AIBU to think that this Lady is trying to con me?

[Madratlady]

Quarter to 5 last friday afternoon I backed into the neighbor's hairdresser's car, a people carrier. Completely my fault for not noticing a car the size of a small bus. Hit it straight, back bumper to back bumper. I immediately moved my car forward, got out and checked for damage (none on either car that I could see), and knocked on the neighbor's door. The hairdresser came out, looked at the car with me and agreed she couldn't see any damage. I apologised and drove off.

Monday afternoon I got a note through the door saying she had looked at the car 'in better light' on saturday morning and there was some damage to the bumper, and could I contact her. DH said it seemed weird as it wasn't dark when it happened and there wasn't any noticable damage then, and said to wait and see if she contacted us again.

Friday she knicked on the door and asked why I hadn't phoned. I asked to see the damage on the car. She pointed to a scuff on the side of the bumper (not where I'd have hit the car). I'd have been willing to contribute to work on the car if she was really that bothered about a little scuff. But then she said the rear light was damaged (no visible damage) and that the pannel between the rear door and the back of the car had been buckled outwards but 'the garage managed to bang it back in'. There's no way I'd have missed damage that major at the time that it happened, and the bit that was supposedly damaged didn't have a mark on it anywhere' She then said that she 'just wants the car back to how it was'.

I said I'd talk to my DH and be in touch.

AIBU to think that she saw a young driver (I'm 22 but look younger) ho was flustered after bumping the car, and decided to try and get some money out of me?

I wouldn't be surprised if her next suggestion was that I just give her some money rather than going through the insurance, as she's not mentioned insurance at all. I also thought you were supposed to report damage to your insurer straight away and before repairing it yourself?

She also said that she had a quote for repairs and would get some more quotes, but when I asked how much it was then she backtracked and said that they hadn't actually got back to her yet.

It just seems a little odd to me.

Is there even any proof that anything ever happened?

I would just ignore her. At most I would tell her to go through her own insurance. Don't text her, email her, or even call her on the phone. Leave no record that you ever spoke to the woman.

Seriously... don't text her. Don't let her text you. Texting is the stupidest/easiest way to get nailed with something.

Ignore her utterly and just verbally tell her to go through her insurance. That will be the end of it.

Total con. I had nearly this scenario, I said id ring my insurers. Never heard a peep out of her.

I went into the back of a people carrier many many years ago. The car in front of the people carrier did an emergency stop and I skidded.

Woman got out, and looked and agreed she had no damage, I did (little pergeot) and she said she'd get her garage to check car but someone had done something similar "much harder" a few weeks back and there had been no problem. Exchanged details, I had been driving about five years but was only mid twenties.

Anyway. Few days later she rang wanting money to fix "serious damage" and car was "borderline" write off. I simply said to go through insurance, then her husband started ringing and became quite abusive.

My opinion was the car had been damaged in the earlier accident and she thought id be a push over. Just stick to your guns and go through insurance.

If you don't contact your insurance company and tell them about this - then your insurance comapny find out there is a claim then your insurance could well be invalid.

Now I would not want invalid insurance and insurance companies talk to each other and check out reg plates - so don't think they will not find out.

Yes your premiums will go up next year - every womans premiums will go up next year anyway. But at least you will be able to get insurance,

About 10 years ago a young girl went in the back of dh. On first sight there was a bit of damage but it didn't look too bad but when he took it to the garage and they looked underneath the whole bottom bit had been squished and needed replacing. (Technical terms there.)

She didn't want to go through the insurance as she was a new driver. We phoned our insurance for advice which was basically we could insist on going through insurance if we wanted. If we didn't then we should get the money paid directly to the garage before the garage touched the car as once they had started we could no longer go through insurance.

So we told them that. They insisted that they didn't want to go through the insurance. We got a couple of quotes and both were over £1000. They still insisted they wanted to not go through insurance. So we booked the car in and said could they pay by the day before.

Suddenly they decided that actually we were trying to con them. And wanted us to get more quotes. Which we didn't want to do as quite frankly we were sick of the hassle and just wanted our car fixed. But told them what our garage had said and we said if they could find somewhere that thought they could do it cheaper then we'd take the car along but if not they needed to pay our garage by the end of the day. But apparently they were too busy to get quotes and wanted more time.

Her parents then got involved and started having a go at us. Then she told us that she hoped that one day someone would treat us like we had treated her. Throughout all this my husband was really calm and just kept saying that he was doing her a favour here and if she thought he was conning her then she could contact the insurance.

We eventually said that we were phoning our insurance with her details at 5pm unless we had word that she had paid.

She paid.

But I have no doubt she is probably still telling people about the time she was conned by those horrible people who made her pay for damage that was (presumably) already on the car.

(Incidentally we'd had the MOT and service less than 2 weeks before the crash and we did offer to send her a copy which said that the car was in good condition but she wouldn't have it.)

in order for there to be the level of damage claimed there would be visable damage to both cars, esp a polo -v-a people carrier>the bumper(s)will undoubtably be the usual break on impact jobs, as a people carrier is heavier than a polo, and assuming the p.c. handbrake was applied, your polo ,moving slowly(?) would be as said showing obvious sign of impact, its reasonable to assume either the p.c. was a scrap bucket or someone is lying, do not discount the old "she knows the owner of the garage" routine or, she has went to a garage and said,"i want an insurance repair quote"

Defo con.

Possibly not a con.

I've had someone rear end me, no visible damage to the car but when a friend of DH's who is a mechanic looked underneath there was a fold and a crack in the underneath bodywork and the exhaust had come loose - it cost around £600 to get it fixed. We hadn't exchanged details at the scene of the accident as there was 'no visible damage' and I had no way of contacting the person, so I was £600 down.

You were out of order not contacting her when she first posted the note through the door. At the end of the day you've bumped into a stationary vehicle and then you've ignored her request to contact her about possible damage you've caused.

You're legally obliged to hand over your insurance details to this woman if she requests that you do so. However I would not hand over any cash, even if she produces a receipt for any work supposedly already completed.

DrGoogle - I know I was out of order not getting in touch sooner, I just wasn't entirely sure how to deal with it.

DH phoned her today. She told him something completely different about the supposed damage to her car, so we now have several different versions of events. She got quite irate with him on the phone (he was calm and polite throughout) and eventually said she did want to go through insurance and hung up on him. He had said that he was happy for us to deal with it through insurance.