Communication breakdown

I submitted a vaps claim for a dent on my boot of my car. All was great at first, assessment was done, claim was approved, etc. The feedback I got was that my boot needed to be resprayed, but I felt that the dent could be repaired with a paintless dent removal technician and proceeded to get quotes myself. I also mentioned this at initial claims stage. They did no effort to get a quote from a PDR technician.

I called around and, including callout, I got a quote that was less than 50% of what was approved by dialdirect and the lady I called and spoke to said the quote was received by DD and I must just send the invoice once done. Cool!

He did mention he has a price per panel, but if you only do one panel it costs more, more panels then drop the price and whatever. I asked them to come out the next day and got the dent out quicker than expected, great! He then said, 'while I'm here let's do the rest of these dents on your car?' I mean most of them were so small you could only see it with his special led light, but I digress. I then said 'okay as long as it doesn't cost me more than what was quoted' which was R1950. There was an extra R50 for a grommet or something that must be replaced and I was okay with that, so we're talking R2000 total on a claim that was approved at R4950. My limit per claim in my mind was the approval received by dial direct, so I agreed. He proceeded to fix the car. I paid him his 2 grand via eft and we said goodbye. Maybe I misunderstood the claim limits, but still no one has explained jack squat to me.

Somewhere between the quote and the invoice, something went very wrong with the claim, the invoice I received was hand written which was apparently an issue, so I sent the proof of EFT as well, but now I'm struggling immensely to reach anyone who's able to make a decision for the best part of two weeks already and see if I can get my money back.

I didn't tell the guy who did the quote that I intended on claiming through insurance as I was afraid he'd charge more. Then assessors were phoning him for information on a cash deal he just wrapped up, so I imagine he had a big surprise, this I'll take the blame for. I get you guys have a process, but please can someone just communicate with me as well?

I understand that the procedure changed by using my own service provider, and I understand now that because you see because he touched more than one panel that it can be an issue, but the main reason he came out was the boot, he just has a very fluid invoicing strategy where the costs drop as he does more work.

I was just too happy to see he was willing to do a bunch more tiny dents for 'free' just because he was already there, very great service from them at least.

I'm struggling to understand why, if I can get work done at a fraction of the price, can we not look at the fact that I saved you a ton of money and settle the claim as we discussed? I can sign a confirmation or a sign-off that I'm happy with the car and we call it a day, my car is fixed and we're all good.

I could get photos of probably 5 of those other dents if you need them, there were some too small to show up on a picture, but we're still well below the R5000 claim limit per claim regardless.

I've sent my invoice, photos of the now repaired car, and I've sent my proof of payment, what more is there to validate?

I just need to speak to a human being about the claim, please just call me.

I'll leave it there, I've made peace that I'll be borrowing the money now to get on with my life, but I really didn't expect to be done so dirty.