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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be angry with the police

50 replies

SweetieBaby · 09/02/2017 07:40

A month ago we were burgled whilst we slept. The thieves stole our car, amongst other things. Amazingly the police recovered it the next day and impounded it for forensic testing. The thieves have done minimal damage to the car - slight scuffs on 2 alloy wheels and a cigarette burn to the gear stick gaiter and it needs new locks because they have the keys. All brilliant so far.

Insurance company have just informed us that they will be writing the car off because the cost of repairing the damage caused by the burglars is about £1400 but it will cost £600 to clean up the mess caused by the police forensic team and this tips the balance meaning that they consider the car uneconomical to repair.

So in essence, the police have caused my car which is undamaged, to be written off.

How can this possibly be fair?
By the way, we could have refused the forensic testing and simply collected the car but we thought we were doing the right thing by assisting the police with their enquiries!

AIBU to be upset by this?

OP posts:

Perfectlypurple · 09/02/2017 08:36

It's even worse blaming the police now you have said the insurance company insisted on the forensic exam. Plus in your op you said there was damage, a burn to the gearstick. I know this is minimal but they dint just decide to not include certain damage.

Perfectlypurple · 09/02/2017 08:38

seeline can you not see that the police don't 'borrow' people's property. The op is a victim and the police are working to get her justice. If they then had to valet the car, with he cost that involves then there would be a lot less police officers to recover stolen vehicles like they have done on this occasion.

user892 · 09/02/2017 08:41

Sheesh. Can't you just forget about the claim, take it to an independent garage and hoover it yourself?! Or has that horse bolted?

GinIsIn · 09/02/2017 08:42

seeline - "if the police borrowed your property..."? Err, what?! They haven't borrowed her car to pop to Tesco - they are investigating a crime! And of course the police shouldn't have to return it to her in its original state. That's £600 that would have to come from somewhere. You honestly think police funds should be channeled towards car valeting rather than victim support or violent crime?

Original poster

SweetieBaby · 09/02/2017 09:00

We have said to the insurance company just replace the locks and we'll pay for the rest but they are refusing. Our only option is to accept the write off, buy it back and then repair it ourselves.

The sting in the tale is that the police took it to a pound five minutes up the road from us. When they released it to the insurance company they transferred it to a garage fifty miles away. If we buy it back we are then liable for the cost of bringing it back here to have it repaired. Plus, if we settle we have to give back the hire car so will be without a car while ours is being repaired. If the insurance company repair it they will give us a hire car.

Guess I'm just fixating on the £600 as the cause of our problems. It is indeed the insurance company that are making this more difficult but it's just a difficult pill to swallow knowing that something so silly has caused such a problem. Just wish we had taken the car back immediately from the police and never bothered with the insurance company at all. For what it's worth, they got no evidence from the car. Caught the burglars because I got transaction times from my bank as to when they used my contactless bank cards and my husband went round to see which places had CCTV. The police identified the burglars from this footage.

OP posts:

RandomWordsandaNumber5 · 09/02/2017 09:03

So your car is stolen, the police recover it, make efforts to obtain evidence to catch the criminals who burgled your home - and you're angry with them! Well, yes, I can quite see that.
And, by the way, assisting with investigations isn't to 'help the police' - It's to help all of us live in a society where crimes are minimised and criminals caught.

sparechange · 09/02/2017 09:06

We have seen the car and the entire interior is covered in white powder - the dashboard, windows, upholstery

The police can only dust for prints on hard surfaces, so the upholstery shouldn't be covered in powder.
The windows, dashboard, rear view mirror etc - it will come off with one wipe

You need to ask them for a breakdown of the £600 clean up. The main dealer for my car charges £100 an hour, there is no way this is a 6 hour job

BToperator · 09/02/2017 09:07

600 quid, to hoover/wipe out one car! That is ridiculous. I think I might have to take up valeting cars for a living if that is what they get paid! I'd save your anger for the burglars, who started all this, and possibly for the insurance company, who seem to be making it all far more difficult than they need to be. Glad to see the burglars got caught, they really are scum!

F1GI · 09/02/2017 09:10

This is a result our society which has become so procedural that when each step of a process is treated according to the procedure which we must not deviate from, the end result of all the steps is idiotic. Like in this case. Each party's done their procedure like a robot and the end result is bad for all concerned.

Seeline · 09/02/2017 09:15

OK - so borrowing was tongue-in-cheek. But the OP didn't have to let the forensic team have access to the car.
No way would it cost £600 to clean the inside of a car. If it really does come off with a quick wipe-over, I think the police could do that. And if there is stuff on the upholstery etc, then it shouldn't be there - you can't get fingerprints from that, so they must have been a bit careless.

UserOO7 · 09/02/2017 09:25

I would ask the insurance company for a breakdown of costs, officially querying the £600. I'd question they are using value for money services! I'd query the cost of new locks too, it's easy to get an alternative quote for that online

Original poster

SweetieBaby · 09/02/2017 09:26

They told us that they don't dust for fingerprints, they look for DNA. Does this make sense? Would this account for the stuff on the upholstery?

It literally looks like someone has thrown a bag of flour into the car but on the dashboard, door trims etc the white looks ingrained into the plastic. It isn't just powder sitting on the surface.

Reading these posts I accept that being annoyed with the police is unreasonable. I just feel upset that as victims of a crime we seem to be hurt by every other institution that we are dealing with.

We can't afford to replace the car and this will end up costing us a couple of thousand pounds when you add up insurance excesses, car hire etc without factoring in a new car too.

Thank you all for helping me to see it from another perspective. Of course we value the police and will be doing everything requested to help them convict the burglars.

OP posts:

UserOO7 · 09/02/2017 09:27

I was annoyed with our house insurance for similar reason, the excess we paid towards replacing a double glazed panel was at least double what an independent would charge for the whole job. I had to pay up to get the rest of the claim

Scrumptiousbears · 09/02/2017 09:34

Oh a Police bashing thread

DizzyNorthernBird · 09/02/2017 09:50

£600 just to clean up residues from dusting for fingerprints?? Your insurance company ABVVU!

user892 · 09/02/2017 09:56

Hmm.. anyone would suspect insurance cos make some kind of profit from selling on 'written off' cars..

We were so lucky to have £1600 of work approved for an 8 yr old car, following badger collision.

Suchalovelyday · 09/02/2017 10:45

Yes, silly police, trying to catch criminals. The stuff comes off with soap and water ffs.

You could actually call SOCO and ask them how to get any residue off.

Your ins company and the cleaners ought to be nicked too.

Maybe thank the police for acting so fast and finding your bloody car?!

Lostwithinthehills · 09/02/2017 12:57

But the OP didn't have to let the forensic team have access to the car.

The forensic team were hardly examining the car for their own benefit.

Bunnyfuller · 09/02/2017 13:57

It's very hard to get prints from upholstery (if you can - they would need to be very oily hands of covered in blood or something - do not believe CSI you see on tv!)

Also prints are actually a way less reliable way to catch the baddy, a number of legal points to meet and often you'll only get crappity partials.

DNA links straight to the baddy if they have been nicked before (and your type of burglary is kind of a career thing than some moment of madness - there may even be someone out there with this MO they need to DNA for to match them to)

DNA hits catch baddies. More proof= less chance defence gets them off=more jail time=less crime.

If you didn't want them caught why call the police?
YABVVVVU and very shortsighted. Write the police a letter saying thank you for finding my car so quickly.

Amazing, seriously. Entitled much?!

Original poster

SweetieBaby · 09/02/2017 14:27

Sorry, how am I being entitled? We were burgled. The thieves stole our car. The police found the car. We will now be left without a car because our insurance company are refusing to clean up the mess caused by the police.

So according to you I should phone the police to say thank you for locating my car so that the insurance company can write it off? Ok then!

Maybe they could inturn thank me for asking my bank for transaction times for when the thieves used my cards, then locating the shops where they were used and finding the CCTV footage that has led to them identifying the thieves responsible for 50 burglaries?

OP posts:

sparechange · 09/02/2017 14:36

So according to you I should phone the police to say thank you for locating my car so that the insurance company can write it off? Ok then!

No, but your anger at the police for doing the job you asked them to do is totally misplaced.

The insurance company are being unreasonable for not allowing a simple clean up job of a simple bit of dust. I'm sure there is a SOCO who can confirm how DNA is collected, but I've seen plenty of episodes of CSI to suggest they don't do it by scattering dust but by collecting fibres.

I think you are overegging this and being a bit of a drama llama... Assuming you get the pay out and have to buy the car back (although I don't really get why you are so attached to an old car?), getting new keys is a half a job day.
The garage may even give you a courtesy car while the work is done, or you could find a garage near work.
You get the car back, you book it in for new keys the next day, you get the car back that day. This doesn't wrack up thousands in hire car fees.

And given it is an old car, do you really need to get the scuffs and burn repaired? Presumably the car isn't in tip top condition anyway, so take the money and let the car see out the rest of its useful life?

Bunnyfuller · 09/02/2017 15:01

You're thanking the police for finding your car swiftly. Not the other stuff as that is not police work and nothing to do with them.

It'd have been written off if they hadn't found it, wouldn't it? Or driven into a lamppost for jollies (as quite often happens with these little shits). Would that be the police's fault too I wonder.

Be annoyed by all means, but not at the only people to have done something positive and who had the ability to catch the criminals when you provided information on a line of enquiry. Just because they didn't find DNA on this occasion doesn't mean they shouldn't have looked for it. It's called conducting a thorough investigation.

The police don't get thanked often and things are pretty shit with the year on year 20% cuts, is it any skin off your nose to acknowledge they did their job? Or do you only work on negative feedback? And as I said - ring SOCO!! There's lots of tricks they can give you to clean up from forensic examination.

roundtable · 09/02/2017 15:06

Your anger is misdirected. Aim it at the insurance company.

Sorry you were burgled but yabu

PoisonousSmurf · 09/02/2017 15:07

How crap was your car in the first place? You don't have to claim. Get a valet company to clean it (tops £60) at the most.

Original poster

SweetieBaby · 09/02/2017 18:12

Many thanks Poisonous Smurf. Actually the car wasn't "crap" at all! Might well have been 10 years old but we had it from new. Full service history, low mileage, immaculate condition. Sadly, this doesn't equate to much as far as the insurance company are concerned.

I may well be unreasonable for feeling annoyed at the police but seriously, you get a phone call to say car's been found, no damage, you can have it back once the forensic team have been and the insurance company have changed the locks(£1500). Then they tell you the clean up costs after the police have finished with it are £600 so now the car is beyond economical repair!!!!! Just so disappointing.

By the way, thanks for the sympathy. I hope none of you have to experience the trauma of knowing your home was burgled while your family slept upstairs and then to add to this stress the insurance company just compounds the distress.

OP posts:

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