Here’s a summary of what happened. I was hit and run in my rear bumper causing a scratch when I was out of town in my parking deck spot. I call Geico and end up being sent to a local shop to get it fixed. The total cost was $592 of which I was responsible for $500 deductible. The damage to the bumper is tiny, but there is enough scratching where I couldn’t simply buff it out.
I bring it in on a friday and my car isn’t finished until the following Wednesday, unusual. When I retrieve my car and go home, I notice half the things in my glove compartment are scattered in my passenger side door sill. Someone went through it and stole a watch I had ($450!). A pocket knife I keep in my driver’s side door sill is also missing. Furthermore, I check my cigarette bin (aka change drawer) and notice all my loose change is gone. They even stole every last little penny, about $8 worth. Imagine the rage and look on my face as I sat at the express 50c toll booth with no change.
It is obvious I was stolen from. What angers me more than anything is that they never should have entered my car but to park it since all the necessary work was on the rear bumper and no wiring etc was needed. No reason to go through my glove box or change drawer to even be tempted to steal.
The body shop is suppose to be a reputable one which is the preferred provider in the Atlanta area for Geico claims. I have yet to take action but would like advice on what I should do. My desired results would be getting my stuff back (unlikely), getting compensation (possible refund?), and definitely see to it that whatever moron thief gets fired and possible persecution. I’m also angry at Geico for making me go there. I normally take my car to the Mercedes dealer and obviously never have any problems. I have also never had a single penny stolen from the many carwashes around town where you’d think that would most likely occur. P.S. My glovebox is locked so the thief had to use my valet skinny key on the Mercedes remote to manually open it.
Would it be silly to find a lawyer? What’s my best recourse?
I’d check the paperwork you signed when you dropped it off. I worked at a car dealership (with a bodyshop) while in college, and I believe it’s pretty standard for them all to have a “we’re not responsible for anything in your vehicle” clause on all of them. A lot of shops even put signs up in the drop off area reminding you to remove all of your valuables.
I remember only one instance while I worked there when someone claimed their items were stolen. They contacted the owner of the dealership and then Ford’s corporate office and were still told “Sorry, but you signed it and our people say there was nothing there.” I believe the customer said they would sue, but nothing ever came of it. IIRC, they said it was about $1500 worth of stuff. For the moron to get “persecuted” I’m pretty sure they’d have to have more proof than “It was there, honest!”
Obviously you know for the future you won’t leave a $450 watch in the glove box, but I think I’d also get an estimate BEFORE I contacted my insurance company so I’d know whether it’s worth it to jack my rate up if I’m going to pay the majority of the claim. YMMV.
PS: Nice way to get in the Mercedes name in there at the end for no reason
It sucks, but beyond contacting insurance there’s probably not a whole lot you can do about it. You could talk to the owner/manager and ask about it, but I’m sure your stuff is long off the premises. It might help the person on top keep a better eye on the mechanics, however.
My friend had his book of CDs jacked when he dropped it at Worst Buy to have a CD player installed. Had to go to insurance for the cost of replacing them. There’s no way to tell if the mechanics took your stuff or if it was broken into while it was parked overnight.
Sorry, I know it’s not what you wanted to hear, but why would you leave valuables in your car like that? For me it’s kind of a pain in the butt (I’m a bit messy in my car), but I always take everything that I can’t afford to lose before I hand someone else my keys.
I don’t see what the harm in calling the police and getting their advice is. Even if they say there’s nothing they can do I would probably still call the shop to talk to them. They might claim they’re not responsible but at least the management would know there’s a thief about and might keep a closer watch. Even if you never see your stuff again, knowing that jerk might get caught/lose his job would make me feel better. If this place has a good reputation like you say it does then the management probably cares about this stuff.
Anyway, sucks about losing your stuff. I know how incredibly frustrating even minor theft can be.
I would tell Geico as well. Maybe with enough complaints they will stop using that shop. I’m pretty sure that the fine print in whatever you sigend when you dropped off the car included a disclaimer about how the garage is not responsible for any missing items, which to me is a permission slip to steal everything.
Remember that it’s possible that the stuff was not stolen by employees of the body shop but by someone who trespassed on their property and stole from the car while it was unlocked (perhaps while the shop was working on it). That’s one of the reasons why they don’t guarantee the security of your stuff.
Without a witness testifying they saw so and so steal the items, or surveillance of the theft, your shit out of luck. I would still file a complaint so the theft is on record. The shop may decide to watch for thefts and a pattern of reports may led to them finding the thief. Geico should be told since they are sending people there. File a report with the police on the chance the merchandise shows up. You can’t get it back if they don’t know it’s yours.
Yes. I stopped using a local shop when I realized they were parking the finished cars on the street, unlocked. I’d say it’s overwhelmingly more likely that your car was prowled by somebody unconnected to the shop.
IANAL or insurance agent, but when I was in a similar situation, I was advised that while I could choose any body shop I wished, the insurance company would only pay the lesser of A) the actual bill, or B) the “average in-area rate” – basically, what their chosen shop would have charged me.
I can easily see where a Mercedes dealership might charge significantly more than a third party mechanic (especially the sort that help themselves to the contents of your vehicle), so perhaps that situation is what “forced” the OP to go with this particular shop.
Also, the insurance company I was dealing with – also Geico, as chance would have it – didn’t exactly volunteer the information that I could go the shop of my choice. I was told only that they’d found a place that would do the work for $X and that’s what they would pay. I had to ask multiple times whether I could use my preferred body shop; the phone rep was very skillful at dodging the question.
After speaking to the manager and notifying him of my missing items, he told me that they did have 2 breakins over the weekend in which two cars were broken into and had stereos stolen. My car was locked and appeared unaffected so management didn’t consider my car to have been affected. Supposedly they park the cars in a locked lot at night.
He spoke to his supervisor and apparently would like to compensate me through their insurance provider. I am faxing them the receipt for my watch tomorrow and might get compensated.
Might turn out great. And to think I really just wanted whatever guy responsible to be fired, didn’t think about the possibility of a 3rd part theft.
Yes indeed, but I guess the combination of a locked glove box, feeling naive of never had a penny taken over a large sample size (30+ times at shops and car washes) got me good?
I wouldn’t remove coins, but then you’d only be out about 8 bucks. We have a trusted mechanic we go to, but because of the part of town he’s in we always take shit out of the car.
Christ Bosda, wanna be any more of a dick about it?
Some people will steal anything, coins in the tray are a sign you didn’t think to clean out the car, & mechanics have tools & know how to force open a jammed/locked glove box.
And are alone with your car, for several days. :rolleyes:
BTW–have you considered that they might be overcharging you? Some shops are like Ali Baba’s cave…full of thieves. Owners not excepted.
This reminds me of a local news story a few years back where they put cameras in a car and sent the car to a mechanic or a porter or a car wash or whatever. Then they played back the videos on tv and to the ownes of the employees stealing things. Except for one car, where they stole the camera.
If you can’t buff out the damage, that means the bumper has to be repainted. It should sanded down, and deep scratches filled and sanded, primed, sanded again, painted with custom color matched paint, dried, clear coated, dried and polished before the repair is complete. You want a repair that is going to last the life of the car, and look like nothing has ever been broken in the first place, it takes time, and isn’t cheap.
Or you can go to Maaco, get it done for $50, and have the repair be obvious to anyone with functioning eyeballs.
It is prudent, though, to not leave valuables in your car any longer than you have to. The big thing these days is GPS navigators. People leave them visible, or leave the mounts, or leave evidence of the mounts (suction cup marks) and thieves see it as a quick way to get a high value item.
With a shop, you really don’t know who is working on the car, and it could simply be the new hire who washes the car, who can’t resist pocketing something. Me, I have change in the car, and don’t really care if someone is so desperate they need to swipe $5, but a $450 watch is something else.
I never leave anything of more than $10 in value in my car when I take it to a shop. The place I typically get my cars worked on, I trust–but you sometimes bad eggs get hired even by good shops. Sometimes a new guy may just not work out well, and not every small business is 100% perfect at only hiring reputable people. Plus, there’s always the chance of third party theft.
I also make sure to take out things which are valuable in ways other than direct monetary cost–make sure there’s no deposit slips, check books, et cetera in the car.
However I would never clean my coins out. The way I feel is, I’m never going to have much more than $10 in coins in my car (typically no more than 7-8 like the OP), and the value of those coins if they were stolen would be well worth it in identifying the place I go is not a place I can trust.
