I'm going to start with my dinner tonight as everyone loves a burger! And the beauty of Hive when a Brit based in Philippines recommends a restaurant in my local city in UK. So thanks for a great recommendation @biggypauls, the burger was one of the best I've had in a while.
Anyway, back to the purpose of this post, how someone may have attempted to insurance scam me.
We had just drove round the restaurant corner after dinner when hubby suddenly panicked and couldn't find the phone charger cable. You know how guys are with their gadgets and stuff. He wouldn't panic so much if he lost me!!! Anyway, I immediately pulled over in case I had dropped it as I was charging my phone last and we started to rummage for it.
Suddenly there was a little bang!!!!
My rental car, which I've only had for a day, has one of those press button for the hand brake and I'm still getting used to it. In hubby's panic looking for his cable I forgot to press the hand brake and I had rolled into the car in front!!! To be honest, it was only a very slight kiss as the road was flat. I immediately jumped out of the car as did the guy in front.
At that's how the ordeal started
Alarm 1
The guy is a taxi driver and we both checked the cars at once. The impact was very very light as my car is a small Vauxhall Corsa. I wasn't expecting any dents or scratches. We both took photos and videos, and I asked him was there any scratches or dents from the impact. He said he didn't know and would report to the insurers tomorrow. That immediately raised alarm bells for me. I asked him on the spot if you don't know what the issues are now, how will you know tomorrow? He refused to answer me and asked for all my details. I'm ok with giving him the details as I'm legally obliged to do that, but his first comment was a big concern. We 'discussed' for about ten minutes, most of which I have on video. In the end he said "I'm going to call the police." I was fine with that as there was no damage and I'm not going to let him make false claims on me later on.
Alarm 2
So he calls the police who said they will come when they come as it's not urgent. I didn't mind waiting, I have all the time in the world, he's the one working, not me. Then the guy talks about potential back pain and if he has a whiplash he will claim on me as well. Another alarm. A whiplash from a little kiss? I offered to go to the hospital with him immediately for a check up but he says they might not find anything now as these sort of things might take a few weeks to appear.
Alarm 3
So we're waiting for over an hour. He's starting to get impatient, or panic. I don't know which. He tries to persuade me to just give him my information and not waste everyone's time. Nice try, but he's the one who suggested to call the police. He says if he loses his job over this he will make a claim on me. Another alarm!!! All along I was videoing him to protect myself. He says he's going to report me to the police for taking a video of him - it is not illegal to take videos in public in UK. Then he starts to lose his temper with me taking videos and say don't try to post it on internet to be famous. And if I want to be famous he can make me famous and take a video of me. He starts to walk across to me and sticks his phone right in front of my face. It's one thing taking video of people at a distance in public, but another thing to stick a camera in a person's face. And that is breaking social distance rules!!!!
Anyway, an hour and a half later the police come along. I explain the situation, how I am still getting used to my rental and the hand brake button. I also explained why I was worried and insisted to wait for the police because the taxi driver couldn't identify damages on the spot but may do so at a later date, and that he said he might have whiplash, and if he loses his job he said he was going to make a claim on me. All valid concerns. The police's role isn't to mediate or resolve the issue, that's an insurance thing. But they looked at both vehicles and the road conditions and they couldn't see any damages either. The guy mentioned a potential whiplash again. Any experience driver, and the police knows that won't happen from a little kiss. The police were very reasonable, checked both our information and made sure we both exchanged details as required and then left. I felt a lot better that the police had come to witness the situation.
My eye has had little twitches all day today. The Chinese say if your eye twitches, either someone is talking about your behind your back or something not good is going to happen. I hope this little unpleasant incident is all there is to it.
UPDATE : The guy has reported it to his insurers, maybe trying his luck 🙃