An insurer has paid out a $21,000 court settlement in more than a dozen buckets of coins to an elderly man who alleged an employee assaulted him when he tried to buy insurance.
It took eight representatives of Rancho Cucamonga-based Adriana's Insurance to deliver 16 to 18 buckets of hard currency to the lawyer representing 76-year-old Andres Carrasco, who sued the company in 2012, according to the Los Angeles Times this week.
Carrasco’s attorney, Antonio Gallo, told reporters the retired bus driver “feels like he is disrespected.”
The settlement was expected to be paid by July 25, but the California-based Adriana Insurance told Gallo they would not issue a cheque.
Gallo, who initially thought the delivery of quarters, nickels, dimes, and pennies was a joke, said, “It's unfortunate that a business like that would use some of these tactics.”
“There’s over 16 buckets of quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies,” Gallo said. “It’s going to take us at least, conservatively, one week to count that whole amount of money.”
Given the offense, Carrasco — who just had a hernia operation and is unable to lift any of the buckets — said “it’s too heavy,”
Carrasco later released a statement in which he condemned the way Adriana treats its customers, specifically the elderly. (continued.)
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“We might be poor, but we are people too,” he said.
Adriana, popular in Los Angeles and surrounding counties, is known as a budget insurance company that also seems to budget on its customer service. As of this writing, the company’s highest Yelp rating was just two stars, assigned by a user in 2012.
“Adriana’s Insurance, is this the way you treat everyone?” Carrasco asked in the statement. “Why don’t you like your clients?”
According to the Times, the coins had been sent to a bank for counting.
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