Today, at work, my mother (who’s visiting my house) calls me. A policeman stopped by the house, and told my mom that some woman is claiming I hit her car a week ago.
Now, I know for a fact that this isn’t true. For one thing, a subsequent call I placed to the local police station placed the accident at an intersection through which I never drive. For another… well, I haven’t had an accident in a long time, and have never hit another car.
However, the mystery woman making the claim a) knew the address to send the cop, b) identified my car, and c) identified a dent in my right front fender.
I’m guessing that this is some kind of scam. My car is parked in a driveway easily visible from the street, and she probably saw the dent, and figured she could get some insurance money by filing a fraudulent claim. She then picked a location to place the accident that was near to my house, and called the cops.
I’m going to the local police station tomorrow, so they can check out my car. What they’ll see is a big dent from a guard-rail, obtained in a blizzard three years ago, and which was was too expensive to repair. I hope they’ll see the rust around the edges of the dent, and realize there’s no way that occured a week ago.
But I guess it’s possible that this will simply become a he-said, she-said contest between me and the scammer. Does anyone here have experience with this kind of thing? Obviously I’ll be completely honest with the police – why wouldn’t I? – but is there anything else I should do to protect myself? Should I place a pre-emptive call to my insurance company, alerting them to attempted fraud, or would that only make things worse?
Like you said, hopefully the rust will be the proof. You didn’t happen to fill out a report or make an insurance claim when that happened did you, anything in writing (quote from an body shop maybe). Eitherway, I wouldn’t mention it to your insurance company.
“Trading paint/rubber” etc. will also help vindicate you. Tell the police to compare cars, location of dents for a match.
I was in a right lane once where a car to my left decided to make a right hand turn and scraped it’s right side on my front left bumper. The girl apologized for not looking before turning (she actually was going to turn left…gave up on that notion and then decided to go right) in front of me. Later, my insurance company said that her mother claimed that I had hit her from “nosing in” on her right side with my left front bumper. I told the insurance company to look at my car and her car again, since we did trade some paint and rubber. I proved to my insurance company that it was her fault because the rubber and paint was pushed forward on my bumper meaning that she was moving, not pushed back (meaning that I was the one moving). The other driver ended up 100% responsible.
Alas, I have no photos of my car, and no paperwork from the old dent. It was entirely cosmetic except for the passenger-side door not being able to open all the way. I paid a local body-shop $50 to fix just the door. (It would have cost more than the value of the car to fix the cosmetic stuff, so I told them not to bother.) There’s a chance they still have a record of that transaction, though I can’t remember if I paid cash or used plastic.
As Yeticus Rex points out, there is presumably no paint matching the other car on my car, though if someone is going through this much trouble to frame me, they may have done some “painting” of their own in the middle of the night. The dent has been there so long, I haven’t paid much attention to it recently. I’ll check it in the daylight tomorrow.
Another possible defense I have is that I’ve been in the presence of either family or co-workers almost every waking minute for the last two weeks. If the scammer has been lazy (i.e. not watching when I’ve been out driving), I may have an alibi for whenever it is they’re claiming the “accident” happened.
If you deny involvment and the police only have the other parties word, I don’t see this going anywhere. If they decide to charge you, then get a lawyer. It’s not you responsiblity to prove your innocence, it theirs to prove your guilt. If the other party decides to sue, then you notify your insurance company.
You also have going for you the fact she didn’t call the police out to an accident scene. Her word against your’s and she decides to wait a week to call the cops. Why?
Happened to me once. I got a nasty letter from the cops threatening all sorts of thing for a hit and run. I went down there the next day. They looked at my car and ended the whole process right there.
If you don’t have any pictures of your car, go take some now. Just… you know, current condition of the car as-is. Date the pictures, or timestamp them or something.
I highly doubt that she’d try to sneak over to your house and put dents into your car to prove her case, but people have done stupider things. She’s already gone this far.
Find out the date and time she claims this happened. If you’re lucky, you’ll have witnesses who can verify you were somewhere else.
So, I’m guessing you drove away from the old accident – no police report or tow truck records?
This is probably over the top at this stage of the proceedings, but --do you regularly park at a business with security cameras in the lot? Maybe you can get old pictures that pick up the dent.
Boyo Jim, good suggestion. Not over the top at all, if what you mean is that Parthol should take time to think back and check out whether there is video material like this that can help. If you mean it’s a long shot, it may be.
This is one check on the pro side of public security cameras, and, if it’s clear, an unimpeachable, nonpartisan source of exculpatory evidence.
Along the lines of what BJ said, once you find out the time/date she’s complaining about, any receipts, credit cards, check-ins at front desks, etc., as well as eyewitnesses of any sort would help. (Even if the “accident” is said to be at 2:00pm, something that puts you 30 minutes away on the other side of town at 1:30pm and 2:30pm might impugn her story.)
Fish, the dent came from something that happened three years ago. I think the OP was saying he’s wondering if the person who filed the report might have planted false paint evidence on his car in the vicinity of the old dent.
I realize that, yes — but there’s no harm in taking pictures in case they haven’t tried to plant their evidence yet. It’s like “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder.” The evidence can be damning unless you can prove it hadn’t been there before.
No, I was clarifying because I thought you wrote (post #10) she might come back and put the actual dent in the car. But, in general, good advice from you and most others who’ve posted. Yes, pictures are good.
Thanks, everyone, for the good ideas. However, it looks like they won’t be necessary. I drove to the police station this morning, and a friendly police sergeant asked me a few questions, looked at the three-year-old rusting no-suspicious-paint dent in the car, and told me I have nothing to worry about.
Furthermore, apparently the woman making the accusation is extremely elderly, and may be confused about what happened. It’s also possible that she was the victim of a hit-and-run, then drove around the neighborhood looking for a red honda with a dent. (And my stepfather noted that there is another red honda a couple blocks from me which has a small dent in the same place as mine. Hmmmm.)
Anyway, the incident is done with and I’m rightly off the hook, so I’ll just have to stash away all of your advice for next time, in the event that there is a next time. Which I hope there isn’t.