The Epic of Bruno, part I
A lot of you know about me and my love of Ford Mustangs. My current one is Bruno, a 2007 silver Mustang with black interior and chrome mag wheels. I love driving my car. I really do.
Sometime last weekend I had someone break in. I'm not sure exactly when or where. It could have been at Watters Creek, when I was playing the gig, at one of the places I went to on Saturday morning, in Uptown on Saturday night when I was at karaoke, at church on Sunday, or in the parking lot at the new Central Market. I noticed it on Sunday afternoon... I went into the center console to get my GPS out and discovered it was missing. At first I thought "Did I take it in at home? Is it in the back seat? Where is it? Crap... it's gone." Then when I got home I noticed that the door damage that I had attributed to an annoying door ding from a grocery cart was actually a little more extensive. The lock had damage on it, as did the door handle.
Someone had pried the handle back slightly, drilled a hole through the lock, disabled the alarm, and hooked the lock mechanism. Apparently if you know what you're doing it takes just a few seconds. Then they got in and stole the electronics out of the center console and walked away. No interior damage or anything though, so at first I thought I was lucky and could take care of the whole thing myself at a dealership without even needing to call Geico.
I was wrong. When I took it up to the Ford dealership they looked and said "no, they built the door frame to get at the lock. Sorry, we'll have to straighten the door, replace the handle, and repaint. You're looking at probably around $900 at least."
So I called Geico to report the theft. They required me to drive it up to one of their adjuster locations if I wanted to get it started immediately, which is what I did. Then I asked about the electronics and they said they could refund me up to $200 of theft damage, but only if I had original receipts. The only thing I might have had a receipt for was the GPS (which is what tipped me off to the theft to begin with) because I had ordered it online. Luckily that is the most expensive thing stolen.
They called me back yesterday to tell me that the car wouldn't be ready today, as they initially estimated, because the damage to the door was worse than originally estimated. The total cost is now over $1100 plus the rental car plus the theft value. The thieves themselves probably got $30 for my GPS. So far I've spent $500 for the deductible, plus I'll be responsible for some of my rental car, and probably some for my new GPS as well. I wish that I'd just been there to get mugged, or the thieves would have stolen the whole car. I mean, it isn't going to cost me any more than it already has if I had to replace the whole thing.
Oh well... blah...
Sometime last weekend I had someone break in. I'm not sure exactly when or where. It could have been at Watters Creek, when I was playing the gig, at one of the places I went to on Saturday morning, in Uptown on Saturday night when I was at karaoke, at church on Sunday, or in the parking lot at the new Central Market. I noticed it on Sunday afternoon... I went into the center console to get my GPS out and discovered it was missing. At first I thought "Did I take it in at home? Is it in the back seat? Where is it? Crap... it's gone." Then when I got home I noticed that the door damage that I had attributed to an annoying door ding from a grocery cart was actually a little more extensive. The lock had damage on it, as did the door handle.
Someone had pried the handle back slightly, drilled a hole through the lock, disabled the alarm, and hooked the lock mechanism. Apparently if you know what you're doing it takes just a few seconds. Then they got in and stole the electronics out of the center console and walked away. No interior damage or anything though, so at first I thought I was lucky and could take care of the whole thing myself at a dealership without even needing to call Geico.
I was wrong. When I took it up to the Ford dealership they looked and said "no, they built the door frame to get at the lock. Sorry, we'll have to straighten the door, replace the handle, and repaint. You're looking at probably around $900 at least."
So I called Geico to report the theft. They required me to drive it up to one of their adjuster locations if I wanted to get it started immediately, which is what I did. Then I asked about the electronics and they said they could refund me up to $200 of theft damage, but only if I had original receipts. The only thing I might have had a receipt for was the GPS (which is what tipped me off to the theft to begin with) because I had ordered it online. Luckily that is the most expensive thing stolen.
They called me back yesterday to tell me that the car wouldn't be ready today, as they initially estimated, because the damage to the door was worse than originally estimated. The total cost is now over $1100 plus the rental car plus the theft value. The thieves themselves probably got $30 for my GPS. So far I've spent $500 for the deductible, plus I'll be responsible for some of my rental car, and probably some for my new GPS as well. I wish that I'd just been there to get mugged, or the thieves would have stolen the whole car. I mean, it isn't going to cost me any more than it already has if I had to replace the whole thing.
Oh well... blah...