[John 070]

Originally Posted by ARSAIR

The saga continues. So my original estimate from my insurance appraiser was $1000.00, roughly. Well I took my auto to Marcos Autobody in South Pasadena, they do work for a Dealer out here and from what I could gather good work, but they may not be the cheapest place, but since this is an insurance claim, I figured why not.

Wow, they are quoting me, $5000, $1000 for parts and $4000 for labor!! Seriously!! Now I am concerned my insurance will go up if they agree to cover this, originally my adjuster told me it would not affect my insurance at all, but now I am concerned. Any one with experience in this please respond and let me know your thought. I mean I know they are trying to get more money but come on.

The Valet insurance company is requesting 2 quotes to "evaluate" the claim. So they are neither accepting it or denying it. So they are pissing me off, I am pretty sure if I show them a $5000 appraisal they will flip and say hell no we will litigate. This is just eating up too much of my time.

I would have to get my insurance policy out (or online) but I believe your insurance would go up. I saw a number, $1350--if below that in a 3 yr. window, no surcharge. Hit and run, no surcharge. Other stuff, they had a grid that basically said 40% surcharge. Accident where other party pays? No increase. It's really cut and dry, just get the policy or good driver discount terms out. If the valet co. pays, no increase for you.

[happy4nk8er]

Originally Posted by galahad05

Small claims court. If they don't show, the judge rules against them. Therefore....you're FORCING them to spend time/money/effort on this, or suffer summary judgment.

+1
Ben there, done that, for a $5000.00 Small claims case, they had a lawyer call and settle prior to court date.

[ncoig]

Originally Posted by blue2fire

Sucks, you should talk to the Lounge first. Common sense dictates that they will deny everything and say you should have inspected it before leaving. This will not be easy or pleasant.

+1

-N

[rossii]

Originally Posted by xtac

This is not a criminal case it is a business law issue, when you hand over the keys you pretty agree to everything. Look for signs saying we are not responsible, i'm sure they have them. However, depending on the amount of the claim if its low just pay for it, if it not you can sue but its probably won't be worth your time. The 5k claim is bogus, 4000 in labor? might wanna sue them!

While a business can't absolve it self from negligence , it will be hard to prove and comes down to basically if they want to settle it or not.

What to take away from this: Check before accepting your vehicle. or never valet.

Not a lawyer, but I took business law

Actually when you give your keys to a garage a valet, they are responsible for your car regardless of what signs they have up even if it says it on the ticket they give you. If its the type where you keep your keys then you are pretty much SOL.

Not a laywer but stayed at a Holiday Inn.........plus I sued a dealership on the same grounds and won...

[MistaMandalay]

So sorry to hear about your incident with the Valet... I feel for you. What a freakin bitch! I can only imagine the pain and headache you're experiencing, but keep fighting...

Similar incident happened to me last night, but to a much lesser extent. Basically the Valet at Katsuya in Studio City messed up my right front rim as it now has a major curb rash. Must have hit the curb hard as it almost looks like an outer piece of my rim is missing, but I definitely feel vulnerable that I trusted these bastards with my car and they f-ed up my rim. And of course, I tipped them $2 on top of the normal service fee. WTF! I'm gonna tell the manager that if they don't take responsibility and pay for the damage, that I'm going to file a police report and take legal action to the furthest extent of the law. I'm not sure if its actually worth litigation when the damage is only about $50 - $100, but if they refuse to compensate me, I'm just gonna take some rotten eggs and bean those MF bastards! Any and every valet service should try to provide quality customer service and respect the property of those who are entrusting them with their car. They should run themselves like any other business and value their customers and take responsibility for their actions. But I guess since their business is based on the business of some other venue like a hotel or restaurant, they just don't give a f***. Ridiculous! There should be some way of regulating these Valet Services...

[Joker330i]

thread revival LOL.

[brinkmann]

Originally Posted by Joker330i

thread revival LOL.

it had only been like 11 months since someone had last made a post, what are you talking about?

[John 070]

I think the main thing is going to be to fix the car...I think it makes a difference that the damage was not noted on the way out.

Very frustrating just to hear about it. It's just a dishonest situation and sure at minimum go back there and tell them you'll take action no matter what the ticket stub says (although admittedly that ticket stub means a lot)....good luck op.

[Noc57]

No updates for 11 months or so.......

Hurray for thread revivals, I wonder what we'll revive next?

[dimabimmer]

Yeap, file a police report first... this has no credibility without police report.

The fact they didn't tell you about damage when you picked up the car is enough to have all the effort to put them out of business. I mean, would they lie in the Court of Law in front of Judge too?

After you picked up the car from valet, where did you go next? Do you park on street overnight?

[dimabimmer]

I had something similar,

... picked up my 335i from service at BMW of Manhattan, and 2 days later noticed passenger door damaged out of alignment... looking at hinges of door it appeared as if it was a huge damage, maybe structural, etc... how the heck does it get damaged like that?
... went back to BMW of Manhattan,- they said they didn't do it ofcourse. It was just unbelievable! Right in my face they tell me they didn't do it, but I KNOW, it is only THEY had the car in posession LOL. Anyways, got all the management looking at it, back and forth for days... and it got me nowhere.
... I make a call to BMWNA to interfere and assist, but nothing happens... except I get a call from Service Manager and he tells me not to bring the car in anymore, I am banged, blacklisted etc,.. The end.

... never had time to file small claims court.

[AlexH]

To answer your question: "First, even though I am an attorney, I do not do criminal law. So my first question is whether or not if I go there right now and run over all the valets I would be in trouble?"

The answer is "No." In criminal defense, it's called "justification." But if you ran him over last night, the defense would be "the heat of passion."


J/K!

[ARSAIR]

I was subscribed to this thread so quiet a surprise when I got a message stating someone posted to it.

Update: 11 Months and still in litigation. My insurance company sued their insurance company so I am waiting to see if I ever get back my $500.00 deductible. As of today, I have not received anything from them and I STILL AND WILL FOREVER HATE VALETS.

[TyPe-ZeRo]

If you're any kind of lawyer, i'm sure you've got some lawyer homies

Best wishes man!

[E92-Lighting]

updates?

[nyc3r]

most valets are just young kids or old losers who would love to abuse your car.. see Video on Youtube

[josephr25]

That sucks. I have been lucky with valets so far, just watching them park my car maybe 10-20 feet from the entrance. That and they've valet much more expensive cars than mine...

Too bad there wasn't a self-valet option; just ask the valet service you'll do it yourself.

My friend was valet and he told me he'd abuse some cars... very d*ck move by him, but now I certainly won't have valets touch my car from now on.

[777ER]

This is why I never trust valet parking.

Only 2 times I had no option of parking the car and it was valet only for parking.

Every one of those times, I do a walkaround before I get in the car making sure there's no damages.

One time I left dinner at this fancy resturant that my wife's parents invited us for her mother's birthday, I walk out the front door and see a clusterf**k of cars all over the place and there's only 4 valet guys looking like they don't know what they're doing. I told them "hey I need to go somewhere now, where's my car" he was like hold on and they were still trying to move all these cars into parking. Another valet guy comes up and said wheres my car, I said "I have a ticket and no one has gotten my car" he asks for the ticket and it took them 10 mins to get the cars out of the way to get my car out.

When the car came up, I did a walkaround and the valet guy yelled at me "EVERYTHING OKAY?!", I nodded my head and left. Who talks like that to a customer...

As I was going up the driveway, there was cars parked along the road that 2 of the idiots almost had a head on course while I was exiting the place. Never gonna go back to that Crabtree's Kittle House in Chappaqua, NY again...


My co-worker works with me in the daytime at the airline mechanic job and he's a parking garage manager at night time in Queens.

Tells me stories of his guys who parks the car, that only one time the garage had to eat costs was when this driver's shoe was badly worn out and broken up, it got jammed into the gas pedal and the car smashed it's rear into a structure...he was forced into retirement instead of being fired.

The rest of the time? for any damages the customer brings up when picking their car up for valet parking, they fill out the claim paperwork and send it to their insurance company, then their insurance company foward the claim to the customers insurance company and tell them to cover it since their car is insured. The customer doesn't even know about this the whole time it's being covered at their own insurance expense.

Another time, he wasn't working on that day...a repo truck came to repo a car from there, it was a high class car....the manager on the dayshift went upstairs to get the paperwork for that car (time it was brought in...etc) and they were gone with the car. It was one of the repo guys tatic to stall someone while the get the car out.

A day or two later, the owner of the car came out to pick it up only to find they couldn't find his car...they told him it was repo'ed and he basically had a heart attack.

They repo'ed the wrong car...it was already paid off. 2 of the VIN# didn't match the repo paperwork.

A year and half later, he won $10 million in court settlement.

[dcorn]

I hate hearing these stories. I just don't understand how these fools have no regard for another person's property. I could understand if you were a dick to them when you dropped it off, but not just for every car they drive. I would have loved to be a valet when I was younger, but never had the opportunity in such a small town.

My issues with valets:

Family took a trip to New England when I was 12 or so. In Boston we splurged and stayed at the Omni Parker House hotel. Parking was impossible so we got our Explorer valeted. As we go to leave, we give them the ticket to get the car. 30 minutes later, no car. After 45 minutes, we go and ask where the hell the car is. Their reply is "they are vacuuming up the glass, it'll be here soon". Wait, what? So the car was broken into while sitting in the garage over the weekend. Broke a back side window and stole a TV, my CD player/bookbag, and some other little stuff. Had to drive home from Boston to MD with no back window in 50* weather. The hotel took no responsibility because they didn't own the garage that they had parked the car in. The garage told us they weren't responsible for our car's security. Pretty much just everyone pointing fingers at everyone else. I think it was worse that they pretty much ruined a crime scene and tried to cover stuff up by vacuuming the car without telling us first.

A few months ago, me and the GF were going out in DC around DuPont. Walking down a side street, I see a Supercharged Range Rover come flying by, turn down an alley, and go full throttle down the alley. Get to the main road and the same RR flies up and slams on the brakes at the corner in front of us. Valet was driving.

Seems 90% of them are just horrible people in general. I would NEVER valet my Cobra, wouldn't even think about it. I hardly let my friends drive it and I know they can drive. In fact, I'd bet money my car would get wrecked if I ever valeted it, just based on how easy it is to fry the tires in 1-3 gear. I did valet my Jeep once, but I wouldn't have been able to tell the damage they caused compared to the rock rash it already has lol.

[bmwforme]

Originally Posted by ARSAIR

I was subscribed to this thread so quiet a surprise when I got a message stating someone posted to it.

Update: 11 Months and still in litigation. My insurance company sued their insurance company so I am waiting to see if I ever get back my $500.00 deductible. As of today, I have not received anything from them and I STILL AND WILL FOREVER HATE VALETS.

Wellp, this thread led me to find this... but uh how did litigation go? did they settle? did your rates go up? have you used a valet since?

2 years later, these answers should be available lol

Sorry for the 2 year revival...

[Amini77]

Sorry to hear that..never trust valets in LA.

[Dark_Knight_335]

Valet and downtown Los Angeles told me this wouldn't end well.
Good luck.