Auto body repair & detailing: Collison Paint Repair, dark metallic blue, auto body shop

Question
Prior to last week, I had never had work done at an auto body shop before.  My 2002 Ford Taurus (dark metallic blue) was hit on the rear door and back panel (with some small dents and some paint damage).  When I got my car back the dents were gone and the paint was blue and smooth, however, the paint was slightly lighter blue than the rest of the car.  Is this normal?  Can the body shop order the same paint from Ford?  If not, then I can understand how it might be hard to match the factory paint, but I wanted to make sure I didn't get ripped off.

Answer
The car makers do not sell paint. It is near impossible to perfectly match paint panel to panel. Most of us will tint it to get it near perfect and then blend the color to the next panel and clear all the newly painted surfaces. If your shop says that is as close as they can get it, call your insurance co. and complain. They should pay the shop extra to blend the next panel. Around here and most everywhere that I have read about, color blend time is automatically  written in to the estimate unless it's an easy to match color like black. If you were shopping for price when you got your work done, you probably got what you paid for.
If you have a cheap ins. co. like Progressive, good luck.