The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that in a post from October 2015, I mentioned that I was involved in a minor car crash a couple of months earlier. As soon as Motability heard about the accident, they grew deeply suspicious and suspected that I had been targeted for some sort of insurance scam. Now, I was never going to go into the nuts and bolts of what happened but a few things have made me want to share my story. Not least that I am very angry a) with myself for being royally mugged off and b) that these low-life criminals exist. I would like to get my grievances off my chest.
I shall begin by explaining exactly what took place on that Thursday afternoon in August. My carer and I were driving to a garage in Watford to look at a potential new car when the accident happened (quite ironic really when you think about it). For those familiar with the area, we had just left the M1 and were about to go on the dual carriage way heading towards the town centre when the collision took place. The car two in front seemed to suddenly change it's mind and dart off to the right, causing the driver in front of us to perform an emergency stop. You can imagine the rest...
Immediately after the accident, the car in front of us pulled to the side and put on it's hazard lights. Three men then proceeded to get out of the vehicle. My carer and I were obviously quite shook up from the crash and felt scared if honest. This next part was extremely naive of us as they could have been anyone (turns out they were crooks but luckily for us, not kidnappers). My carer got out of my car and went over to exchange details. She then returned drenched (it was pouring with rain by the way) and said they knew a car park nearby that we should follow them to so that we could safely speak away from traffic.
In hindsight, the fact that they knew about a small car park down the road is very suspect and suggests that they have staged other accidents in the area before. They cannot even claim they live local and are aware of the surroundings because the address they gave was Luton. There were other blatant giveaways that the whole thing was an insurance scam but we again only realised this later. For example when the driver discovered my Kia was a Motability car, he kept asking my carer if she was insured to drive the vehicle: obviously if she was not, it would have mucked up the scam.
The final clue that the crash was planned by these scammers came a few months after the accident. A letter (at least 50 pages long) was sent to me by a solicitor outlining everything that the other party claimed happened and that they were going to take me to court regarding the allegations. Obviously, they sent the document to my home address instead of my insurance company to try and intimidate me but it failed to have the desired effect. I was not scared of their blatant lies as history has taught me that the truth always prevails. Hopefully the CPS have seen through this transparent scam and have thrown the case out of court because I have not heard anything about it in months.
Please read this article if you would like to learn more on what to look for:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/ztqt39q
Also, if you get a spare half hour then watch this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06yjshw
There is a very similar story to mine.
Bye for now!
