Friday, October 1, 2010

Can't be too nice sometimes

So here's what happened with the accident 2 months ago. After the guy hit my car, we of course got out of the car and exchanged information. At that time he told me that he's a driver (drives for a living) so it would be great if we can settle this ourselves so it doesn't go on his record. I said ok, told him I'll go get some estimates and let him know. He said he's insured by State Farm but he doesn't have the insurance information with him. I thought, fine, since we weren't gonna go through insurance anyway.

End of that week I met with him to go over the estimates. He once again apologized and expressed his desire to settle this outside of insurance since he drives for FedEx. He said if I don't mind, he'll pay me in installments of $500 each week for 3 weeks. I said ok. He seems like a nice person and seems like he's willing to take the financial responsibility so I trusted him (plus he was driving a Land Rover the day of the accident and a BMW when he came to meet with me, so it doesn't seem like the type that's really poor).

Three weeks had gone by and I haven't received a single penny or any phone calls from him. I tried calling him a few times, but everytime it rang until the voicemail came up. Left him messages. No reply. By the end of the month I figured if anything happened, he would have at least called by then. I called FedEx to see if they can give me his office number and perhaps be able to reach him. The lady on the phone said she couldn't find him in the employee directory! So I finally called my insurance to file a claim. As a courtesy, I left him a mesasge and told him that was what I did. The next day, the guy called me back and said someone in his family passed away so he wasn't able to contact me (seriously, for 3 weeks?!) He said he still wanted to settle that with me outside of insurance and he has the money ready for me. I didn't really want to trust this guy anymore (what if he ignored my calls again, or he gave me fake money, or his cheque bounced or something...) , so I told him I'd already filed a claim and he can talk to my insurance adjuster. He said he understands, and he'll talk to the adjuster.

Two more weeks passed. The adjuster wasn't able to contact him. He said they will send out a field adjuster for a "meet and greet" session and basically tell him that he needs to give out his insurance information. The adjuster said at this point he has no mercy for this guy and he asked for this embarrassment himself.

Yesterday the adjuster finally called me back and they were able to get his insurance information. He said State Farm wanted to talk to me and asked me to call them. I talked to a person at State Farm and they wanted to confirm the date of accident, because it seemed like that guy ran and got insurance that afternoon when the accident happened, and he told State Farm that the accident happened the day after, so State Farm wanted to know if his insurance was in effect when the accident occurred. Wow, I wasn't expecting this! See, you can't be too nice to people sometimes. Now I wish someone can just give me the money so I can get my car fixed!

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