Italian hotel concierge damaged my CLS500

[greekCL]

Hello guys,

My last day of my European drive journey, I stayed over night in Milan, Italy. The hotel had a concierge service where they were parking the car safely away for the night and bring it when you check out.

So I did just that.

When I had the car brought to me in the morning, I loaded the car up and then I decided to do a walk around just to check before I set off.

I was greeted with the surpise with a damaged rear quarter panel! ouch.
I only had done all the wheel arches (stone chips flakes) and front bumper all repaired while I was in Greece as well as refurbished all the alloys!

And now this.

Apparently the hotel needs to see the CCTV camera, office opens tomorrow on the 21st so I will hear back from them tomorrow.

I have not dealt with anything similar before, tomorrow I will go and visit a couple of bodyshops to get written estimates and send them to the hotel.

Fingers crossed.

Cheers
Vasilis

 

[greekCL]

And one more

 

[John]

Good luck with getting it sorted.

Good of them to bother to tell you.

Careless rseholes!

 

[Peter103]

Good job you saw it before you set off, I expect the culprit was hoping you wouldn't. Good luck.

 

[AMGeed]

You'll probably be told the car is parked at owners risk to absolve themselves.

Looks nasty.......bad luck

 

[MancMike]

But he wasn't driving it at the time? I don't think "owners risk" works when someone else drives it for you?

Isn't it as simple as, you need to claim on someone's insurance, and it can't be yours, because you weren't driving?

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Ouch. Hopefully the hotel will do the decent thing and cover the cost of the repair. If they do say cars are parked at the owners risk then I would suggest that had it been vandalised or stolen whilst parked them that stance would be more understandable, however to be damaged in that way the car had to moving, and in that case a hotel's employee caused the damage whilst doing their job. Good luck sorting it out

 

[grober]

If the valet parking is subcontracted to another firm and possibly at another location from the hotel then they might be responsible rather than the hotel itself. If the hotel parking for guests has to be handled by their staff or subcontractor then you might be in a stronger position if you had no choice but to entrust your car to their care? Good Luck.

 

[greekCL]

Hi guys, thank you for your responses.

The car park was 2 blocks away, however the member of staff that drove the car from and to the hotel, it was the person who helped with the suitcases, the porter.

It was not a manned car park and it is accessed by the members of staff from the hotel using a key to open the gates. It is not accessible to general public.

Being cautious I had removed my Garmin satnav, this has a built in dash cam to it. Had I had it on I would have seen a bit better what happened.

Irrelevant to this the hotel as it stands has to provide CCTV footage that my car was not damaged in the specific location, i.e. entered in the car park cleanly and not touching anything.

 

[fabes]

How many miles did they put on it......if you get my drift....?

 

[Smart320]

Hi guys, thank you for your responses.

The car park was 2 blocks away, however the member of staff that drove the car from and to the hotel, it was the person who helped with the suitcases, the porter.

It was not a manned car park and it is accessed by the members of staff from the hotel using a key to open the gates. It is not accessible to general public.

Being cautious I had removed my Garmin satnav, this has a built in dash cam to it. Had I had it on I would have seen a bit better what happened.

Irrelevant to this the hotel as it stands has to provide CCTV footage that my car was not damaged in the specific location, i.e. entered in the car park cleanly and not touching anything.

What about when it left the car park?

 

[Alex225]

That's a tricky one as they will have CCTV on their property but not necessarily the distance between hotel and car park!

An infuriating situation as if you know it was fine beforehand then they should put their hands up to the damage. Is the hotel a chain? Worth escalating higher?

Gutted for you either way OP.

 

[tanuie]

Not good, i hope you get it sorted.

 

[greekCL]

The wall pictured is on the left lane after entering the car park gates and before entering the carpark building.
Now why on earth in Italy he used the left lane to go in the car park ... instead of the normal right who knows.
Had he used the right lane then he would not have clipped the wall.
The person taking it out of the car park was not possible to hit the car on the wall coming out. It had to have happened going in.

Let's see what the hotel says today when they see the CCTV that points to that wall.

 

[Petrol Pete]

Everything depends on the hotel, big and posh ? or family run ? I had the exact same thing happen to me in Pompeii while on business.

The hotel told me not to attempt to get my (rental) car into their underground car park as they would do it.

What they did was stack the cars in and ask guests to give notice when they wanted their car.

The 'driver' scratched both sides of the car getting it in and out.

As many guest were tourists they did not need their car during their stay, I needed mine every morning to go to work...so eventually they just parked It illegally in the street with a sign on it.

By the time I took the thing back to the airport in Rome it had all sorts of dings and blemishes on it. The guy at the rental company just shrugged and said it was 'normal' when driving in the South and let me on my way

 

[greekCL]

The hotel emailed me yesterday stating they will cover all repair costs.
They have already submitted a case to their insurance and they sent me a copy via email.
I have to say when I spoke to them on the phone they could not be more apologetic they reassured me they will not be rehiring the person who did the damage again purely due to the fact he had not reported the damage the moment it happened and I was left to discover it my self.

The problem now is with Mercedes Benz in Maidstone... while yesterday they said not to worry they will deal with everything.
Today they have gone back on their word, and they said that ... they can only deal with UK companies and they will not receive a payment from abroad. In other words it is down to me to liaise with the hotel and their insurance to get my money back I will pay to Mercedes for the repair...
I do find this very very poor service.
Mercedes Maidstone advice was to get my insurance involved so they can deal with it and not me...

I did tell them what would be the point of reporting it to my insurance, apart from this is an accident that happened in a private land and also while the car was driven by a 3rd party and also when I am abroad I am only covered 3rd party not fully comp.

Anyhow I am waiting for an estimate from Mercedes Maidstone so I can submit it to the Hotel and see how I proceed from there.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Glad to hear the hotel have handled it well. Strange that the dealership won't accept payment - before giving up, contact their group finance team (i.e. not someone in the dealership) as they may have dealt with payments from abroad before.

Ultimately working out how the bill is paid is much better than working out who pays it!

 

[Headhurts]

I sort of get the reason Mercedes, Maidstone are reluctant to get involved with a third party rather than deal direct with an insurance company, probably wary of catching a cold on this.

The hotel are doing the right thing by you so from reading your post it looks like this will all be sorted out in the end, you just have to go through the aggro meanwhile.

I hope it all gets worked out quickly to your satisfaction.

Robin


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[greekCL]

The hotel have provided all the information of their insurance etc. However the dealeship did not even look at the papers and emails I had printed off.
They just said ... oohh better I get my insurance involved it would be easier for them.

I will get the quote to start with and then maybe... I will go and look at a different Mercedes dealership once I have an initial cost.

I remember Mercedes in Romford were very good dealing with the warranty repairs on my CL500 a few years back. I might give them a call and see what they say.

 

[markjay]

To be fair to the garage, dealing with an insurer in the continent can be a major headache.

In spite of over 40 years of 'integrating' with the EU, we are anything but integrated. Nothing was ever really seamless... and with Brexit looming, there is even less appetite (or point) to continue with the effort.

So it looks like you may have to pay the garage in the UK then submit the invoices to the Italian insurer.

It's just an odd situation.

PS - it would be interesting to know if in principle you are obliged to inform your own insurer about claims involving incidents that occured abroad?