Most expensive steak ever
 

On Tuesday night, I went to get a steak in downtown White Plains with a buddy of mine. Come out a couple hours later, and his car gets immediately brought up by the valet. I'm patiently waiting around 10 minutes to no car. I ask the valet and a guy comes running over 5 minutes later "Oh, I thought you were that guy outside. I parked your car over there". Don't think anything of it and drive off.

Wake up next day, and walk around to the passenger side of the car and the lower half of passenger side rear door is caved in. Scratches from wheel well to wheel well. You can tell that the bastard that ran up to me probably scraped my car all along a low barrier of some sort in the garage, and tried to be extra nice to me so that I'd just get in.

So of course I call the garage and they submit a claim but tell me "We will check the video, but understand that once you leave the premises, we are no longer liable." So I know that they won't look at the video and will just call me next week and say "We didn't see anything. Good luck".

I'm toying with having my legal insurance send them a letter, but from my research of garagekeeper's law, it looks like the liability does end once off prem.

Anyhow, anyone in Westchester area have a good body shop that they can recommend? I'm probably just going to pay out of pocket to get the job done right. If cost gets ridiculous, I will involve Geico.

Argggg! Frustrating isn't it.

Good luck with the fix and stay Zen .....( ya right lol)

and THIS ladies and gentlemen is why I don't valet...

I never valet or even park somewhere where they ask me to leave the keys...Had a bad experience once at a regular parking space . They were having small rides with my 5.0L car, just for fun and I noticed. When I challenged them with it , they got mad and the next day , the trunk lip had been scratched all the way from left to right....... Lesson learned.

sometimes I wonder if I should break out the camera phone while dropping off the car... it seems like it's gotten to that point doesn't it?

would they just believe you otherwise even if you haven't left the premises when picking it up? The whole claims process... how do they know it wasn't already there before?

I also avoid valet and park far away at each parking lot.

I assure you that the cost will be ridiculous

Insurance wont care really. They will be happy to stick you with a chargeable claim. To them it makes no never-mind, they'll just want to pay the claim as quickly and easily as possible. IMO

Just spitballing, but I wonder if filing a lawsuit and subpoenas for people, videos, records of employees - as quickly as possible- might catch them by surprise and prevent video being deleted or stories being spun? Prolly not cost effective unless you have access to a reasonable lawyer (small joke)

You're probably looking at 4-5000 for the repair. Done to perfection.

Agreed.

Yup.

For me, "Valet parking only" means I don't go there, particularly with the somewhat odd transmission control of BMWs, which some valets may not be familiar with.

I have this legal insurance called ARAG. Just thinking about calling them up and having them write a letter to the garage as a shot across the bow. Won't really do anything, except make me feel better probably. Stupid Ritz Carlton valets. If it's going to run that much, then I'll definitely be filing a claim. That'll be another fun thing of my telling them that I want to use a specific shop and then our arguing back and forth for a bit.