Garage customer demands compensation for car theft

[Mike Ruff, GW editor]

The owner of a stolen Ford Focus is pressuring his garage for compensation after his car was taken while it was under the care of the service and repa
[See the full post at: Garage customer demands compensation for car theft]

[Andrew]

I’d say any compensation must come from the car thief, I can understand compensation from the garage if the insurance claim wasn’t made, but to claim insurance AND compensation is a bit of a stretch.

[Paul]

The customer has clearly been inconvenienced by the theft of this vehicle. The garage failed to secure his car keys and his car adequately while it was in their care. Perhaps the customer didn’t want to change his car but now he is forced to. I don’t think it is unfair to ask the garage for compensation.

[Graham Clark]

The garage concerned in my humble opinion must have an obligation to stand by their customer. Droping/loosing keys, albeit a mistake, is of no fault of the customer, good communication and agreeing on a settlement would be advantageous to both parties, as previously said, the owner is now in a car replacement situation that is beyond his control and maybe budget. Customers are not easily found, but very easily lost.

[Peter Miles]

Hmm, a bit of a difficult one. The owner’s insurance has paid out for the value of the car but I do think that under the circumstances as the keys were left outside the garage owner should make some offer to please the customer. For myself it is a condition of my insurance that all keys are kept in a safe overnight and any other time the garage is unattended and that obviously wasn’t the case here. If the garage owner dropped the keys why didn’t he try and find them?

[Dougal]

The garage should have offered to cover legitimate out of pocket expenses from day 1.
Simples!

[JOHN CRAIG]

The owner of the garage must offer the customer a free service but no money should change hands.The owner of the needs a boot up the arse for careless way of handling the keys of the garage did he report the loss to the Police.

[John Darby]

The garage was negligent by allowing the keys to be taken. My insurance has said on previous occasions that you should take reasonable action to prevent a vehicle from being stolen and if after that the car is still taken it is down to the customers insurance as if it were parked in the street. So for the customers insurance to cover the loss is just lucky for the garage owner, but he still should cover the owners loss, excess, increased insurance premium and inconvenience I feel.

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