A woman whose car disappeared from a mechanic’s garage during repairs has been dealt a fresh blow after a court rejected her $13,000 compensation claim.
Hulya Ofli, from Westmeadows in Melbourne’s northwest, booked her 2010 Volkswagen Passat sedan for service at Uzi’s Auto Repairs in Campbellfield in the city’s north more than two years ago.
The car, which had 120,000 km on the odometer, was not roadworthy, not registered and needed a new catalytic converter, was towed to the garage on May 6, 2022.
More than a month later, Ms Ofli met with Uzi’s car repair owner Uzyeir Osmanli but was told he did not have time to fix the problem, according to a recent judgment published by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
The pair had an argument in court over the date they agreed for Ms Ofli to collect the car from outside the mechanic’s garage.
She told the tribunal it was June 30, but Mr Osmanli said it was a week earlier, on June 23.
On June 27, Mr Osmanli called Ms Ofli to tell her the car was missing, saying he had assumed she had come to collect it.
When she said this wasn’t the case, he suggested the council might have taken over.
The owner of Uzi’s Auto Repair (pictured), Uzyeir Osmanli, told her he did not have time to make the repairs. Four days later the car disappeared
Hulya Ofli booked her 2010 Volkswagen Passat sedan for service at Uzi’s Auto Repairs in Campbellfield in Melbourne’s north more than two years ago (stock image, not Ms Ofli’s car)
But when Ms Ofli contacted the council and was told they had not taken the car.
The repair shop owner eventually paid Ofli’s brother Engin $500 to settle the dispute because he was “fed up with the family harassing him and it was a way he hoped to end the matter,” the tribunal heard.
But Ms Ofli launched legal proceedings a month later, initially claiming $23,000 for the value of the lost car but adjusting this to $13,000 after research online.
However, Mr Osmanli told the tribunal that the car was ‘not worth repairing’.
“He advised Ms Ofli to tow it away and sell it for scrap, estimating its value at between $500 and $600,” the hearing was told.
Ms Ofli secretly recorded a telephone conversation with Mr Osmanli on June 29, which she said contradicted his statements.
But the recording could not be accepted as evidence at the tribunal because it was made illegally.
Ms Ofli’s mother also claimed to the tribunal that Uzi’s car repair shop had previously failed to replace her car’s brake pads, despite claiming it had done so.
The tribunal heard the mother subsequently had an accident and another mechanic claimed the brake pads had not been replaced, prompting Mr Osmanli to apologize and offer a refund.
The mechanic’s lawyer accepted that the repairer had paid out the refunded amount, but argued that this was not relevant to the present case, the tribunal said.
Ms Ofli’s mother also claimed to the tribunal that Uzi’s car repair shop had previously failed to replace the brake pads – despite claiming it had (photo: in the garage)
The tribunal ultimately agreed with Mr Osmali on the date on which the car should be collected.
“This means that from that date it became Ms Ofli’s responsibility to collect the car,” the tribunal ruled.
It added: ‘Unfortunately it seems more likely than not that the motor vehicle was stolen after being left on the street and after the agreed collection time.’
The tribunal acknowledged that it was ‘a very unfortunate set of circumstances for Ms Ofli that her car went missing’, but ultimately dismissed her claim.
This is not the first time that Ms Ofli has lost a legal action in court.
Her Westmeadows home was allegedly broken into in April 2021 when numerous expensive items were stolen, including a $23,000 white gold and diamond ring, a $6,000 drone, a $4,200 gold and diamond bracelet and 22 other gold bracelets.
But her insurer rejected her claim because it was allegedly fraudulent, so she took her case to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA).
AFCA found no evidence of fraud and rejected any suggestion that the burglary was staged.
But it said there were “legitimate concerns” about her credibility and ordered the insurer to pay only for some lower-value items.
She sued Australia’s insurance manufacturers, but her case was ultimately dismissed by the Supreme Court of Victoria because she had accepted the AFCA decision.