Damage Claim Question

[waterway]

I had a hell of a week so far. Started out four days ago I had a very rare leak that just shot out perfectly to hit my 4 month old dvr. So of course today I get to my wash to find some guy pulled into an automatic that went out of service and tried to wash his car. The PDQ G5 is having an problem that my service provider as of now has not figured out and hit the rear panel of the car which of course I can't see of he pulled in despite the machine telling him not to. After a $850 and $960 quote I now need to know what the best way is to pay for the claim. Do I have him sign a release and pay him? Or do I pay the auto shop? After all I don't want to be responsible for the workmen ship done by the shop if I pay them.

 

[DiamondWash]

Do you have cameras in the bay as well as outside?

 

[waterway]

yes but the dvr was out because of the leak so I have no way of seeing anything.

 

[pitzerwm]

If you can run the wash without it messing up, I would let him take you to court.

 

[whitescout]

I believe that you have a couple of options depending on how quickly you want to deal with this.

If you want to get it over real quickly, and are okay with paying for the claim, pay the average of the two quotes, and have him sign a waiver for any future claim regarding this incident. This way, it releases you from any future claims, and if the customer has any issues with the work done, it is between the customer, and the shop.


If you are not in too big of a hurry, you can simply tell the customer to file a complaint with his insurance, and then, give your agent a heads up about an up coming claim, and let the insurance companies battle it out. Just be sure to give your insurance company the info about the machine being out of service)


If there is no big hurry, and you are ready to put in some work, go ahead and tell the customer to take you to court. You will want to log into your system to see what time the wash went out of service, and be prepared to document that the unit was out of service when the customer entered the bay, and that he was at fault, and he was being reckless, and could have damaged your equipment as a result of his recklessness.