Argabarga, how you deal with road service companies, I have no idea.

[mathnerd]

When I had to be towed in Phoenix, I ran into a similar issue. It wasn't quite so bad, but the dispatcher did take some convincing before she figured out that I wasn't going to come with an address given that I was on the side of a major interstate. She kept asking if I could see any addresses from where I was. I kept repeating that no, "I'm on the side of I-10 westbound in the middle of downtown Phoenix on the west side of the tunnel and before you get to the next exit a few hundred feet way." I'm not even from Phoenix, nor had I ever been there before that moment, yet even I could figure out that this was a VERY good description of where I was, and for dog's sake, would you please get somebody out here because it's RUSH HOUR and I have three kids (and two dogs) in the car! All and all, my MC is pretty good, but dispatch needs a little improvement.

[Argabarga]

The weak link in the Motor Club system is the dispatcher, especially because now that things like Google Maps and such exist, they don't see why they have to TRAIN people on how to effectively dispatch/find stuff. ANd in some cases, the dispatcher is in an overseas call center and has never seen US Soil, much less the road system, and they're under pressure to get off the line, so anything 'superfluous' to them, like extra details, gets ignored because the system isn't set up to process it.

Our first step after getting a call is to call the member and verify they're where the MC says they are, and frequently, they aren't.

Once you FIND a club that knows what they're doing, don't EVER let them go! Even if they ask for your firstborn!

[Aislin]

This week I am on a road trip. We were driving 8 miles from well known land mark A to well know chain hotel B. Between A and B we blow a tire.

We pull over, put on a spare, all is good for 1/2 mile when the spare picks up a nail and blows out spectacularly. We drive on the rim till we get someplace safe, 4 1/2 miles from B.
Next to a high way marker. With a number on it. We can see an airport from where we are. We know what city and state and zip code area code and all other vital information.
It is Easter.
We relay all the vital info to the road side service my insurance agent recommended we get. Ugh. My old insurance would just reimburse me for towing and I didn't have to call a service, they just cut me a check. Yes I had to pay but I always got my money back 100%
First the dispatcher tries to dispatch a tow truck from home city and home state. 900 miles away. We are asking to be towed 8 miles to a walmart, at 3 pm Which is open till six and has 4 replacement tires in stock. I called. The dispatcher insists on calling and making sure the tires are in stock.
This takes an hour. Then he calls 2 tow services, one won't tow unless we buy tires from them, and they don't even have the tires in stock. The other is closed. The third says we have to pay a fee. At this point we happily agree. Because at this rate we are calling that guy any way. This town has a total of 3 tow companies.
So the dispatcher sends the tow driver allllll the way to 15 miles the other side of A. They gave him an address of an abandoned building. Where they got the address is confusing as my phone location was the same gps info as my gps unit. Plus our detailed description of where we were. None of this was relayed to the driver.

The driver is understandably confused. Where the heck are we? He calls me, and asks, because he is a logical gentleman and is used to the roadside company being idiots. I give him details and he sighs. His company is located at the airport complex we can see from our car. A whole mile from our car.

He gets there, gets us loaded and on our way almost 3 hours after we called. It took him 30 minutes to get to us and get us taken care of. He is amazingly awesome. He drops me at the hotel and drops the car and hubby at walmart. The tire shop was just closing and so they didn't start our tires till the next day. Luckily one of the tire lube guys saw the hubby walking toward our hotel and picked him up and took him to our hotel.

This tiny tourist trap has no cabs so we walked to breakfast and to pick up the car next day. Thanks awesome tow driver, thanks awesome walmart people. Not thanks dispatch for not listening, not documenting and sending our driver on a wild goose chase.