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Author Topic: Car found...but your won't believe this  (Read 7280 times)

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Offline otherplaces

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Car found...but your won't believe this
« on: July 19, 2006, 11:25:18 pm »

A few of you may remember my "sad me" post where I said my car had been stolen.

Today I finally got time to go to the post office to pick up a registered letter.  So after waiting forever in line (of course) I got my letter from "the Dept. of Streets and Sanitation".  I immediately thought, "shit, they impounded my car and didn't tell me they found it!"  Sure enough it had been impounded on June 27th and Chicago's finest didn't say a word to me about it! So I call the impound who tell me there's over $800 dollars in impound fees I have to pay if I want it. I tell them it was stolen and they tell me I'll have schedule a hearing to dispute the fine! So I call the police and sure enough they list the car as recovered and tell me the same thing.  So glad the police are there to SERVE me???  So now I have to go to a city services office tomorrow to schedule a hearing with the city to beg them to just give me my goddamn car back. And I don't even want to think how long I'll have to wait for the hearing.

Wow wow wow. I think at this point I just want to get the car back so I can sell the damn thing and be done with it. That is if it's even in a condition to which I could sell it.

The day my car was stolen I had decided I was going to begin quitting smoking again. That obviously didn't work out after I went out to find my car missing. Funny enough today I had similarly decided to start quitting again. I even went all morning w/o a cigarette. Well, it turns out it's another bad day to quit.

I'm not sure why the world (or maybe just Chicago) hates me so.

brian

Offline swede_dish

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #1 on: July 20, 2006, 12:31:11 am »
oh im sorry dove!!!!!! many hugs your way....
"I married a German. Every night I dress up as Poland and he invades me. "
-Bette Midler

Offline Lwood

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #2 on: July 20, 2006, 07:42:47 am »
well if it was stolen, you shoiuld see what kind of shape its in - it might not be worth getting back. Check with your insurance company, sometimes they'll go to bat for you in situations like this or at least give you some solid advice....
I cant help but think of the car that the Blues Brothers drove through Chicago....
"Fortunately, I Keep My T Cells Numbered For Just Such An Emergency"
  -Either Foghorn Leghorn or Johnny Cash

Offline cmhjeff

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #3 on: July 20, 2006, 08:39:40 am »
Brian, just another reason you'll never find me living in or near Chicago again! Sorry about the car mishap but don't give up on your goal to beat the cigarette butt.

Offline AlanBama

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #4 on: July 20, 2006, 11:18:49 am »
Brian,

What a mess!  Sorry you are having to deal with this.   Let us know what happens.

Hugs,

Alan
"Remember my sentimental friend that a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others." - The Wizard of Oz

Offline Teresa

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #5 on: July 20, 2006, 12:29:20 pm »
Boy this is a mess!

Im sorry you have to deal with it. Hope your car wasnt damanged when it was stolen.

I hope this all turns out good for ya!

Hugs
Teresa
Hubby HIV+ 5/5/06
CD4:320
  %: 26.7
 VL: <20
Atripla (started it 8/24/06)

Offline otherplaces

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #6 on: July 20, 2006, 08:28:25 pm »

Thank you all for your kind words.  Well, here's the continuation of the story.  So I called city services to try and get a better idea as to what sort of process I had to go through. The person I talked to at city services said she wasn't sure of all the details and transferred me to someone I guess who works with the impound lots. This guy was nice and explained alot to me and also told me I had been given some misinformation about how to get a hearing.  And before he let me go he figured I should talk to "Dave" in some other division of something in the city. Now Dave was supposed to make sure they didn't crush my car before the hearing, but he also somehow looked up its condition.  He said he didn't have alot of info but that there was some body damage and that the car was listed and "undriveable".  This of course brings up the question of whether it is even worth trying to recover.  But he did put a "hold" on the car and I thanked him.  I tried to call the impound it was at to get more info on its condition, but they said they didn't have that kind of info.  Then I called the police who also didn't have any info.  So I wonder how Dave got the info???  And how the hell did I wind my way through the city to talk to Dave...who did have this important info???  Anyway, I figured I better go check it out to make sure before I just gave up.  Of course the car is at the furthest lot it could be at...a HUGE trek.  This is why I was trying to figure out if it was dead for sure, because I didn't want to make this trip if I didn't have to.  Nonetheless, I rustled up my friend who is a teacher and off work for the summer.  She drove me all the way down there.  And after a bit of waiting I got to see the car.  On the outside it didn't look too horrible.  It was definitely stripped, and some body damage.  I lifted the "hood" which was NOT the hood that it had when I owned it!!  The engine was still there.  Then I looked inside.  The whole dashboard was gone.  Whoa.  That sealed it.  It was definitely undriveable.  So I snapped a picture of my old friend in her final resting place and went and told them that they could keep it.  Dave told me if I didn't pay to get the car released that the impound fees would be voided and the car crushed.  I'll have to make sure this is true.

Hopefully this attached picture thingie will work.  Check out the white hood!!

Poor thing. I drove her along the East Coast, through Times Square, across the Southwest, through Monument Valley, the north rim of the Grand Canyon, to LA and along the West Coast...and back.  She had a good run and saw alot.  I hate she had to end up in such a godforsaken place on the edge of Chicago.

Goobye my little red friend.

brian



[attachment deleted by admin]

Offline Teresa

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #7 on: July 20, 2006, 11:14:32 pm »
Brian,

I was so hopping that things would turn out different for your car. It really sucks this happened to you.

Hugs
Teresa
Hubby HIV+ 5/5/06
CD4:320
  %: 26.7
 VL: <20
Atripla (started it 8/24/06)

Offline otherplaces

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #8 on: July 21, 2006, 01:10:47 am »

Thanks Teresa, really I had written it off two days after it was stolen. It was upsetting for it to pop back in to my life.  As long as the city doesn't try and hang me with the impound fees, I don't care...and onward I go.

brian


Offline lydgate

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #9 on: July 21, 2006, 04:39:55 am »
Damn, that's pretty crappy.  :( Your posts reminded me, yet again, how much I loathe apathetic bureaucracies. Was your little friend insured against theft? Jay
Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

George Eliot, Middlemarch, final paragraph

Offline Dachshund

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #10 on: July 21, 2006, 08:58:21 am »
Did you report the car stolen from the get-go? That makes a big difference. I had a similar experience with a stolen vehicle...they won't come after you for impound fees.

Look on the bright side...next time you pop the top on a can of soda or beer...the can just might be made out of your old friend. ::)

Offline otherplaces

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #11 on: July 21, 2006, 06:32:51 pm »

Jay,

No, she was not insured against theft.  Insurance is expensive in Chicago.  After a few years paying for good coverage I dropped it down to liability because the car just didn't seem worth the expenditure anymore.

Dachshund,

Yes, I reported it stolen the day it was missing.  Hopefully she'll become a beer can :)

brian

Offline AlanBama

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #12 on: July 24, 2006, 02:04:41 pm »
Hi Brian

I'm sorry about your car.   Have y'all noticed that the 'innocent victims' of crimes sure do seem to pay a high price these days?   It is so unfair.   A few years ago, my car was parked outside my apt. in Atlanta, and there was a shooting....my car took a bullet in the passenger door.   My insurance had a $500 deductible....so I drove the car with the bullet hole from then on.

Last year, a little neighborhood kid scratched my hood DEEPLY with the handlebars of his bicycle.   Again, $500 deductible....so I bought some touch up paint, and did the best I could.   Sometimes, I wonder why do I try to have insurance?  Even with it I can't afford to have my car fixed.

Good ole' USA.

Are you going to get another vehicle Brian?
"Remember my sentimental friend that a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others." - The Wizard of Oz

Offline otherplaces

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #13 on: July 24, 2006, 03:52:56 pm »

Alan,

This is the reason why I lowered my insurance to just liability.  My car had been keyed numerous times and had all sorts of small dents from city parking...especially SUV's high bumper always denting my hood when they parked in front of me. There's no way I could afford to keep up with all this minor body damage, and it seemed silly to have insurance for it when I didn't have the money to use it.

Right now I'm pretty reluctant to get another car in Chicago.  It's always been a bit of a pain between city sticker tax, license plate sticker tax, insurance, maintenance and the often unavoidable parking tickets that can pile up.  If you get towed it's immediately $160 bucks. The deck is definitely stacked against poor people to lose their car.

For now I'll stick with public trans and be happy I don't have to worry about a car.

brian

Offline David_CA

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #14 on: July 25, 2006, 05:49:43 am »
It may not be really relevant, but here goes.  In NC, you can have comprehensive (fire, theft, vandalism) insurance without collision.  Collision is what's so expensive.  I've done that on a couple of my older vehicles and it really doesn't add much to the cost.  I'm sorry about your car; that really sucks.

David
Black Friday 03-03-2006
03-23-06 CD4 359 @27.4% VL 75,938
06-01-06 CD4 462 @24.3% VL > 100,000
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  Atripla started 12-01-2006
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Offline otherplaces

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #15 on: July 25, 2006, 07:16:53 pm »

Thanks David,

I would imagine that is available here. I was paying $97 dollars a month for insurance and thought one day, 'I'm poor, I can't afford this'. So I just got liability and it went down to $55.  That was 3 years ago so I guess I essentially saved the value of the car over that time.

I just walked to the grocery store and back.  Not so bad. :)

brian

Offline MoltenStorm

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #16 on: July 27, 2006, 06:05:54 am »
That fucking sucks! (pardon my language)

Your car is STOLEN, and they want to charge YOU the life and rights of your first unborn child to get it back.

...Only in America.
"Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Love is never boastful nor conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It does not take offense and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people's sins, but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes." - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, adaptation in A Walk To Remember

CD4: 555 / 29% / Undetectable - 7 Nov 2006
CD4: 555 / 29% / Undetectable - 5 Feb 2007

Offline otherplaces

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Re: Car found...but your won't believe this
« Reply #17 on: July 28, 2006, 02:16:57 am »

Chicago is like some big mob with tall architectually significant buildings.

It was explained to me that alot of people, after getting their car towed, would call and report it stolen.  So they put a stop to giving back stolen cars.  But it just doesn't wash.  I mean, if the car was towed and then later reported stolen the same day...then maybe one should have to talk to a judge.  But if it was reported stolen and then 7 days later it was towed...well then it's kind of obvious what happened.  Why even waste the judge's time (more costs to the city).

Blah. I just want to move to a city with a truly comprehensive public transportation system.  So either I'm moving to New York, Tokyo, or the EU.  Can't wait.

brian


 


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