Is this guy here?

I would love to know the story. Near Santa Fe, NM.

https://youtu.be/e95-bKGvCiE?si=VwmQiDH6vOInE6qC

 

1:15 — I expected to hear “I haven’t been out of the basement for a while”.

 

That guy is lucky to be alive. And I wonder what Matt charged the insurance for that!?

 

It had to be a lot...look at all the people and equipment he had...also had to buy 4 wheels and tires to make it work.

I have no idea what he charges on those kinds of things, but it had to be thousands.

 

Oh for sure. I bet over 10k. Nobody else could do it

 

Didn’t know he was still making videos and people were still watching after the fraud stuff

 

must've missed all that; what happened?

 

I missed the fraud stuff...give me the deets.

 

from the Google machine:

In late 2021, Matthew David Wetzel, the owner of the YouTube channel Matt's Off Road Recovery, was charged with one second-degree felony count of insurance fraud. The Utah Insurance Fraud Division alleged that Wetzel's company, Winder Towing, misrepresented some of the tows performed, resulting in AAA paying out over $15,000 in claims. Wetzel pleaded no contest to the charges and was sentenced to probation and fines from both the American Automobile Association and the state of Utah.

He was charged with the felony, but convicted of a misdemeanor with no fines, but ordered to pay back the money from the disputed claims.

Nothing to see here, IMO.

 

And, this is Matt's long statement about the issue:

"This is probably not the correct platform to do this. But I would love to say something in my behalf to help you understand more fully what happened here.

As a AAA service provider, I actually enjoyed working for AAA until they outsource their payment department. The day that they did that, I never got paid correctly for any medium duty tow that I did. Not a single one. Vehicle tows from Zion national Park to Las Vegas were quite common, and it sure hurts to tow an RV that far and not get paid for it. AAA was shorting me on payments between $5,000 and $15,000 a month in the busy season. I brought this up with my field rep. We’ll call him Michael, on multiple occasions. We were really taking it in the shorts here. He told me that other rural AAA shops had creative ways to make sure they got paid. He was confident that I could come up with something too. Wink I could type pages of different scenarios and problems that we had and getting paid. But it all boils down to this… Never ever ever did I take a dollar that I did not earn. And I gave up thousands and thousands of dollars to AAA in non-payment.

This is next big moving piece, and I would call this the catalyst for the whole thing. To keep this coward anonymous, we will give him a fake name. Kyle Cruise is what we will call him. But I will just shorten it to KC for the rest of the story. KC spent the better half of a decade pretending to be my friend. One day his jealousy of my success became too much for him. He claimed that over half the people were watching my channel because of him, and he wanted 40% of the channel right off the top. He told me that if I didn’t give it to him, he would ruin me. He told me he had been collecting dirt on me for years, and that I would go to jail for insurance fraud. I did not take him seriously, I considered us to be good friends. In retrospect, I don’t know why I didn’t see through his deceit years ago. At any rate, I was blind to his malicious deceit, and I certainly knew that I was not committing fraud. I wasn’t worried one bit. Just hurt and confused that one of my best friends had turned so viciously on me. A few days later, I was handed a cease and desist letter by KC himself. He told me I would have to take him, his business, and any family members off from my channel and other social media platforms, or I could give him $40,000 Much to his dismay, I called his bluff. I had no idea that he had set me up. I could tell you that story, but it’s already getting too long.

Another piece to the story it was the fact that I did not keep records. A fact that KC new well. I had a notebook that I would scribble jobs in and then when they were complete I would throw the pages away. This made proving that I did the work very difficult. Because often the work was turned in on different days than the jobs were done. Over the course of the investigation, we would keep finding text messages to my drivers, photos that the drivers took, and other such proof of jobs. As these kept rolling in, my defense became more and more solidified. Sort of. Jobs that I did on one date but were turned in on another date is still considered insurance fraud. Even though the service happened, and the payment was correct. (I learned something)

Did I bend the rules? Yes. But I never bent any rules that hadn’t been bent by AAA I was completely open with my dispatch center and my area rep. My rep said he had my back when this started going down, but when the corporate part of AAA started getting close, he completely turned on me.

The investigator told me that he could pursue every single person that I had dealt with and charge them with Fraud also. Including KC’s friend that set me up. I opted to make a statement that every single person acted under my direction, and I would take full responsibility.

By the time it was over, it was obvious to the state that I had not done this for monetary gain or any sort of malicious fraud intent. I wasn’t even issued a fine. Think about that. AAA said they wanted money I couldn’t prove I earned. I said no problem. What’s one more month of getting ripped off by AAA?

Thanks to all of you that have supported me through this, and continue to support me and my team moving forward. This love and support has definitely been a strength I could draw from when needed.

Hopefully this helps some of you understand a little better. And those of you that already don’t like me, I do not expect this to change your opinion, and none of this was really directed at you anyway."

 

Sounds like a bunch of crap to me. If you’re not getting paid for a tow, then like most normal people you’d never do business again with that company. Not continue to in his words, lose thousands of dollars only to change them for towing a razor out and claiming it was an actual truck on the policy. What a wiener

 

I live 20 minutes from there!

 

I guess you and the courts who saw all the evidence see it differently.

 

Interesting; doesn't change my opinion of him and his crew one bit. Sounds like something any business owner having to deal with insurance deals with every month. I don't really watch his videos religiously like other channels I follow, but definitely enjoy the content. I've always enjoyed the ways they give back to their community. Says more about the man than getting tied up in insurance garbage that didn't go his way.

 

AAA just wanted their money, the prosecutors don’t want to waste time and money on stuff like this. It even said it was reduced so there was no jail time. And he was ordered to pay a small fine. If you can’t tell he’s talking out of his ass, then maybe you just try to see the best in people

 

Just got my State Farm Auto Insurance renewal
"The claim experience on your make and model of vehicle has resulted in an increase to your vehicle rating group for Comprehensive Insurance"
"The claim experience on your make and model of vehicle has resulted in an increase to your vehicle rating group for Collision Coverage"

Tacomas used to be the cheapest vehicle to insure. We all pay.

 

State Farm is the worst insurance company to have they suck balls

 

No idea.

This earlier guy is on here though

 

Live and learn... just better to learn from others.