Hi I was wondering if anyone on here would be able to help me?
Basically it's quite a long story but what happened is that last year I unfortunately managed to get myself involved with a really unpleasant person who managed to scam me out of some money and my car.
I lent them some money and then car and then a few hours later they told me they had been involved in an accident in it (they claimed someone had reversed into them yet they had then driven away instead of getting the other persons details) and they wanted money from me (?) to repair it. I knew by this point I had been scammed so I refused to hand over more cash and told them I wanted to go collect my vehicle and that I would deal with whatever damage had occurred myself. I even told them to just leave it parked up somewhere and the keys nearby. They refused to do this or even tell me where my vehicle was and at this point became abusive and threatening so I reported them to the police and also the vehicle as stolen telling the police who had it.
As I had messages to back all this up the police are investigating it as theft. However my insurance company, Zenith, refused to deal with it as such and said I was liable. OK fair enough I understand it was my own stupid fault for giving them the car and left it as that.
During this time I was still getting abusive messages from this person telling them I needed to give them money to repair it but still refusing to tell me where the car was or even send me pictures of the damage. They then started trying to blackmail me by saying that if I didn't give them the cash they would call my insurance company and tell them I had an accident in it and also tell the police that I'd done a hit and run in it - both rubbish and I have evidence to support the fact I was over a hundred miles away when they were saying these took place. Their version of events also kept changing from them saying they had the accident to them saying that they were going to commit an accident and blame me to then saying I had the accident myself. I still kept refusing to hand over any more money and after threatening both me and my family again I blocked them and gave all this evidence to the police.
I assumed by then the vehicle would not be recovered and as Zenith didn't want to deal with it I decided to cancel my policy. However when I contacted them I was told I couldn't as there was an open claim on it with someone else claiming I crashed my car into them. This is the first I knew of this and I immediately thought this accident had been staged by the person who had my car out of spite and to frame me and told Zenith as such but they weren't even interested. I asked what date the accident occurred and reminded them of the theft and they said it happened on the date the person took my car. However the other driver did not report it to their insurance company until over a month later despite the fact there is apparently an independent witness who apparently saw the accident and then someone drive off and then gave the other driver my reg number and car description so they had my details from the start. I find this highly suspect but my insurance company does not seem to see a problem with this. Also at no point during this time did Zenith inform me of this claim or even ask me about it, I had to find out for myself over a week later when I called them.
About a month later the vehicle was recovered by the police and they said they were going to interview the suspect. At this point Zenith then said they would be treating it as theft and were now processing the claim and made arrangements to collect it from the recovery centre and take it to their assessment place. However after contacting them again they said they had made a mistake and would not be dealing with it after all but as there were costs involved in recovering it I had lost my NCB despite them not even paying out a claim. Firstly can they even do that? And secondly surely it is their fault there were costs involved because if they hadn't made a mistake and told me they were dealing with it when they weren't I would've told them not to bother recovering it and sorted it out myself so my NCB wasn't affected, especially that as the car has now been returned to me I can see it will need to be scrapped anyway.
Also I'm not sure what exactly Zenith were meant to be assessing but I can tell just by looking at the damage to the car that it's highly unlikely it was caused by either someone reversing into it or by it hitting a parked car - when I first passed my test I hit one myself and I've had people hit my car, once at speed, and in these cases it didn't cause any damage other than maybe a scratch and slightly cracked bumper - certainly not this type of damage anyway. This damage is considerable and inconsistent with the type of accident that alledgely took place. It looks like it was driven into some kind of post with considerable force and at great speed (you can even see where the car has wrapped around the post and warped the bodywork and smashed the headlamp to pieces) - I've seen vehicles involved in high-speed motorway collisions with less damage than this! Plus I can't really see any paint from the other vehicle on it - there are marks but it doesn't look like car paint to me. Also there is no way it is drivable so I'm not sure how the driver could drive away from the point of the accident (as apparently seen by a witness) to the point where the vehicle was recovered which I suspect were in two entirely different places (also if they did manage to drive it away then surely they would have been seen by others or on CCTV driving a smashed up car and/or pulled over by the police). And if the accident took place two months prior to it being recovered and dumped somewhere (as the police have told me) then I'm not sure why wasn't it recovered sooner. There is even a notice in the car from the owners of the land where it was dumped saying it has been reported to the police so it clearly wasn't there long (plus if it wasn't drivable then how did it get there?). Furthermore if the person really did commit an accident in it when they said they did then surely they would have sent pictures of the damage like they said they were going to because surely then I would've been more likely to give them the money - at one point I was even tempted even though I knew they were probably lieing just to try and get my car back.
All of this makes me believe this is a fraudulent claim and that the accident was staged by a really unpleasant person out of sheer spite and to try and frame me (the tone of and threats in the messages collude this plus the fact that they also took all my personal belongings out of the car and even my stereo front just goes to show how spiteful they are), they are also involved with some very dodgy people so it would be easy for them to do this. However Zenith say that despite my account and the messages as evidence they have no reason to believe the claim is fraudulent and are dealing with it as an uninsured driver on my policy (it took them over a month to even start investigating it as possible fraud and another month to tell me this). Yet they have not spoken to the person who had my car or even taken any details from me or the police or checked to see if they were insured at the time (I suspect they weren't but surely they should still check?). Because of this and the other non-paid claim for theft plus loss of my NCB I have now found out I cannot get insurance.
Is there anything I can do here? I've already written to Zenith and made a complaint regarding their incompetence and failure to keep me updated about any aspect of the claims but I doubt I'll get anywhere so would it be worth taking the matter further and possibly hiring an independent accident investigator for the fraudulent claim and also getting in touch with the police to see if there is CCTV footage of the vehicle being driven with no damage after the alledged accident (which I suspect there will be)?
Sorry for the long story but any help and advice here would be much appreciated as I'm really at my wits end!
Basically it's quite a long story but what happened is that last year I unfortunately managed to get myself involved with a really unpleasant person who managed to scam me out of some money and my car.
I lent them some money and then car and then a few hours later they told me they had been involved in an accident in it (they claimed someone had reversed into them yet they had then driven away instead of getting the other persons details) and they wanted money from me (?) to repair it. I knew by this point I had been scammed so I refused to hand over more cash and told them I wanted to go collect my vehicle and that I would deal with whatever damage had occurred myself. I even told them to just leave it parked up somewhere and the keys nearby. They refused to do this or even tell me where my vehicle was and at this point became abusive and threatening so I reported them to the police and also the vehicle as stolen telling the police who had it.
As I had messages to back all this up the police are investigating it as theft. However my insurance company, Zenith, refused to deal with it as such and said I was liable. OK fair enough I understand it was my own stupid fault for giving them the car and left it as that.
During this time I was still getting abusive messages from this person telling them I needed to give them money to repair it but still refusing to tell me where the car was or even send me pictures of the damage. They then started trying to blackmail me by saying that if I didn't give them the cash they would call my insurance company and tell them I had an accident in it and also tell the police that I'd done a hit and run in it - both rubbish and I have evidence to support the fact I was over a hundred miles away when they were saying these took place. Their version of events also kept changing from them saying they had the accident to them saying that they were going to commit an accident and blame me to then saying I had the accident myself. I still kept refusing to hand over any more money and after threatening both me and my family again I blocked them and gave all this evidence to the police.
I assumed by then the vehicle would not be recovered and as Zenith didn't want to deal with it I decided to cancel my policy. However when I contacted them I was told I couldn't as there was an open claim on it with someone else claiming I crashed my car into them. This is the first I knew of this and I immediately thought this accident had been staged by the person who had my car out of spite and to frame me and told Zenith as such but they weren't even interested. I asked what date the accident occurred and reminded them of the theft and they said it happened on the date the person took my car. However the other driver did not report it to their insurance company until over a month later despite the fact there is apparently an independent witness who apparently saw the accident and then someone drive off and then gave the other driver my reg number and car description so they had my details from the start. I find this highly suspect but my insurance company does not seem to see a problem with this. Also at no point during this time did Zenith inform me of this claim or even ask me about it, I had to find out for myself over a week later when I called them.
About a month later the vehicle was recovered by the police and they said they were going to interview the suspect. At this point Zenith then said they would be treating it as theft and were now processing the claim and made arrangements to collect it from the recovery centre and take it to their assessment place. However after contacting them again they said they had made a mistake and would not be dealing with it after all but as there were costs involved in recovering it I had lost my NCB despite them not even paying out a claim. Firstly can they even do that? And secondly surely it is their fault there were costs involved because if they hadn't made a mistake and told me they were dealing with it when they weren't I would've told them not to bother recovering it and sorted it out myself so my NCB wasn't affected, especially that as the car has now been returned to me I can see it will need to be scrapped anyway.
Also I'm not sure what exactly Zenith were meant to be assessing but I can tell just by looking at the damage to the car that it's highly unlikely it was caused by either someone reversing into it or by it hitting a parked car - when I first passed my test I hit one myself and I've had people hit my car, once at speed, and in these cases it didn't cause any damage other than maybe a scratch and slightly cracked bumper - certainly not this type of damage anyway. This damage is considerable and inconsistent with the type of accident that alledgely took place. It looks like it was driven into some kind of post with considerable force and at great speed (you can even see where the car has wrapped around the post and warped the bodywork and smashed the headlamp to pieces) - I've seen vehicles involved in high-speed motorway collisions with less damage than this! Plus I can't really see any paint from the other vehicle on it - there are marks but it doesn't look like car paint to me. Also there is no way it is drivable so I'm not sure how the driver could drive away from the point of the accident (as apparently seen by a witness) to the point where the vehicle was recovered which I suspect were in two entirely different places (also if they did manage to drive it away then surely they would have been seen by others or on CCTV driving a smashed up car and/or pulled over by the police). And if the accident took place two months prior to it being recovered and dumped somewhere (as the police have told me) then I'm not sure why wasn't it recovered sooner. There is even a notice in the car from the owners of the land where it was dumped saying it has been reported to the police so it clearly wasn't there long (plus if it wasn't drivable then how did it get there?). Furthermore if the person really did commit an accident in it when they said they did then surely they would have sent pictures of the damage like they said they were going to because surely then I would've been more likely to give them the money - at one point I was even tempted even though I knew they were probably lieing just to try and get my car back.
All of this makes me believe this is a fraudulent claim and that the accident was staged by a really unpleasant person out of sheer spite and to try and frame me (the tone of and threats in the messages collude this plus the fact that they also took all my personal belongings out of the car and even my stereo front just goes to show how spiteful they are), they are also involved with some very dodgy people so it would be easy for them to do this. However Zenith say that despite my account and the messages as evidence they have no reason to believe the claim is fraudulent and are dealing with it as an uninsured driver on my policy (it took them over a month to even start investigating it as possible fraud and another month to tell me this). Yet they have not spoken to the person who had my car or even taken any details from me or the police or checked to see if they were insured at the time (I suspect they weren't but surely they should still check?). Because of this and the other non-paid claim for theft plus loss of my NCB I have now found out I cannot get insurance.
Is there anything I can do here? I've already written to Zenith and made a complaint regarding their incompetence and failure to keep me updated about any aspect of the claims but I doubt I'll get anywhere so would it be worth taking the matter further and possibly hiring an independent accident investigator for the fraudulent claim and also getting in touch with the police to see if there is CCTV footage of the vehicle being driven with no damage after the alledged accident (which I suspect there will be)?
Sorry for the long story but any help and advice here would be much appreciated as I'm really at my wits end!