Well friday saw the untrimphant return of my valver from an insurance body shop type place after they took it away to look at it in more detail and assess the value of it.
They rang me on my mobile at about 8:15 on friday morning just as i was about to leave for work saying they are on their way with my car on the back of a low loader, my mum was going to be on so i thought ok fair enuff. Then at about 10 ish my mum rang me to say that they had dropped my car off, but they had left it diagonally, half on our drive, half on next door neighbours garden!and that i am to move it when i get it from work.
I parked the Astra 1.6 courtesy car beast up when i got home from work and saw how my car was parked and couldnt believe that they would actually leave it this way, then as i got nearer it immediately noticed that the centre caps from my BBS RA's had gone!! this annoyed me as you can imagine. So i went to go and get a torch to see if they had took anything else, they had...........!!
Missing from my valver is:
The Centre caps from my RA's
The red GTI badges that go on the side mouldings of the door
the 16valve badge from the back under where it says "Golf GTI"
my leather Gear Stick Gaitor
My debadged grill (which was on the back seat as it wouldnt go back on after the crash)
and........wait for it!........
My CD player!!
All of this has been TWOC'd whilst the car has been in their yard!!!
I tried to phone them up to question them about it but conveniently there was no-one in, but to be fair it was 10 to 6 on a friday evening.
My first instinct was to inform the police, and so did. They suggested that I wait until i have spoken to the people at the body shop and see what they say before taking it any further but had logged it and would be prepared to take action otherwise.
Now i didnt think this was going to be as straight forward as it seemed as this particular company have a bad reputation, and I know a couple of people who have had bad experiences with them, whether it be their work or the attitudes.
But surprisingly however the Manager, one mr Kevin Hogg was very compliant and did everything he could. He said that he would send out the transport manager (the clown that is in charge of the collection of vehicles etc) and they guy who dropped ther car off (who looked like Dave Hedgehog from the TV show Bottom!!)
So they came round and moved the car back to where it should be, i.e not on our neighbours lawn and took pictures of the where the stuff that is missing should be. After they had gone, we got another phone call from the manager (Hogg) he said that he would go through all the paper work and see if the person who collected the car from me had done a check as to what was in the car at the time. He called back to say that it was documented that all the items i said were missing were on the car when it was taken in. Great! at least we have estabished who is at fault.
But as this was saturday afternoon i heard no more from him other than he is going to look through all the CCTV footage to see if they can see who took my stuff and have a chat with the companies directors.
Hopefully i should get my stuff compensated for, and u never know a new and better stereo but thats not the point.
They may even offer to fix my car. Alls i know is that if they dont offer me some sort of compensation i will drag there name throught the dirt, go to the local press and inform them of what kind of company they are. I have already informed direct line who they have a deal with and get alot of work from, so hopefuly they will give them a kick up the arse.
I will keep you all informed as to what they say tomorow.
And in case you were wondering the company is called Banks and Derbyshire and is located in Ashton in Preston, Lancashire
thanks for reading all of my drivel
Neaty
