Jackson Jambalaya

"lighter space age materials in newer model cars" BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA - my Cobra (built in 1966) is made of that strange, new rare space-age material known as aluminum (which happens to compose nearly 10% of the earth's crust). I guess with no new lawsuits its hard for the AG to stay relevant!

Read: My name is Jim Hood and John Mosely is my best friend and flies me around on his planes during campaign season so I will do what I can for him. Our body shop labor rates are some of the highest in the country at $65+hr. This is a farce and a bully tactic between John Mosely and his body shop cronies against the hand that feeds them, the insurance companies. Mosely thinks he can tell the insurance companies how much they have to pay him and tries to justify it by any means necessary. If the general public could listen to what the body shops try and bully the insurance companies into doing, it would make you sick. I have personally seen a particular "red" body shop on Lakeland tell a customer who was hit by another driver and they got the tow call($600 from prep baseball fields to their shop less than 5 miles away) that the customer couldn't get her baby stuff out of the car until she or the insurance company paid the tow bill and she was going to the hospital the next day to have a baby. Yes, don't let the body shops tell you its the big bad insurance company. Its greed on their behalf. OEM parts=bigger markeup and profit margins.

Another example of government employees creating useless work to make themselves appear needed. They took a page out of the corps of engineers handbook.

No need to address corruption when you have body shop consumer guides to complete.

Here you have Hood using his office budget no differently than Reeves while Treasurer, or Fitch, or Chaney, or Hosemann, or Pickering to produce indirect statewide campaign fodder.

Though I doubt MSGOP RINO radio will invite Hood before their statewide mics to discuss this, his latest, "consumer guide".

"Notice this document has been removed"

OEM pricing on after-market parts = even bigger profits. They've doing it for years. Don't be misled.

At some point insurance companies will just start totaling vehicles instead of dealing with these scoundrels in the auto repair business. The truth is, most body shops around other than the Clintons, Capitals, and the like don't like these guys because they can see the writing on the wall.

8:37 nailed it. Watch out for another body shop/tow truck billing scam. XYZ Body Shop Inc owns XYZ Towing Co; shop and tow company share same phone #, mailing address, admin staff, practically the same logo, etc. The invoice from XYZ Towing Co list a $100-150 "administration fee". When questioned, the body shop owner (who also owns the tow company) stated the fee was charged by the body shop to the tow company for the handling of calls and paperwork. My guess is at least part of the charge is paid to the individual who calls the wrecker, and that wouldn't be either driver involved if you get my drift. It's a racket.

All I know about John Mosley (Clinton Body Shop) is that he does an incredible job. I can speak first hand on that---he repaired my vehicle after it was hit on Congress Street (parked). The African American driver had no tag, no insurance, suspended drivers license and hit my car and drove off---we caught him and brought him back to the place where the hit and run took place---JPD gave him a ticket and he drove off---WOW !!!! Guess who's insurance had to pay for that.

By the way, my insurance company sent me to another well known body shop and they never could fix my car correctly---they tried three time and Clinton Body Shop did a perfect job on it the first time---do I need to say more---you pay for perfection.

Beware when local beat cop calls a wrecker. My son recently had a wreck and police called tow truck before I got there. Tow bill was $270 with no explanation. Insurance usually covers $100. Basically once your car is on the wrecker they can charge you anything they want.

There is a difference - I took my car to a cheaper shop to get fixed and something didn't seem right. Mosely and his crew took the other shop's work apart and I found out the other shop charged me for parts they didn't replace, and the repair had already begun to rust (just three weeks after it was repaired). If you want chicken salad at chicken shit prices you will always be disappointed.

I wish this post had come a week ago. Count me in the police/wrecker racket victim's club. $500 to the "body shop," I hope officer douchenozzle enjoys his cut of the $125 "administrative fee."

These greedy body shops price match. What I mean by that is they tell insurance company "we have to have OEM parts". When they get paid for OEM parts, they then go to OEM parts company and tell them they can get same aftermarket part for $xx and the OEM company will price match it or will still sell it less than what they are paid for the OEM. Don't think this is all about the consumer. Its solely about their bottom line. He is just a private entity that is getting to use his buddy to push the agenda.

I wonder if I was a victim of the body shops vs insurance shenanigans. My car needed repair and I took it to the dealer's shop on I-55 in Jackson. His first estimate seemed ok and he did not think it would come to the threshold of being totaled. After I brought the car to them, and 5 days went by with no work on it, the insurance co calls me & tells me its totaled. They got the shop on the line and I was given this whole explanation of how they'd have to replace additional body parts because the mfgr does not recommend cutting a section at a certain point so this added several thousand more to the estimate. Insurance then said nope, we're not fixing it and paid me market price for it. It seemed a bit odd to me that it would require THAT much work.

Now, the car is being auctioned off probably to some cheap shop who will probably fix it & resell it. **I** didn't lose any money in this because I got more for the car than I would have gotten any other way if it hadn't been damaged, but my insurance company sure did lose.

I wonder, if I had taken it to Mosely's shops would I have done better?

Bully an insurance company?

Who the hell are you?

@ AV8 - the way cars are built these days its hard to tell just how damaged they are. You can only get so far without pulling panels, etc., and you're right, they probably fixed the car, washed the title and sold it to an unwitting victim who is now driving an unsafe car.

Barnette in Ridgeland priced my son's truck after the hail storm about five years ago and we agreed for them to do the body work. Insurance company sent a guy to approve the work so we got in line for repairs.

Truck sat there for a week then insurance company decides to total the truck (two year old F-150 in excellent running shape). He's still driving it five years later with hail damage and zero trade value. Not sure who got screwed, if anybody.

But, back to the General. Why is he doing Mike Chaney's job? Oh wait, maybe it's because Chaney is off doing somebody else's job and they're both taking a page out of Dogbert's Campaign Book. And didn't Hood get Mosley to run unsuccessfully against Chaney two years ago?

I like Hood's cautionary comment about being sure paint job matches other paint 'in a variety of lighting'.

Don't know if they are still open but the few times I needed to use a body shop, I used ridgeland body shop. Good work and service. Also once used Mr Ozene's shop in Brandon, r.i.p.

The people who are complaining about the cop called tow jobs are making me ill. You say it was overpriced, it was a bargain compared to my adventure. A Madison County deputy called Capital Body Shop to two my kid's car from Gluckstadt to their north shop. The bill was $750. You guys got off easy. State Farm paid the bill for this scam...no, I pay for this scam every quarter.

Here's how you can spot the most popular body shops: There's an Enterprise Car Rental business either next door or within a block.

Speaking of after market parts, my daughters passenger side view got knocked off: all the major body shops wanted $1,100 for a freaking mirror.

I finally found a mom and pop who gave me a "bargain" at $700. But hey, my guv-ment is going to be sure that my mutual fund makes sure to disclose where the members of the fund's Board of Directors went to college. Guv-ment doing something practical like consumer auto parts ripoffs? Not so much.

A rear-view mirror bargain at seven hundred bucks!?

We are all being screwed.

2:36 - sounds about right. They're not just a plastic housing and piece of glass inside. They have a motor for the glass...and then some have the blind spot warning thing in them, some have heated glass as well, and then some have LED turn signals in the housing. Those LEDs are super expensive. Oh, and then most of the housings are body-colored so they have to be painted. *Also, some Hondas now have rear-facing cameras in the mirror housings.