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The nightmare that flashes through every car owner’s mind when they valet-park their vehicle came true for one man in Texas last year. When he went to pick up his Porsche Panamera at the valet, he learned that the attendant had given the key to someone else—someone who drove off into the night, the car never to be seen again.
On May 25th, 2015, 36-year-old Carlo DiMarco dropped his 2014 Porsche Panamera with the valet at a Doubletree by Hilton hotel in Houston, Texas, the Houston Chronicle reports. When he returned to collect his four-door Porsche the next day, he was informed that the car was long gone. The valet reportedly gave the keys to another person—who took the car, drove off, and never looked back. Attempts to track the car using its remote-monitoring system proved fruitless, as the signal cut out shortly after the theft.
Ever since, DiMarco claims he’s been sucked into a whirlpool of legal frustration. He filed a police report with the Houston Police Department, which reviewed security footage of the incident that showed the valet handing the keys off to a pair of unknown individuals. When DiMarco confronted the hotel about the theft, employees there told him it was the valet company’s problem; the valet’s insurance company, in turn, refused to pay out, on the grounds that the parking company’s policy did not cover theft.
And on top of all that, DiMarco’s auto insurance has valued the car at $68,000—whereas the car was purportedly worth $120,000. Since accepting the payout would reportedly mean DiMarco would forfeit his right to recover the complete value of the car, he is instead forced to continue making payments on the Porsche, which reportedly run him around $2,000 per month.
As a result of all this, DiMarco is now engaged in a lawsuit in his local district court with hotel owner Hilton Worldwide, the property management company, and the valet parking corporation. He claims the defendants engaged negligence and fraud, and is asking for somewhere between $200,000 and $1 million in damages.
Still, as bad as his situation is, DiMarco isn’t stuck without any fun cars. According to The Houston Chronicle, he currently drives a Ferrari FF.
