Woman says $1,000 in items stolen while car was being repaired at Kia of Everett

EVERETT, Wash. — A woman says she left her Kia at a car dealership in Everett to be repaired, and thieves got in and took nearly everything inside.

But when she asked the dealership to make her whole, she got a surprise.

It all began when the vehicle was towed to Kia of Everett because of persistent electrical problems.

When the owner came to pick up her car, she discovered $1,000 in personal items, including skating gear, gone.

Tess Beaver lives in Bellingham but had her car worked on in Everett. She said that was the closest Kia dealership with the technicians needed to figure out what was going on with her car.

Beaver said she liked the work they did. But when she opened her trunk, she realized just how much it had cost her.

Beaver had her car towed to Kia of Everett to find out why it was stopping without warning.

“I was having some rodent issues inside and some random, kind of sporadic issues with my car like dying,” said Beaver, “with the car totally shutting down.”

But when she picked up her car, something wasn’t quite right.

“The car door just unlocked,” she said. “I left it locked. And like I had left it locked days ago. My car was in the hands of various people for like a while.”

Things were strewn about inside. And when she got home, she opened the trunk.

“This was full of my camping gear and emergency bag,” she said. “This person took everything. They took water. They took food. They took extra blankets.”

And her prized skating gear.

Something similar happened last month at a Meineke repair shop in Gig Harbor. Surveillance video captured thieves actually stealing vehicles, then driving them off the lot.

Beaver said when she talked to the Kia manager, he told her thefts happen a lot here, too.

“And he’s like, ‘Car windows get broken,’” said Beaver. “He was giving me these examples as if like, it was like backing up his case for like not being liable for it.”

So, KIRO 7 checked with Everett police.

“There were some, you know, the occasional report maybe of a car having been broken into such as the one the other day,” said Everett Police Officer Ora Hamel. “But I am not finding an overwhelming number of case reports for that location at all.”

In fact, the manager KIRO 7 spoke to said just what Everett police told us -- he denied ever saying there are lots of vehicle crimes there.

Beaver said she has given up on getting the dealership to make her whole.

She just wishes they had at least said they were sorry.

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