Last ANA flight from LAX to Narita saw 3 of 3 of my suitcases destroyed. 2 of them being brand new and fabric, had tears, holes, and pretty nasty dents on the frames. The third one was a plastic shell type and was either crushed, dropped, or thrown so hard that the area around two of the caster wheels cracked inwards, rendering it pretty useless. The contents were heavy, paid quite a bit in excess weight and additional baggage fees, but the worst part is that one of the pieces of merchandise in it went missing and 2 pieces were damaged beyond repair. TSA did inspect one bag but it's contents were all there and intact. The worst damage occurred with the bag that contained the 2 pieces that were damaged. Carry-on sized so who knows how they did what they did but it was obviously punctured and that looks like where the damage occurred to the contents.
Apparently ANA subcontracts out the luggage handling at LAX so the freight monkeys there are likely to blame for this and others baggage being damaged but it still leaves ANA responsible for the damage that occurred.
After a bunch of paperwork, phone calls, shipping, and gomen nasai's from ANA, they are replacing 2 of the bags and attempting to repair (should be interesting) another. Ok, sounds reasonable....but then in regards to missing item, "can't find it, sorry, we won't do anything for you."
In regards to the damaged items, "we can't determine how they were packed and since we didn't do the packing, we can't be held responsible" 
and as to all the extra baggage fees, despite the condition of everything, "you were charged the right amount, we cannot refund these fees." 
Mind you, the merchandise in question are billet steel car parts, not cheap and not easy to damage. I would have carried them on but TSA didn't like them in my carry on so into check in they went. I have dated receipts for everything that show value and proves condition was new. So...I just sent a demand letter to ANA's US customer service rep for the value of the 3 merchandise plus the retarded baggage fees they still feel they're owed. Have a feeling it might be a fight but being just slightly south of $5k, it would be a cheap/simple small claims court case to file...can't see how I could lose either...3 of 3 of my bags were destroyed and have ANA's own admission of other customers on the same flight having the same type of damage issues.
I'm no newb to court, have yet to lose a case yet, BUT I've never dealt with this type of claim before and there may be factors specific to this type of thing that I'm unaware of so I would appreciate anyone's experience or advice.
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