Okay, I have a rather odd situation.
On July 23, as I was driving to work, I was stopped at a stoplight. Suddenly, I’m rearended and shoved into the car in front of me. I get out of my car, the lady in front of me gets out of her car, and I ask her if she’s okay, and I look at the back of her car to see if there’s any damage. I don’t see anything. Also, there was no damage to the front of my car, none whatsoever. I say to the woman, “do you have any damage?” and she says, “doesn’t look like it!” So I turn to see who hit me, and when I turn back to tell her I was going to pull into the adjacent convenience store parking lot, the lady had gotten in her car and driven away. She didn’t leave a name, or say, “hey, I’m going to go pull over there,” nothing. So, I shrug, and motion to the guy who hit me that I was going to pull into the parking lot. He follows, we exchange information, call a cop, the cop comes, and he asks if there was anyone else involved in the accident. I’m kind of in shock and not thinking logically, and I think, “gee, she’s not here, didn’t have any damage, guess I should say there wasn’t.” So, I do. The other guy doesn’t say a word.
Anyway, I do the whole fill out my account of the accident on the form thing, and in it I do note that there was a third party who left the scene.
Now, it’s two weeks later (two weeks and a day, to be exact). This morning, I return from my doctors appointment to find a message on my desk from a Mary ****. I think, “gee, I wonder who that is…” So, I call her back, and turns out, it’s the woman I was pushed into. She says to me that she had a small amount of damage, and that she tried to find me and the other guy that morning to exchange information, but couldn’t find us, so she assumed it was a hit and run. Then, somehow she got a copy of the officer’s accident report, and called him to try and have it amended to reflect that she was involved as well, but he told her that she had to have me or the man who hit me call him and verify that she was indeed involved. Then she asked if I was willing to do that. Being a kindhearted person, I said sure.
Now, having thought it over, I’m not so sure I want to do that. First of all, I have no idea if this is actually the woman who I was pushed into. I didn’t get a name that morning, and the woman who called me works for the same organization as I do, and, oddly enough, one of my best friends is her secretary. It could easily be a scam…this woman could have overheard my friend telling her fellow secretaries about my accident (I know I do that, a friend of mine emails me about something that happened to her, if it’s not personal, I’ll turn to my coworkers and say, “Oh my God, listen to what happened to this friend of mine!”), and thought, “hey, I have a little scratch on my bumper, I could get it fixed by claiming to be the third person!” Or, I could be paranoid.
More plausibly: As I stated, this woman waited two weeks after the fact to contact me (not sure how she got my work number). She could have been in another fender bender that was a hit and run, and decided that this is a good way to get her damage taken care of.
I don’t buy the “oh, I thought you guys all took off and it was a hit and run” thing. First off, she left the scene of the accident before we did. Secondly, she claims she “looked all over for us.” Sure, it was raining hard, but not so hard that she wouldn’t be able to see me and the other driver surveying our damage in the parking lot, and that parking lot was the most logical place to look for us, being the closest place to pull into. We weren’t hiding, we were right there and quite visible. Hard to miss a big black LHS with its back bumper all smashed in and hanging loose. Thirdly, why would she call me? The accident was not my fault. The man who was responsible for the accident’s name was right there on the report. Shouldn’t she talk to him?
Anyway, I have the number of the lieutenant I’m supposed to contact tonight to have the officer who took the report call me. What do you think, should I call? Should I call the guy who hit me and see what he wants to do? Should I just let it be and not call anyone?