As I said the other day I'm currently visiting the gf at Uni in Swansea... about 20 minutes ago she'd just left for her lecture and my mobile rings, I'm thinking it's because she's gone and forgotten her keys which I told her to make sure she had on her... I answer, she says "There's a van parked REEEEEALLY close to your car, look out the window"... I look out the window and there's a Turqoise Mercedes Vito parked SO close to the Trophy that I can't tell if it's touching or not, I ask her if it's touching and she says no but it's VERY close.
I went outside to take a look, the van was literally parked a 1/4 inch off my front bumper, the top of his bumper lining up *just* below the top of the number plate recess. It naturally struck me as a bit of a coincidence if he'd managed to park that close *without* finding where my car was by driving into it, so I jumped in and reversed it back, got down on the road to take a look and there's three small pieces of paint missing from the piece of bumper immediately above the number plate which seem to line up perfectly with a rougher scratched part of his bumper with lots of quite sharp bits on it, from where the t**t has driven into something previously... no red paint on his bumper but then it didn't take much off.
I know for a fact there was no damage there when I fully washed, de-tarred and waxed the car on Saturday morning, I specifically removed some stubborn tar from that exact area of bumper and the paint was pristine... so I go into this bakery/cafe place which is just along the road and ask if they happen to know who the van belongs to, the woman says "Oh that's Andy's" and points to this group of scruffy looking blokes sat at a table in the corner... I go over and ask if that's their van, the bloke says yes and asks why - when he's walked past my car to get to the cafe - I explain that I found his van was parked 1/4 inch off my bumper and there's some paint missing... his mate says "He's got parking sensors", I said "Oh right?", his mate continues "When he reverses into another car he hears a bump, and then he knows to stop"!
I start getting angry at this point, my car was parked at the very front of the legal on-street parking and this numpty has come along and stuck his van on double yellows, in order to drive into my car in the first place... and now they all seem to think it's funny. I asked if he had his insurance details on him, he started saying about how it's only a little scratch etc and it's "one of those things", I said that's not the point, he's damaged it, and the fact they all think it's funny means that whereas I might have put it down to "one of those things", now they've pissed me off I'm going to take it all the way... the bloke says he's not going to give me the details, so I said if he wants to fail to produce I can just call the Police, he says they'll be ages, I say well he'll just have to wait ages for them, as if he leaves he'll just have racked up another offence for them to deal with when they do find him... and eventually he produces the details, which I note down.
I took photos of the car + van before I moved it, a close-up that showed where his bumper lined up on mine (I could barely fit my phone between the vehicles to take it), two photos that show the reg of each vehicle adjacent to the other (This is before I looked to see if there was any damage because I've been stung before with an insurance company not believing me, regarding some more serious damage to my previous car whilst parked) and then in the end I took a close-up of the damage itself. Can't upload yet though because my phone USB cable is at home.
Any advice on whether his insurance company is likely to do anything? There are a few more stone chips etc on my bumper and if I got a resprayed bumper out of this it might be quite nice to be honest
I know it was only a few pieces of paint he took off in a fairly inconspicuous location, but that's a few pieces of paint that were attached to my otherwise nearly mint Trophy prior to that c**k removing them, and his attitude makes me want to go to the ends of the earth to make sure he loses his no claims to be quite honest, if he had any in the first place!
And of course I don't know how much force the bumper has taken because his will have eventually hit my number plate which is harder to damage, for all I know there could be bent mountings etc although it seems ok at first glance - I'm not going to go crawling under the car in its present location to have a look... Grrrrrrrr
I went outside to take a look, the van was literally parked a 1/4 inch off my front bumper, the top of his bumper lining up *just* below the top of the number plate recess. It naturally struck me as a bit of a coincidence if he'd managed to park that close *without* finding where my car was by driving into it, so I jumped in and reversed it back, got down on the road to take a look and there's three small pieces of paint missing from the piece of bumper immediately above the number plate which seem to line up perfectly with a rougher scratched part of his bumper with lots of quite sharp bits on it, from where the t**t has driven into something previously... no red paint on his bumper but then it didn't take much off.
I know for a fact there was no damage there when I fully washed, de-tarred and waxed the car on Saturday morning, I specifically removed some stubborn tar from that exact area of bumper and the paint was pristine... so I go into this bakery/cafe place which is just along the road and ask if they happen to know who the van belongs to, the woman says "Oh that's Andy's" and points to this group of scruffy looking blokes sat at a table in the corner... I go over and ask if that's their van, the bloke says yes and asks why - when he's walked past my car to get to the cafe - I explain that I found his van was parked 1/4 inch off my bumper and there's some paint missing... his mate says "He's got parking sensors", I said "Oh right?", his mate continues "When he reverses into another car he hears a bump, and then he knows to stop"!
I start getting angry at this point, my car was parked at the very front of the legal on-street parking and this numpty has come along and stuck his van on double yellows, in order to drive into my car in the first place... and now they all seem to think it's funny. I asked if he had his insurance details on him, he started saying about how it's only a little scratch etc and it's "one of those things", I said that's not the point, he's damaged it, and the fact they all think it's funny means that whereas I might have put it down to "one of those things", now they've pissed me off I'm going to take it all the way... the bloke says he's not going to give me the details, so I said if he wants to fail to produce I can just call the Police, he says they'll be ages, I say well he'll just have to wait ages for them, as if he leaves he'll just have racked up another offence for them to deal with when they do find him... and eventually he produces the details, which I note down.
I took photos of the car + van before I moved it, a close-up that showed where his bumper lined up on mine (I could barely fit my phone between the vehicles to take it), two photos that show the reg of each vehicle adjacent to the other (This is before I looked to see if there was any damage because I've been stung before with an insurance company not believing me, regarding some more serious damage to my previous car whilst parked) and then in the end I took a close-up of the damage itself. Can't upload yet though because my phone USB cable is at home.
Any advice on whether his insurance company is likely to do anything? There are a few more stone chips etc on my bumper and if I got a resprayed bumper out of this it might be quite nice to be honest
I know it was only a few pieces of paint he took off in a fairly inconspicuous location, but that's a few pieces of paint that were attached to my otherwise nearly mint Trophy prior to that c**k removing them, and his attitude makes me want to go to the ends of the earth to make sure he loses his no claims to be quite honest, if he had any in the first place!And of course I don't know how much force the bumper has taken because his will have eventually hit my number plate which is harder to damage, for all I know there could be bent mountings etc although it seems ok at first glance - I'm not going to go crawling under the car in its present location to have a look... Grrrrrrrr
