Stolen Ducs: The Payout
MotorMilt & I just got back from the State Farm claim adjusters’ office and thankfully everything has worked out. We both ended up receiving pretty fair and decent payouts and luckily seem to have gotten back most of the cash that we laid out as our down payment. So now it’s time to head to a local Duc dealer and see what we can do. We’ve got appointments Saturday at ProItalia.
All in all I feel fairly emotionally whipped from this entire ordeal, but right now it appears that we’re on the back end of it all and things are starting to look up again… So assuming that everything works out hopefully by the end of the weekend we’ll both be back on Ducs!
Stolen Ducs: We’re Almost Done
So I think we’ve finally got some resolution!
State Farm has bumped their offer $500 per bike and after checking with some of the Ducati.ms folks, it seems like a pretty fair shake. So MotorMilt & I will be heading down to the SF claim adjusters office tomorrow to sign all the paperwork and end this hassle hopefully once and for all.
It also sounds like we’ve found a pair of replacement bikes at ProItalia, so fingers crossed we’ll be up and riding again by the end of this weekend. Thankfully, as I really can’t wait to get back on a Duc and forget about the thefts and this overridge sense of personal invasion.
At this point I’m not certain which model we’ll try to swing for, once we have an SF check in hand I’m sure that will get sorted out. Until then all I’m certain about is that the Beemers are leaving and a pair of crisp new Ducati’s will be taking their places…
I’ll write a bit more about it when I get back from my current work related road trip… But things are finally looking up on the bike front once again!
Monday Morning Stolen Duc Update
So the saga of the stolen Ducati’s continues. This morning, State Farm just made their insurance offer to us. Their offer includes the sales tax and license fees that we paid, but they claim that they’re not responsible for freight and dealer setup. Together with covers, locks, and stands that were stolen with the bikes their offer would put us in the hole about $1,500 per bike, which of course makes replacement a bit harder then we think it ought to be.
Now, personally I have no idea if this is normal or not, but once again I feel like this whole ordeal is a complete pain in the ass. What’s the point of having insurance if you have to constantly argue with your agent and the claims adjuster over what your prized posession is worth? And seriously how misleading are all those advirtisements on television that claim that these insurance companies have you covered in case the worst imaginable posibility occurs? Isn’t the point of insurance coverage to cover the price of your possession, whatever it might be, minus the deductable so as to make you whole again?
At this point any hope of resolving this quickly is fading away and I’m resigning myself to the fact that a replacement Ducati is not a week away, but perhaps a month or possibly longer… And that really tweaks me the wrong way.
Stolen Ducs - Another Update
So here’s the latest and greatest with the stolen bikes. The adjuster for State Farm seems to have finally taken an interest in MotorMilt & me. He’s “dealing with the two cases” this week. Tells us that he’s working hard to try and get us our money bike minus a mileage depreciation fee, which he estimates at something like 10¢ per mile. Since we had just had the 600 mile service, SF seems cool with using Del Amo Motorsports invoice as proof of mileage so that doesn’t seem to be such an issue.
So all in all SF seems to be moving forward… Until,
Tuesday night Milt & I get back from a long day of shooting for work and find two angry message on our answering machine from the tow yard where my bike carcass has been stored in West Covina. Seems that SF never went to pick it up and they’ve incurred over $2k in towing and storage fees. (As an aside, currently my bike is a frame and part of an engine, how much space does that take up to store? It’s not like it’s an 18 wheeler that was impounded)
Next day, we go to the office first thing and call the tow yard. They had left two more pissy messages at work so it seemed like a good idea. Well as it turns out it wasn’t such a good idea because they then assume that we’re taking responsibility for the bike and want to charge us the money. Milt tells them it’s SF’s deal. We handed over the keys, signed their claims form, it’s their deal. Final tow yard agrees.
So Milt calls the claims adjuster from SF, tells him about the tow yard. John the claims adjuster is shocked. Can’t believe that SF has had this frame sitting there for beyond three weeks. He calls the tow yard and then calls us back to say that I need to go, in person, to West Covina PD to sign an impound release form so that the tow yard can hand the bike over to SF. Now West Covina is like 38 miles away according to mapquest. I tell John that ‘I’m working, I’ve got a ten day shoot starting, I don’t have time to haul all the way out to West Covina to get this form’
Ask him if WCPD can fax it. No, Have to do this in person. John then says to me, “if you don’t ‘help me out’ here today Dylan, the storage fees will be your responsibility starting tomorrow”…
I call WCPD myself, ask them if they can fax it. They say no.
So I haul my rear end out to West Covina to get this form. Come back, fax it to both John & the tow yard. Ask them both to confirm the receipt of the fax. Neither one calls me back.
Now forgive me here, but this self induced crisis by SF because they’ve been slow dealing with this and now I’m the one who has to run around to sort it out? What would have happened if the bikes showed up in Central Cal? Or NorCal? Are we as consumers supposed to just stop what we’re doing to get a fricken form?
Morning Ride
Seeing that this is a holiday weekend and the rest of the gang in the office left for their vacations last night, I decided to get a short ride in this morning. Just me and the Beemer up the coast for 2 of the most peaceful hours I’ve had in what feels like a long time. Given everything that has been going on, it was nice to finally get away from it all - at least for a bit - and just enjoy riding again.
I suppose I really needed it after spending a great deal of time yesterday on the phone with ProItalia, one of the local Ducati dealerships in LA, and several loan companies. Seems that since MotorMilt & I bought the 749’s Ducati has gotten out of their affiliation with eTrade and now are using GE Financial Services. More importantly the great finace deal that we both got because the bikes were left overs is now obviously gone. So not only do I have to put up with all this bullshit from the insurance company, but I also get to take a hit thanks to the thieves who snagged the bikes. Fantastic.
Last night I found my head spinning with all of this new info, so it was really quite nice to be able to get on the bike this morning and just ride it away. Granted I felt a great deal of anger during the ride because I would have enjoy canyon carving much more on a Duc, but I’m trying very hard to say to myself that the brand or type of bike isn’t as important as just getting a ride in when you need one. And so far it seems to be working a bit better as of late. I’m not sure that this feeling will last, but it’s certainly better than feeling annoyed all the time.
Duc Update: Claim Adjusters
So here’s the latest update on the stolen Ducs. I spoke to the State Farm claims adjuster this morning. The good news is that the claim is getting processed “quickly for state farm” according to the adjuster, although he couldn’t tell me when we might start talking numbers or when we might get to the check cutting stage.
The bad news is that the special investigation unit still hasn’t finished their investigation into the thieft and/or the paper work that goes along with their involvement.
As only a large company can do, there appears to be little if any communication between Phil, our insurance agent who now has all the paperwork, the noterized claim, and our keys - and the claims adjuster. When I asked the claims adjuster if he now had everything he need from us with regards to the paper work (loan docs, service records, etc.) he said, “yes… for now… we might ask you for more information later” - I’m not sure what else there is to given them. So I’m not really sure where that leaves us other than we’re still waiting…
The Latest on The Ducs
So here’s the latest update on the bikes being stolen ordeal. Yesterday Milt & I took all the paper work over to Phil, our State Farm agent, so he could witness our signatures on the thief claims. Had to hand over our keys which is a real bummer of a feeling and not one that I particularly enjoyed.
At first Phil was very non-commital about how SF would or would not be handling the claims. He didn’t know how much they’d offer, what the claim agent’s work load was like, how fast they’d sort this whole mess out, etc. Basically he didn’t seem to know a whole lot of anything.
Obviously the conversation is not getting anywhere, although it’s very civil. At which point Milt says ‘we know a lawyer who’s part of the Ducati community and handles insurance claims all the time’. Well folks, you’ve never seen an insurance agent run faster to backtrack. Suddenly the mere threat of a lawyer getting involved seemed to change the whole dynamic. Phil quickly points out that he thinks that the claims agent shouldn’t have a really hard time taking care of this and “making us whole again”. Further more he tells us that instead of bring in a lawyer if the inital offer is low, to let him talk to the claims adjuster first on our behalf. He then repeatedly suggests through out the rest of the conversation that bringing in a lawyer might not be in our best interests and he’d be more than happy to help look out for us in the SF system.
Now in all honesty this sounds like a lot of BS to me since it was the mere mention of bringing in a lawyer that got him on his heels in the first place. And I also know that what Phil thinks is a really insignificant compared to what the claims adjusters offer, but yesterday was the first day that seemed like a start in the right direction.
In direct opposition to SF and it’s bureaucracy, the police seem to be completely on top of their game. The Sherif’s office left a message today wanting to make sure that I knew where the remnants of my bike were being stored and to make sure that I knew that they had it. I have no doubt that they have as much paperwork going around their offices as SF, but it’s nice that somebody is acting like this might matter to me…
Insurance agents
So late yesterday I spoke with a State Farm Special Unit Investigator, apparently now they’re running an independent investigation because they’re “concerned” about the “short time of the insurance agreement” and the fact that MotorMilt & I purchased our bikes on the same day and had them stolen on the same day. So I ask you, is the idea of a father and son purchasing bikes on the same day and parking them in the same place that far fetched?
I’ve only been a State Farm client for, oh my entire driving life and Milt for twenty plus years… Neither one of us has ever had to file a claim with them before and yet the guy I spoke with sounded damn near accusatory over the phone. I couldn’t believe it… Then as if that wasn’t enough, the guy asks me where I had been when the bikes were boosted. I of course tell him the truth and answer “on a trip for work”. He then says, with no hesitation, “can you elaborate?” I respond, “sure, what would you like me to elaborate on?” and he says, “where you at a conference or a function? Could you provide me with maybe the name of the event?” As I’m listening to this, I starting to feel like I’m in the middle of a NYPD Blue episode. I go on to detail where we were (SF & Pebble Beach) and offer - as annoying as I find this - to provide him with hotel receipts. He then says, “well we don’t need those… yet”. When did the victim of the crime become the suspect?
The absolute kicker is that a different guy will be calling once SF goes and gets what’s left of my bike, to quote “make me an offer”… Now maybe I’m just overly agitated by this, but doesn’t the word ‘offer’ imply a negotiation? What’s there to negotiate, this is a brand new bike that just had it’s 600 mile service. It’s brand freaking new…
About 20 minutes later, MotorMilt talks to the same guy again. MM is border line pissed at this point, as I am. First for the accusation and then for the whole ‘where were you’ episode. Both issues I frankly don’t understand since we’ve insured the bikes for thief, we didn’t take them and the whole insurance thing is based on our zip code anyway so it’s not like SF didn’t know where we lived in the first place. Anyway to make a long story short(er), eventually the guy backs down and tells MotorMilt that even though they’re ‘03 models they should be counted as ‘04 models because of the condition/milage. Of course at this point the guy we’ve been talking to is no longer taping the conversation as evidence and ultimately doesn’t make the decision anyway… Fun times, let me tell ya. The joy of having your bike stolen…
Idle time…
I’m sitting here, this afternoon, feeling quite conflicted about the Ducs. On one hand I want to rush right out and find another one and yet on the other hand, I keep thinking that bringing another beauty home is like handing someone in prison a get out of jail free card only to see them go back in the pen. I keep imagining two brand new and wonderous bikes sitting in the garage for a few weeks before someone, perhaps the same folks, coming along and boosting them again. The thought just makes me cringe.
I guess I always knew that Ducs were ‘hot’, but it just didn’t register in my mind that this ment they were targets of theft. And it scares me to think that in all honesty, no matter what procautions you take this can happen again, and again, and again with little you can do about it. Unfortunatley I live in a part of the world where house prices are so insane that there is no plausable way to afford a house with a more secure single tenet garage, thus for the immediate future I’m stuck in larger venues which seem more open to this sort of problem. Hence the worry that no matter what chain I find or what lock or what sort of enclosed space there just isn’t much that can be done to avoid or stop someone who has both the knowledge and the desire to take a motorcycle.
Now a few folks on the Ducati.ms board have suggested that MotorMilt & I rent a secure public storage space because they supposedly have security and you need a code to get both in and out of them. At first this seemed like a sensable idea, but the more I’ve rolled it over, the more I find the idea flawed - granted, less on logical grounds, than emotional ones - but storing the new Ducs at a public storage facility makes me feel like I’ve lost, as if it’s some sort of admitance that the crooks, whomever they might be, have beaten me and other good, honest, trustworthy citizens to such ends as to make them store their most cherished possessions five or ten minutes away from them. And what sort of world is that? Do I then spend my time constantly looking over my shoulder everytime I head in or out of the storage area? And I wonder, at what point does security become so hardcore that it makes just using the bikes feel less fun and more like a hassle? And what sort of world is that? Certainly not one that I want to be a part of… Frankly, I don’t know if much of this makes sense and in all honesty this has most definately been an eye opening experience and one that I don’t wish on anyone else who rides.
Kicking Tires Begins
I’ve been really impressed by both the motorcycle blog community and the ducati.ms message board. Several folks have emailed me to pass along their sympathies regarding the stolen bikes, which is quite remarkable since no one on the net knows me and Milt in a face to face sense. For all of you who have emailed and not received a response, please don’t be insulted. I will eventually get back to you… I just frankly don’t have the mental energy to re-live this over and over within each individual email just yet.
Flipping subjects, MotorMilt & I started kicking tires today. Not sure if that was a good idea or a bad one. We stopped by two different dealers, one Ducati dealer and one Aprilia dealer. Both struck me as amazingly unknowledgable about their own products. The Ducati dealer sales guy told me with a straight face that the frame on a 749s was the same as the one on a 998. Hello! The bikes are a generation apart! At the Aprilia dealer, the sales guy didn’t know how much horsepower the Millie had… Frankly I just don’t get it. Now both dealers are not exclusive and each one carries Japanese bikes as well. So I get the fact that the Italian bikes in the corner probably don’t move as well, but seriously on an average day how many people pop in to ask questions about them? Four? Five? Maybe ten… Spread that out over an average shift and it seems to me that there’s a lot of time to read up on your product. At least I would think so. Maybe I’m insane. I don’t know. What I do know is that I won’t be buying a bike from either of these cats.
From what MotorMilt & I can tell, it appears that the marketplace is a bit different right now than it was two and a half months ago when we purhcased the two stolen Ducs. There don’t seem to be any left over 2003 749 models, there do however seem to be a fair amount of left over 749s models and some 999 models. Also it seems that a couple of dealers we called don’t expect to take delivery of any new 2004 Ducati Superbikes until they release the ‘05 models. So I don’t know if this is a good time to be hunting or a bad one.
Anyway so that’s the deal right now. Hopefully I’ll hear from the insurance adjuster monday…
Shock Setting In
It’s now roughly about twenty hours since I learned that the Ducs were stolen while we were out of town and while the rest of the world seems nice and calm as I’m looking out my window, I find myself still pinching myself to see if this is actually happening. Like many folks who head away on long business trips all I wanted - matter of fact, all I could think about the last few days of the trip - was to come home to my bed, my dog, and my bikes. And now one of them is gone. And I feel almost naked. As if a part of my soul is missing. I know it’s only a material item, but still so much gets invested in one’s ride I find it hard to seperate who I am from what I choose to ride and enjoy. It’s almost as if the bikes are an extension of me and now someone has deliberately come and swiped one or part of me. Feels very strange and a bit unbalanced to be honest. And I keep thinking that the worst part of this deal is that two weeks ago what was a beautiful motorcycle is now nothing but a barren frame and engine, found laying on the side of the road. It’s not like this was some burned out or wrecked hulk of a chassis that some one is parting out because there’s nothing left to salvage. Nor is someone taking what’s left one magnificent bike and rebuilding a sister bike or classic ride - I’m thinking along the lines of some of the resto folks from Pebble Beach, who might take a wrecked Ferrari and salvage the transmission or parts to rebuild another one. No, here someone who clearly doesn’t respect the ride has taken a perfectly functional piece of Italian machinery and broken it down simply to sell parts. Leaving what was once a gorgeous motorcycle abandoned, basically killing it. What a shame…
Stolen Ducs - Update
So this afternoon and this evening have been a not so fun adventure lesson in how you feel when your bike gets stolen. Here’s a brief run down of what’s gone on so far (most of which I’ve posted on the Ducati.ms forum - so if it looks familiar, that’s why).
1:49 pm - Now this really sucks, but MotorMilt & I just got home after a two week long trip for work only to turn the corner in our now not-so-beloved parking garage and notice that both of our basically brand new 749’s were gone. Vanished into thin air. The only trace of their existence was one baxeley bike stand turned on its end. The covers, locks, bike lock chains, and everything else was completely missing. Forgive me for the rant, but I have never in my entire life felt so violated. Granted we live in LA and it’s a big city and all that jazz, but seriously this is the worst feeling. And to add insult to the lose, everyone we call is taking their sweet time to call back (insurance agent, police department, etc.)… If anyone’s got any advice on what we should or should not say to the insurance agent, I’m all ears. I’ve never had anything stole like this so this is a completely new experience to say the least…
approx. 3:00 pm - 2 police officers showed up to take down our information on the stolen Ducs. Didn’t exactly get the sense that they held out much hope for finding the fellows who took them, but who knows. As awful as I feel about losing the bikes, my bigger concern is with the insurance. I really don’t want to find out that my basically brand new bike is now not worth what I paid for it. That would really tick me off.
I’m trying my best to keep all of this in perspective. Obviously it would be much worse if T (i.e. the dog) ran away while we were gone or god forbid someone got seriously hurt - at least motorcycles can be replaced. I’m just annoyed that I have to deal with it. Especially since the engines were just about to be fully broken in…
5:15 pm - Here’s the deal as it stands now, the police (god bless them) ran the plates of our two missing bikes and called to tell us that they found my bike stripped in Carson, CA. Maybe 15 miles away, or there abouts. MotorMilt’s 749 is still MIA. Don’t know yet how my 749 was found (i.e. could have been a raid on a shop or maybe someone just the frame tossed away on the side of the road, I don’t know)…
It’s obvious to me that whomever stole the two bikes clearly was a pro at it. Milt & I kept the 2 ducs locked up to their respective baxeley wheel stands and then ran a second set of kryptonite NYC locks threw the back rims with a kryptonite chain connecting the two. Our two Beemers are locked up in the same fashion sans the wheel stands & locks on the front wheels, sitting right next to them and they were not touched. Nor for that matter was the BMW R1100RT owned by a guy down the hall that parks a few spaces away with no locks. (To give you some background we live in a decent apartment building in marina del rey - not exactly a bad part of town, not the greatest either - the structure has one main garage for all the tenants. You need to key fob to get access, but apparently there is only video cameras on the front door to the building).
The really scary part in all of this is that we take locking the bikes up very seriously and since we only ride them on the weekends, they’re covered the rest of the time in non-descriptive covers. So for someone in the building to know that they are Ducs they would either need to see us take the covers off - usually 5 minutes before we start a ride - or when the bikes are cooling off afterwords. Otherwise they look very bland to the average eye. Obviously these guys had much better vision as they not only didn’t touch the beemers, but left no traces of their visit. No scraps from cutting a chain, no dings or dents on the beemers, nothing. The scene of the crime was spotless. The cops couldn’t believe anyone could be so neat… Personally I didn’t find that fact nearly as fascinating, but I digress…
Maybe it’s the way your mind deals with things like this, but Milt & I have been spending the afternoon trying to figure out how to a) make owning a duc safer and more secure and b) trying to come up with some idea who might have taken them.
On the first point, if anyone has any ideas beyond mass kryptonite locks we’re all ears… Right now every option I come up with seems to involve some sort of lock, which because of this afternoons developments seems like an entirely too easy to break system.
As for the second of those two points, I find myself quickly rationalizing that either someone caught us riding out of the garage on the last weekend we were here in LA and then scoped out the place so they could nab the bikes or they already knew we had the bikes here. Now none of our friends here ride and we really only ride together, so I doubt it was someone within the circle, shall we say… And there are no ex wives or girlfriends or otherwise angry folks pounding down our doors that could be coming back to haunt us either, so that leaves me with the sinking thought that on July 15th when Milt & I dropped our bikes off for 600 mile services someone at the local dealership tossed our address towards one of their friends on the side. Maybe I’m being emotionally vindictive, but it’s the best explanation I can come up with as of right now.
6:30 pm - We’re waiting on our insurance agent to see what happens next. We use State Farm for everything (cars, bikes, office, home, etc.) and have been with them for quite some time with no incidents, of course today’s the first time anything been lifted. We’ve been very clear with our agent that we didn’t do anything negligent… What worries me about this deal is the potential for depreciation. Both Milt & I picked up left over ‘03 749’s for well over what Kelly Blue Book seems to think that a low mileage one goes for. Obviously it’s a bit of an apple’s to orange’s discussion because what KBB is offering is not a low mileage, full factory warranty, basically brand new comparison - rather a used 2003 model. Right now I’m worrying that someone at State Farm will say here’s the KBB price, you come up with the rest… That would really suck.
7:15 pm - Doug K from forty years on two wheels (www.40on2.blogspot.com) shoots me a note suggesting that perhaps this is the chance for Milt & I to move up to 999’s. Nice to get the note, definitely an idea that’s been kicked around, note sure if it’s financially feasible, but working on a plan…
8:55 pm - The latest update in this continuing saga - which btw is starting to feel like a murder mystery getting pieced together - is that Milt just got off the phone with the West Covina police department. Seems that the original police report was a bit off as my bike was found in West Covina not Carson… They found the bike at 12:01 on the morning of August 14th, frame and engine only. Everything else stripped. Apparently when they entered the police report today the VIN popped up… I have to give the police some serious props because they apparently have already sent out letters to the loan company and myself since the bike wasn’t immediately reported as missing… Not a bad turn around IMHO… Still no word on Milt’s bike.
Stolen Ducs
So MotorMilt & I came home today - after a six hour I-5 ride - to find out that someone stole both of the Ducati’s while we were gone…. At some point I will try to detail the entire ordeal, but so far it’s been a whirlwind of phone calls to the insurance agent, the police and the loan companies. Thus far I don’t know much other than the police showed up, took down our info and wrote out a stolen property report. They called about an hour and half later to say that my bike had been located, stripped in Carson, CA. MotorMilit’s is still on the MIA list. No word yet as to where it might show up. Don’t know what this means for the insurance or the loan. Neither State Farm nor E-Trade (my loan co.) has been much help yet. Seems they need the official police report to get things cooking. The shittiest part of this deal is that even though my bike has been recovered and classified as stripped by the cops, they still might take 30 days to process the claim. Who thought up this system? In reality I don’t want the cash, I just want my bike… Anyway, when I have more energy I’ll try to type something more coherent. Otherwise today sucks and I feel like I’ve been violated in a major, major way.
