred to a “full” or “big” crack, but said that without any qualification of the exact size of crack these words referred to, it was likely that consumers may infer these to mean cracks which included those less than 350mm long. The Complaints Board was therefore of the view that the advertisements were misleading with regard to the claims they made about the need to replace windscreens with cracks in them, and accordingly said that they were in breach of Rule 2 of the Code of Ethics with regard to this claim.
The Complaints Board then turned to the second claim, made in advertisements 2, 3, and 4, which was “…if you are fully insured, with Smith & Smith the repair’s usually free”. The Complaints Board considered the consumer take out of the word “free” in the advertisement. The Complaints Board was of the view that consumers would understand this to mean that, if they were insured, they would not be required to “open their wallets” again for payment to Smith & Smith for the repair. The Complaints Board noted that this was the case for those fully insured, as per Smith & Smiths’ advice as to their arrangement with insurance companies. The Complaints Board also noted that the claim made was not absolute, as it included the word “usually”, which it said conveyed to the listener that while repairs would be free most of the time, in certain situations they wouldn't’t. Accordingly, the Complaints Board said that advertisements 2, 3 and 4 were not in breach of Rule 2 of the Code of Ethics with regard to their claim “…if you are fully insured, with Smith & Smith the repair’s usually free”.
Having made the above observations, the Complaints Board ruled to uphold the complaint in part, with regard to the claims made in all the advertisements about the need to replace windscreens with cracks in them.
Decision: Complaint Upheld (in part)
COMMENTARY
Who wants to move to New Zealand? The ironic part of this is all of the windshield repair technology in New Zealand comes for the U.S. The Australian/New Zealand Standard has been in place since 1999 while here in the U.S. in 2009 we have Safelite, Belron, Lynx, and insurance companies doing exactly what New Zealand put a stop to and now Safelite, Belron, Lynx, Glas Weld and some other ROLAGS Committee members are trying to take cracks out of the ROLAGS.
We also have the same laws in the U.S. to protect consumers, free enterprise and steering but the ones who are suppose to uphold these laws are the ones who are disregarding them. See the next two articles below.
INSURANCE COMPANY FINED AND PLEADS GUILTY FOR STEERING GLASS CLAIMS
IAG FINED $127,000 OVER STATE INSURANCE WINDSCREEN REPAIRS
NEW ZEALAND - Release No. 32, issued 31 August 2006
IAG, the largest motor vehicle insurer in New Zealand and the parent company of State Insurance and NZI, has pleaded guilty to 30 breaches of the Fair Trading Act and has been fined $127,000 in the District Court in Auckland. The Court found that State Insurance misled customers about their right to choose a windscreen repairer when making an insurance claim. State Insurance's brochures said that policy holders could choose any company to carry out windscreen repairs, but contact centre staff told a significant number of customers that they had to use Smith & Smith for the work.
Some customers were wrongly told that their policy required them to use Smith & Smith. Others had already booked their repairs with an alternative repairer but cancelled the bookings and used Smith & Smith instead, because State Insurance told them they had to.
The Court found the representations made by IAG were false, and were a breach of section 13(i) of the Fair Trading Act, which prohibits companies from misleading customers about their rights.
While the company was found guilty on 30 charges, the level of the penalty reflects the likelihood that a large number of people had been misled in a similar way by IAG.
Commerce Commission Chair Paula Rebstock said that the case had attracted considerable interest since the Commission began investigating in October 2004.
"The Commission is pleased with these penalties, which recognize that companies must honor the promises they make," Ms. Rebstock said. IAG's 2003 brochure lists 17 "Main Policy Benefits." Number 10 is Choose to have repairs carried out by any repair service nationwide." "It is fair to assume that they made that statement to attract customers and gain a competitive advantage," Ms. Rebstock said. Ms. Rebstock said that the ability to choose one's own repairer would be an an attractive feature to some people when buying insurance, and may well have influenced their decision to insure with IAG.
"Once IAG had made that representation, they had to honour it. Instead they misled customers and deprived them of the right to choose," Ms. Rebstock said. is "IAG has a very large share of the insurance market in New Zealand so this behavior is likely to have had a significant impact on the competitive environment," Ms. Rebstock said.
Ms. Rebstock said that IAG should have done more to ensure that its staff were not misleading customers. "IAG cannot claim they didn't know they were misleading their policy holders," Ms. Rebstock said. "They knew about the problem, but their behaviour suggests that they did not take the misrepresentation issue seriously until the Commission began investigating."
A competitor of Smith & Smith wrote to the then CEO of IAG, David Smith, in June 2004, telling him that contact centre staff were making the misleading claims. The Commission found the misleading statements were still being made in October 2004 when it began its investigation. Once IAG were told that the Commission was investigating, it took steps to stop staff from misleading customers.
"A large organization such as IAG has access to the best legal advice," Ms. Rebstock says. "They should understand their legal obligations and have robust compliance programmes in place to ensure they do not break the law," Ms. Rebstock said. She noted that the Commission's investigation had been hampered by the company failing to provide complete information when requested and that the Commission had ultimately needed to execute search warrants on IAG Christchurch premises.
Background
IAG owns State Insurance and NZI and is the biggest insurer of motor vehicles in New Zealand. State Insurance deals with more than 55,000 auto glass repair claims each year.
The State Insurance car insurance brochure dated December 2003 and titled "Your car cover, wherever you choose to go" reads" "You can choose whether you wish to have your damaged vehicle assessed by our team of experts and repaired by one of the IAG Quality Repairers, or whether you would like to use your own repairer." A table in the brochure lists 17 "Main Policy Benefits." Number 10 is "Choose to have repairs carried out by any repair service nationwide."
The false and misleading representations were made by call centre staff in Christchurch to customers across the whole of New Zealdn over the period of July 2003 to October 2004.
During its investigation, the Commission executed a search warrant at IAG's Christchurch premises in September 2005. Based on information obtained during the search, approximately 200 policy holders were contacted, 30 witness statements were taken, and the charges were based on these statements. The level of the penalty reflects the likelihood that a large number of people had been misled in a similar way by IAG.
Consumers in this case incurred personal inconvenience and stress from engaging in, and at times, protracted discussions with State Insurance staff regarding the use of Smith & Smith as opposed to their preferred repairer. Some customers were "told off" by State Insurance statt for using rival repairers.
Once IAG knew the Commission was investigating, the company reviewed its training and reference material for staff. It inserted new information into its contact centre manual about what staff should do in the situation where a policyholder does not want to have their vehicle windscreen repaired at Smith & Smith, and posted a memo on the company's intranet website reminding staff of the need for flexibility in respect of windscreen claims.
Antitrust Cases Get Attention
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration warned corporate America on May 11, 2009 that the government will more aggressively investigate big firms that hurt smaller competitors, contending that the lax enforcement by the Bush administration contributed to the current economic troubles.
Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney said the Justice Department is abandoning legal guidelines established by George W. Bush’s administration. Critics complained that the earlier instructions made it difficult t pursue antitrust cases against big firms.
Recession Special - Hybrid Long Crack Repair Kit- $299.00 ends September 10.
For only $299.00 you can WOW your customers and save them two hundred dollars over a replacement and you earn about the same profit in much less time without even getting your hands dirty. Includes instruction manual and DVD.