Wife's car hit, guy drove off, caught on security cameras. Works there. Follow along, advice, schtick. (1 Viewer)

[bro1ncos]

Agree with the mention of not accepting any payments unless it is paid in full. Don't give anyone the ability to say you said you would accept this lower amount.

 

[John123]

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

How does this work? Are you getting insurance on yourself, and thus insured to drive whatever vehicle you are in?

Very simplified you insure the cars you have at your home and all the drivers to a minimum standard, that is I believe 60k property liability and 60k (could be 120k) bodily liability.

If you want comprehensive coverage you select the cars for this, and pay that to have in the situation that you hit someone yourself is covered. Auto loans require comprehensive coverage, the state does not.

This guy is stating he does not have comprehensive coverage. He has not yet, even to this moment, stated if he has no liability. Lack of liability coverage is a misdemeanor, but they recently raised the penalties for this and if you have a record or a DWI on your record the penalties can get extreme.

If you have comprehensive coverage you also get uninsured motorist. Which is what this would fall into, to qualify it has to meet some standard, as well as typically a police report stating the person did not turn over or have insurance. This might come with a citation.

Comprehensive is irrelevant. It applies to HIS car. Your car would be covered under the property damage portion of his state mandated liability insurance. So, either he has liability or he doesn't and, if he does, it would cover your damages.

 

[culdeus]

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

How does this work? Are you getting insurance on yourself, and thus insured to drive whatever vehicle you are in?

Very simplified you insure the cars you have at your home and all the drivers to a minimum standard, that is I believe 60k property liability and 60k (could be 120k) bodily liability.

If you want comprehensive coverage you select the cars for this, and pay that to have in the situation that you hit someone yourself is covered. Auto loans require comprehensive coverage, the state does not.

This guy is stating he does not have comprehensive coverage. He has not yet, even to this moment, stated if he has no liability. Lack of liability coverage is a misdemeanor, but they recently raised the penalties for this and if you have a record or a DWI on your record the penalties can get extreme.

If you have comprehensive coverage you also get uninsured motorist. Which is what this would fall into, to qualify it has to meet some standard, as well as typically a police report stating the person did not turn over or have insurance. This might come with a citation.

Comprehensive is irrelevant. It applies to HIS car. Your car would be covered under the property damage portion of his state mandated liability insurance. So, either he has liability or he doesn't and, if he does, it would cover your damages.

Right.

 

[tri-man 47]

2 pages and no "sleep with his wife?"

And why not? The guy already banged his.

 

[urbanhack]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

HR ain't garnishing wages without a court order. Look, there's DIY and then there's PITA. I wouldn't want to waste an iota of my time if it will involve any justice system work. You think insurance companies are out for a buck? Wait until you consult a lawyer imo. Whether it's time or money, my insurance company will handle this more effectively and efficiently, with the least involvement from me, of any of the other options I've seen here.

I don't disagree with getting the guy to just give me a check. I've done that myself with one of my kids' car accidents (not his fault obviously). But as soon as he starts talking payments, I'm out. Ain't nobody got time for that, especially when you've got all the leverage you need.

Small claims in texas is not that big a deal, plaintiffs don't really need a lawyer. Takes less time than to go thru the DMV. Whether it collects is another matter. I do not want to go down that road if I don't have to.

It takes about 10 minutes to get a wage garnishment.

I can’t have my wages garnishied

 

[Sand]

Agree with the mention of not accepting any payments unless it is paid in full. Don't give anyone the ability to say you said you would accept this lower amount.

Guy doesn't have the money. Probably would end up uncollectable in SCC. I'd file with my insurance - tell them he's uninsured, send the tape, and let insurance try and collect. Sadly OP will have to eat $500, but that's a general life tax that comes up now and again.

 

[Sand]

I can’t have my wages garnishied

Cash only gigolo? Yeah, same here.

 

[culdeus]

Basic plan here is to file the police report over the weekend. This needs to be done sooner than later if the intention is to file a claim on my own insurance. I don't know at all if the PD will come and issue any citations or even do anything at all. I will file it as a hit and run. Mainly because there's no real other option, not out of some malice towards the dude here.

Once that's done, will reject the payment plan idea. That wasn't going to happen. Going to wait a bit and see if HR or the PD get involved in any meaningful way before considering SCC.

 

[The General]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

HR ain't garnishing wages without a court order. Look, there's DIY and then there's PITA. I wouldn't want to waste an iota of my time if it will involve any justice system work. You think insurance companies are out for a buck? Wait until you consult a lawyer imo. Whether it's time or money, my insurance company will handle this more effectively and efficiently, with the least involvement from me, of any of the other options I've seen here.

I don't disagree with getting the guy to just give me a check. I've done that myself with one of my kids' car accidents (not his fault obviously). But as soon as he starts talking payments, I'm out. Ain't nobody got time for that, especially when you've got all the leverage you need.

Small claims in texas is not that big a deal, plaintiffs don't really need a lawyer. Takes less time than to go thru the DMV. Whether it collects is another matter. I do not want to go down that road if I don't have to.

People’s Court or Judge Judy.

Only way this dude is getting money to pay you.

Let us know when your episode airs.

 

[northern exposure]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

HR ain't garnishing wages without a court order. Look, there's DIY and then there's PITA. I wouldn't want to waste an iota of my time if it will involve any justice system work. You think insurance companies are out for a buck? Wait until you consult a lawyer imo. Whether it's time or money, my insurance company will handle this more effectively and efficiently, with the least involvement from me, of any of the other options I've seen here.

I don't disagree with getting the guy to just give me a check. I've done that myself with one of my kids' car accidents (not his fault obviously). But as soon as he starts talking payments, I'm out. Ain't nobody got time for that, especially when you've got all the leverage you need.

Small claims in texas is not that big a deal, plaintiffs don't really need a lawyer. Takes less time than to go thru the DMV. Whether it collects is another matter. I do not want to go down that road if I don't have to.

People’s Court or Judge Judy.

Only way this dude is getting money to pay you.

Let us know when your episode airs.

Maybe snotbubbles acts as Mr. Hitandrun's counsel?

 

[Ghost Rider]

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

Yeah, the dude could have a sick kid at home and really doesn't have the funds to pay for a repair or insurance and is hanging on by a string and you're worried about hurting your points driving a BMW. I think I might puncture the run flats too if I were him. Those are expensive.

You're coming off like a complete tool.

I love when people from Philly demonstrate why they have the rep that they do. It's well-earned.

 

[fred_1_15301]

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

Yeah, the dude could have a sick kid at home and really doesn't have the funds to pay for a repair or insurance and is hanging on by a string and you're worried about hurting your points driving a BMW. I think I might puncture the run flats too if I were him. Those are expensive.

Stay classy, Pennsyltuckey!

I'm not going to gouge a guy for a few grand when I can put it on my insurance for a $500 deductible.

Holding someone responsible for the damages that they actually caused isn't exactly "gouging" them. Honestly, this is one of the strangest takes I've seen.

Seriously. Do we just give everyone a pass because they could possibly be dealing with some difficulties?

 

[the rover]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

HR ain't garnishing wages without a court order. Look, there's DIY and then there's PITA. I wouldn't want to waste an iota of my time if it will involve any justice system work. You think insurance companies are out for a buck? Wait until you consult a lawyer imo. Whether it's time or money, my insurance company will handle this more effectively and efficiently, with the least involvement from me, of any of the other options I've seen here.

I don't disagree with getting the guy to just give me a check. I've done that myself with one of my kids' car accidents (not his fault obviously). But as soon as he starts talking payments, I'm out. Ain't nobody got time for that, especially when you've got all the leverage you need.

Small claims in texas is not that big a deal, plaintiffs don't really need a lawyer. Takes less time than to go thru the DMV. Whether it collects is another matter. I do not want to go down that road if I don't have to.

It takes about 10 minutes to get a wage garnishment.

I can’t have my wages garnishied

are you a maintenance guy that works for the same company?

 

[massraider]

Seriously. Do we just give everyone a pass because they could possibly be dealing with some difficulties?

Only some people. Airline workers, DMV employees, telemarketers....You know, the usual.

 

[Keerock]

I can’t have my wages garnishied

I saw my pimp today... Here's $1000... keep $10 and get yourself a nice piece of ***

 

[Zegras11]

2 pages and no "sleep with his wife?"

I posted it Thur pm and it got deleted and I got 24 hour TO... And now I come back and it was posted Fri AM and it has been quoted.

 

[Psychopav]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

HR ain't garnishing wages without a court order. Look, there's DIY and then there's PITA. I wouldn't want to waste an iota of my time if it will involve any justice system work. You think insurance companies are out for a buck? Wait until you consult a lawyer imo. Whether it's time or money, my insurance company will handle this more effectively and efficiently, with the least involvement from me, of any of the other options I've seen here.

I don't disagree with getting the guy to just give me a check. I've done that myself with one of my kids' car accidents (not his fault obviously). But as soon as he starts talking payments, I'm out. Ain't nobody got time for that, especially when you've got all the leverage you need.

Small claims in texas is not that big a deal, plaintiffs don't really need a lawyer. Takes less time than to go thru the DMV. Whether it collects is another matter. I do not want to go down that road if I don't have to.

Interesting, I had no idea. Have you sued in SCC here?

 

[culdeus]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

HR ain't garnishing wages without a court order. Look, there's DIY and then there's PITA. I wouldn't want to waste an iota of my time if it will involve any justice system work. You think insurance companies are out for a buck? Wait until you consult a lawyer imo. Whether it's time or money, my insurance company will handle this more effectively and efficiently, with the least involvement from me, of any of the other options I've seen here.

I don't disagree with getting the guy to just give me a check. I've done that myself with one of my kids' car accidents (not his fault obviously). But as soon as he starts talking payments, I'm out. Ain't nobody got time for that, especially when you've got all the leverage you need.

Small claims in texas is not that big a deal, plaintiffs don't really need a lawyer. Takes less time than to go thru the DMV. Whether it collects is another matter. I do not want to go down that road if I don't have to.

Interesting, I had no idea. Have you sued in SCC here?

No but I'm familiar with the process from people suing Southwest airlines and AA at times.

 

[Terminalxylem]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

The worst possible advice? I think you’re undervaluing his time. A part of having insurance is handling the inevitable irritation that goes with getting repair estimates and collecting money from a stranger. If this guy had owned up to the accident right away, sure, but he’s already shown he’s a weasel, willing to do the wrong thing. Although interacting with insurers can also be a hassle, if I cared enough to get the car repaired, I’d be willing to pay for the downstream consequences.

A couple years ago, a woman side-swiped my non-German, unlettered econobox. She immediately admitted fault, and asked if we could handle it outside of insurance. I obliged, and forwarded the estimate a few days later. She then started questioning all the fees incurred in the repair, after I had invested an afternoon to take my car to a reputable shop. She wanted me to get another estimate, at which point I contacted my insurer. They sent an adjuster the following day to my workplace, and communicated with her insurer. A month or so later they cut me a check, and my rates never increased.

Of course the OPs situation is way different, but my point is, there is effort associated with handling this on your own, and that effort has some monetary value. I fully realize insurers are also capable of creating a hassle, but I suspect the effort will be far greater trying to extract funds from the guy willing to hit-and-run.

 

[fruity pebbles]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

The worst possible advice? I think you’re undervaluing his time. A part of having insurance is handling the inevitable irritation that goes with getting repair estimates and collecting money from a stranger. If this guy had owned up to the accident right away, sure, but he’s already shown he’s a weasel, willing to do the wrong thing. Although interacting with insurers can also be a hassle, if I cared enough to get the car repaired, I’d be willing to pay for the downstream consequences.

A couple years ago, a woman side-swiped my non-German, unlettered econobox. She immediately admitted fault, and asked if we could handle it outside of insurance. I obliged, and forwarded the estimate a few days later. She then started questioning all the fees incurred in the repair, after I had invested an afternoon to take my car to a reputable shop. She wanted me to get another estimate, at which point I contacted my insurer. They sent an adjuster the following day to my workplace, and communicated with her insurer. A month or so later they cut me a check, and my rates never increased.

Of course the OPs situation is way different, but my point is, there is effort associated with handling this on your own, and that effort has some monetary value. I fully realize insurers are also capable of creating a hassle, but I suspect the effort will be far greater trying to extract funds from the guy willing to hit-and-run.

Not to mention the guy wanted to go on a payment plan. What are the chances you see anything past the initial payment? I’d say less than 50%.

 

[Terminalxylem]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

The worst possible advice? I think you’re undervaluing his time. A part of having insurance is handling the inevitable irritation that goes with getting repair estimates and collecting money from a stranger. If this guy had owned up to the accident right away, sure, but he’s already shown he’s a weasel, willing to do the wrong thing. Although interacting with insurers can also be a hassle, if I cared enough to get the car repaired, I’d be willing to pay for the downstream consequences.

A couple years ago, a woman side-swiped my non-German, unlettered econobox. She immediately admitted fault, and asked if we could handle it outside of insurance. I obliged, and forwarded the estimate a few days later. She then started questioning all the fees incurred in the repair, after I had invested an afternoon to take my car to a reputable shop. She wanted me to get another estimate, at which point I contacted my insurer. They sent an adjuster the following day to my workplace, and communicated with her insurer. A month or so later they cut me a check, and my rates never increased.

Of course the OPs situation is way different, but my point is, there is effort associated with handling this on your own, and that effort has some monetary value. I fully realize insurers are also capable of creating a hassle, but I suspect the effort will be far greater trying to extract funds from the guy willing to hit-and-run.

Not to mention the guy wanted to go on a payment plan. What are the chances you see anything past the initial payment? I’d say less than 50%.

Yep. I wouldn’t be looking for a long term relationship with the guy - just get the car fixed, with as little effort as possible. Actually, if the car is more than a few years old and still functions OK, I’d probably not fix it at all. But I’m also not in the habit of reselling my vehicles.

In my scenario above I initially declined some work in the estimate, to give the woman a break, just because my car was old, and she appeared to be behaving responsibly. I don’t know what she ultimately ended up paying, but my insurer cut me a check several hundred dollars higher than my estimate. I used the money to buy a replacement mirror, installed it myself, and never repaired the minor body damage. But my hourly labor costs ended up being quite a bit higher than any body shop…

I’d also love to know how a non-lawyer can garnish wages in 10 minutes.

 

[eoMMan]

What do you mean by maintenance worker and your wife sees him everyday? Do you guys live in a condo/apartment building of some kind? Is she sleeping with him?

Also, I've seen a lot of true crime stories where the killer was a maintenance worker. Be careful here.

 

[Tom Servo]

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert,

Pardon my ignorance, what does this mean?

His wife’s car yelled at him, “I’VE BEEN HIT!!”

 

[culdeus]

What do you mean by maintenance worker and your wife sees him everyday? Do you guys live in a condo/apartment building of some kind? Is she sleeping with him?

Also, I've seen a lot of true crime stories where the killer was a maintenance worker. Be careful here.

Is this really all that hard to understand? Works in a building with on site maintenance. Everyday might be an exaggeration but it's not unusual for them to be in the same area.

 

[culdeus]

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert,

Pardon my ignorance, what does this mean?

His wife’s car yelled at him, “I’VE BEEN HIT!!”

Teslas send you a notification if the alarm gets set off.

 

[culdeus]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

The worst possible advice? I think you’re undervaluing his time. A part of having insurance is handling the inevitable irritation that goes with getting repair estimates and collecting money from a stranger. If this guy had owned up to the accident right away, sure, but he’s already shown he’s a weasel, willing to do the wrong thing. Although interacting with insurers can also be a hassle, if I cared enough to get the car repaired, I’d be willing to pay for the downstream consequences.

A couple years ago, a woman side-swiped my non-German, unlettered econobox. She immediately admitted fault, and asked if we could handle it outside of insurance. I obliged, and forwarded the estimate a few days later. She then started questioning all the fees incurred in the repair, after I had invested an afternoon to take my car to a reputable shop. She wanted me to get another estimate, at which point I contacted my insurer. They sent an adjuster the following day to my workplace, and communicated with her insurer. A month or so later they cut me a check, and my rates never increased.

Of course the OPs situation is way different, but my point is, there is effort associated with handling this on your own, and that effort has some monetary value. I fully realize insurers are also capable of creating a hassle, but I suspect the effort will be far greater trying to extract funds from the guy willing to hit-and-run.

Not to mention the guy wanted to go on a payment plan. What are the chances you see anything past the initial payment? I’d say less than 50%.

Yep. I wouldn’t be looking for a long term relationship with the guy - just get the car fixed, with as little effort as possible. Actually, if the car is more than a few years old and still functions OK, I’d probably not fix it at all. But I’m also not in the habit of reselling my vehicles.

In my scenario above I initially declined some work in the estimate, to give the woman a break, just because my car was old, and she appeared to be behaving responsibly. I don’t know what she ultimately ended up paying, but my insurer cut me a check several hundred dollars higher than my estimate. I used the money to buy a replacement mirror, installed it myself, and never repaired the minor body damage. But my hourly labor costs ended up being quite a bit higher than any body shop…

I’d also love to know how a non-lawyer can garnish wages in 10 minutes.

Small claims court takes about 10 minutes, in Texas getting a garnish can take 2 years.

 

[Terminalxylem]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

The worst possible advice? I think you’re undervaluing his time. A part of having insurance is handling the inevitable irritation that goes with getting repair estimates and collecting money from a stranger. If this guy had owned up to the accident right away, sure, but he’s already shown he’s a weasel, willing to do the wrong thing. Although interacting with insurers can also be a hassle, if I cared enough to get the car repaired, I’d be willing to pay for the downstream consequences.

A couple years ago, a woman side-swiped my non-German, unlettered econobox. She immediately admitted fault, and asked if we could handle it outside of insurance. I obliged, and forwarded the estimate a few days later. She then started questioning all the fees incurred in the repair, after I had invested an afternoon to take my car to a reputable shop. She wanted me to get another estimate, at which point I contacted my insurer. They sent an adjuster the following day to my workplace, and communicated with her insurer. A month or so later they cut me a check, and my rates never increased.

Of course the OPs situation is way different, but my point is, there is effort associated with handling this on your own, and that effort has some monetary value. I fully realize insurers are also capable of creating a hassle, but I suspect the effort will be far greater trying to extract funds from the guy willing to hit-and-run.

Not to mention the guy wanted to go on a payment plan. What are the chances you see anything past the initial payment? I’d say less than 50%.

Yep. I wouldn’t be looking for a long term relationship with the guy - just get the car fixed, with as little effort as possible. Actually, if the car is more than a few years old and still functions OK, I’d probably not fix it at all. But I’m also not in the habit of reselling my vehicles.

In my scenario above I initially declined some work in the estimate, to give the woman a break, just because my car was old, and she appeared to be behaving responsibly. I don’t know what she ultimately ended up paying, but my insurer cut me a check several hundred dollars higher than my estimate. I used the money to buy a replacement mirror, installed it myself, and never repaired the minor body damage. But my hourly labor costs ended up being quite a bit higher than any body shop…

I’d also love to know how a non-lawyer can garnish wages in 10 minutes.

Small claims court takes about 10 minutes, in Texas getting a garnish can take 2 years.

It blows my mind that anything in the court system can take10 minute, if you’ve never done it before, or have legal training.

 

[-fish-]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

The worst possible advice? I think you’re undervaluing his time. A part of having insurance is handling the inevitable irritation that goes with getting repair estimates and collecting money from a stranger. If this guy had owned up to the accident right away, sure, but he’s already shown he’s a weasel, willing to do the wrong thing. Although interacting with insurers can also be a hassle, if I cared enough to get the car repaired, I’d be willing to pay for the downstream consequences.

A couple years ago, a woman side-swiped my non-German, unlettered econobox. She immediately admitted fault, and asked if we could handle it outside of insurance. I obliged, and forwarded the estimate a few days later. She then started questioning all the fees incurred in the repair, after I had invested an afternoon to take my car to a reputable shop. She wanted me to get another estimate, at which point I contacted my insurer. They sent an adjuster the following day to my workplace, and communicated with her insurer. A month or so later they cut me a check, and my rates never increased.

Of course the OPs situation is way different, but my point is, there is effort associated with handling this on your own, and that effort has some monetary value. I fully realize insurers are also capable of creating a hassle, but I suspect the effort will be far greater trying to extract funds from the guy willing to hit-and-run.

Not to mention the guy wanted to go on a payment plan. What are the chances you see anything past the initial payment? I’d say less than 50%.

Yep. I wouldn’t be looking for a long term relationship with the guy - just get the car fixed, with as little effort as possible. Actually, if the car is more than a few years old and still functions OK, I’d probably not fix it at all. But I’m also not in the habit of reselling my vehicles.

In my scenario above I initially declined some work in the estimate, to give the woman a break, just because my car was old, and she appeared to be behaving responsibly. I don’t know what she ultimately ended up paying, but my insurer cut me a check several hundred dollars higher than my estimate. I used the money to buy a replacement mirror, installed it myself, and never repaired the minor body damage. But my hourly labor costs ended up being quite a bit higher than any body shop…

I’d also love to know how a non-lawyer can garnish wages in 10 minutes.

Small claims court takes about 10 minutes, in Texas getting a garnish can take 2 years.

You go to small claims and get a judgment. Then you file a writ for wage garnishment based on the judgment. It is a form. It gets rubber stamped. Then you serve it on the employer and the garnishee. The only way it would take two years is if you took two years to file it.

 

[culdeus]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

The worst possible advice? I think you’re undervaluing his time. A part of having insurance is handling the inevitable irritation that goes with getting repair estimates and collecting money from a stranger. If this guy had owned up to the accident right away, sure, but he’s already shown he’s a weasel, willing to do the wrong thing. Although interacting with insurers can also be a hassle, if I cared enough to get the car repaired, I’d be willing to pay for the downstream consequences.

A couple years ago, a woman side-swiped my non-German, unlettered econobox. She immediately admitted fault, and asked if we could handle it outside of insurance. I obliged, and forwarded the estimate a few days later. She then started questioning all the fees incurred in the repair, after I had invested an afternoon to take my car to a reputable shop. She wanted me to get another estimate, at which point I contacted my insurer. They sent an adjuster the following day to my workplace, and communicated with her insurer. A month or so later they cut me a check, and my rates never increased.

Of course the OPs situation is way different, but my point is, there is effort associated with handling this on your own, and that effort has some monetary value. I fully realize insurers are also capable of creating a hassle, but I suspect the effort will be far greater trying to extract funds from the guy willing to hit-and-run.

Not to mention the guy wanted to go on a payment plan. What are the chances you see anything past the initial payment? I’d say less than 50%.

Yep. I wouldn’t be looking for a long term relationship with the guy - just get the car fixed, with as little effort as possible. Actually, if the car is more than a few years old and still functions OK, I’d probably not fix it at all. But I’m also not in the habit of reselling my vehicles.

In my scenario above I initially declined some work in the estimate, to give the woman a break, just because my car was old, and she appeared to be behaving responsibly. I don’t know what she ultimately ended up paying, but my insurer cut me a check several hundred dollars higher than my estimate. I used the money to buy a replacement mirror, installed it myself, and never repaired the minor body damage. But my hourly labor costs ended up being quite a bit higher than any body shop…

I’d also love to know how a non-lawyer can garnish wages in 10 minutes.

Small claims court takes about 10 minutes, in Texas getting a garnish can take 2 years.

It blows my mind that anything in the court system can take10 minute, if you’ve never done it before, or have legal training.

Scc in Texas is basically just handing over your documentation of loss and establishment of who caused it. 10 min maybe over stating it. Could be 2 if presented quickly and the other party no shows.

 

[culdeus]

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert, texted wife she went out and didn't initially see anything.

Then she saw damage to the rear bumper when looked at end of day. Video pinned it to a maintenance worker, who fessed up the next day and gave my wife his name/number.

Claims he got out and looked and saw nothing. Didn't look very hard I guess.

Text the guy and said the photo estimate for the shop I use said $2000 easy and would he want to run insurance on this. Texted back "I don't carry insurance on this Van, I use it for work"

In Texas liability insurance follows the driver, not the car.

I responded back to drop a check off for $2000 tomorrow, and reminded him about how liability policies work in Texas.

Gonna be awkward because wife sees this guy every day. Advice/schtick welcome.

If the guy doesn't have insurance, your insurance company will cover under the uninsured/underinsured driver clause. Instead of making the guy pay the $2000 (which he probably doesn't have), you should do the guy a solid and just run it through your insurance and have him pay your deductible.

He will for sure get a ticket and points this way if uninsured. They screwed with the laws on this finally and the penalties are fairly bad if you get caught in this situation. Especially if it's a drive off. To file this I'd have to make a police report.

File the report and say you don't know when the car got hit. You noticed it on [pick a date]. You don't have to throw the guy under the bus to get your insurance to cover this.

That will hurt my points more. You get a vanishing deductible if you can pin it on someone, and they can confirm you didn't do it yourself. Given the guy drove off, I'm not inclined to give him a break.

Your the type of prick I would key your car on a weekly basis.

Really? Dude hits wife's car and drives off, only owns up to it with video. His bumper is ****ed, and the alarm went off on our car so he knew he hit it. And I'm the *******?

In his defense, he did basically the same thing your wife did, right? Took a look, didn't see any damage, moved along. How is that different from what your wife did, other than the fact that she looked again hours later?

Here's the thing. Where she is there are geese. Geese jump on cars and set the alarm off. It happens. It's cold so they are all gone right now so this was unusual.

When he hit the car the alarm for sure went off. So he knew there was contact. At a minimum at that point you leave a note. His bumper was ****ED and had paint from our car on it, even the next day.

So I don't really buy his story. My wife is not the most observant, so I give her a pass thinking it was a false alarm at first, but once we looked at the video both from parking lot and the car it was obvious the dude wasn't really in any hurry to do anything but bounce, this while a car alarm is blaring.

Security called him and said he had to make contact with my wife or they would escalate to HR, apparently. They seem to have done that anyways.

Oh, that's a different story. Did he contract her, or did she have to contact him after recognizing him on the video?

Step 1: Guy hits car and leaves (2:44pm), wife goes to investigate at this time exterior to car. Does not look at video.
Step 2: Looks at video on car and see hit (4:10pm)
Step 3: We contact security with this information
Step 4: Security has their own footage of the event and reviews around 5:30pm
Step 5: They reach out to the driver, and say you need to own this, now.
About 8am the next morning he makes first contact with Wife in person, I take over texting with the guy. Haven't seen him face to face yet.

It's highly debatable whether he "didn't see any damage so he left" I don't know how that will stand up if he tries to claim no harm no foul.

All things considered, I'd bring my insurance company into the mix and have them deal with the collection. If they told me to file a police report, I'd do it. Sounds like the company will corroborate. if you don't have anything in writing from them, I'd ask the wife to see if she can get something just to have some written documentation of what they have, before taking the next step.

What would you have him do? Cut him a check? Sure……..he doesn’t have the money. Payment plan and you’re never seeing it.

There are a ton of ways to deal with it, especially with him working at the same company. HR will garnish wages if necessary. Making a claim on his own insurance is the worst possible advice.

The worst possible advice? I think you’re undervaluing his time. A part of having insurance is handling the inevitable irritation that goes with getting repair estimates and collecting money from a stranger. If this guy had owned up to the accident right away, sure, but he’s already shown he’s a weasel, willing to do the wrong thing. Although interacting with insurers can also be a hassle, if I cared enough to get the car repaired, I’d be willing to pay for the downstream consequences.

A couple years ago, a woman side-swiped my non-German, unlettered econobox. She immediately admitted fault, and asked if we could handle it outside of insurance. I obliged, and forwarded the estimate a few days later. She then started questioning all the fees incurred in the repair, after I had invested an afternoon to take my car to a reputable shop. She wanted me to get another estimate, at which point I contacted my insurer. They sent an adjuster the following day to my workplace, and communicated with her insurer. A month or so later they cut me a check, and my rates never increased.

Of course the OPs situation is way different, but my point is, there is effort associated with handling this on your own, and that effort has some monetary value. I fully realize insurers are also capable of creating a hassle, but I suspect the effort will be far greater trying to extract funds from the guy willing to hit-and-run.

Not to mention the guy wanted to go on a payment plan. What are the chances you see anything past the initial payment? I’d say less than 50%.

Yep. I wouldn’t be looking for a long term relationship with the guy - just get the car fixed, with as little effort as possible. Actually, if the car is more than a few years old and still functions OK, I’d probably not fix it at all. But I’m also not in the habit of reselling my vehicles.

In my scenario above I initially declined some work in the estimate, to give the woman a break, just because my car was old, and she appeared to be behaving responsibly. I don’t know what she ultimately ended up paying, but my insurer cut me a check several hundred dollars higher than my estimate. I used the money to buy a replacement mirror, installed it myself, and never repaired the minor body damage. But my hourly labor costs ended up being quite a bit higher than any body shop…

I’d also love to know how a non-lawyer can garnish wages in 10 minutes.

Small claims court takes about 10 minutes, in Texas getting a garnish can take 2 years.

You go to small claims and get a judgment. Then you file a writ for wage garnishment based on the judgment. It is a form. It gets rubber stamped. Then you serve it on the employer and the garnishee. The only way it would take two years is if you took two years to file it.

It get funky if the person has a bk on the record or child support to pay. Can claim can't pay other obligations. Scc is very low on the creditor list.

 

[Dan Lambskin]

I just don’t get the hesitation from people to use their insurance

 

[STEADYMOBBIN 22]

I just don’t get the hesitation from people to use their insurance

What do you mean? My insurance company is looking for any and every excuse to raise my rates. If I can avoid them snitching on me and raising my monthly payment I’ll do what I can to avoid that.

 

[John123]

I just don’t get the hesitation from people to use their insurance

What do you mean? My insurance company is looking for any and every excuse to raise my rates. If I can avoid them snitching on me and raising my monthly payment I’ll do what I can to avoid that.

They're really not, especially when the accident was the fault of the other driver.

 

[Keerock]

I just don’t get the hesitation from people to use their insurance

What do you mean? My insurance company is looking for any and every excuse to raise my rates. If I can avoid them snitching on me and raising my monthly payment I’ll do what I can to avoid that.

They're really not, especially when the accident was the fault of the other driver.

My experience is 100% the opposite. I actually started a claim with my insurance company and then decided (because I have a large deductible) that it made more sense to just pay for it myself. Just filing the claim, even though they never had to pay out, raised my rates. I confirmed that the claim was the reason for the increase.

 

[Dan Lambskin]

I just don’t get the hesitation from people to use their insurance

What do you mean? My insurance company is looking for any and every excuse to raise my rates. If I can avoid them snitching on me and raising my monthly payment I’ll do what I can to avoid that.

They're really not, especially when the accident was the fault of the other driver.

My experience is 100% the opposite. I actually started a claim with my insurance company and then decided (because I have a large deductible) that it made more sense to just pay for it myself. Just filing the claim, even though they never had to pay out, raised my rates. I confirmed that the claim was the reason for the increase.

Wouldn’t they waive your deductible if you are not at fault?

 

[John123]

I just don’t get the hesitation from people to use their insurance

What do you mean? My insurance company is looking for any and every excuse to raise my rates. If I can avoid them snitching on me and raising my monthly payment I’ll do what I can to avoid that.

They're really not, especially when the accident was the fault of the other driver.

My experience is 100% the opposite. I actually started a claim with my insurance company and then decided (because I have a large deductible) that it made more sense to just pay for it myself. Just filing the claim, even though they never had to pay out, raised my rates. I confirmed that the claim was the reason for the increase.

Wouldn’t they waive your deductible if you are not at fault?

No. Typically you have to pay the deductible until fault is determined. Depending how much damage there is and how quickly that determination is made, you may want to pay the deductible and get reimbursed when the insurance companies agree on fault. I once had to pay my deductible and wait over a year before that determination was made.

 

[Dan Lambskin]

I just don’t get the hesitation from people to use their insurance

What do you mean? My insurance company is looking for any and every excuse to raise my rates. If I can avoid them snitching on me and raising my monthly payment I’ll do what I can to avoid that.

They're really not, especially when the accident was the fault of the other driver.

My experience is 100% the opposite. I actually started a claim with my insurance company and then decided (because I have a large deductible) that it made more sense to just pay for it myself. Just filing the claim, even though they never had to pay out, raised my rates. I confirmed that the claim was the reason for the increase.

Wouldn’t they waive your deductible if you are not at fault?

No. Typically you have to pay the deductible until fault is determined. Depending how much damage there is and how quickly that determination is made, you may want to pay the deductible and get reimbursed when the insurance companies agree on fault. I once had to pay my deductible and wait over a year before that determination was made.

I personally have had deductible waived and never had to pay up front. Must vary by state and insurance company

 

[Chris B.]

I just don’t get the hesitation from people to use their insurance

What do you mean? My insurance company is looking for any and every excuse to raise my rates. If I can avoid them snitching on me and raising my monthly payment I’ll do what I can to avoid that.

They're really not, especially when the accident was the fault of the other driver.

My experience is 100% the opposite. I actually started a claim with my insurance company and then decided (because I have a large deductible) that it made more sense to just pay for it myself. Just filing the claim, even though they never had to pay out, raised my rates. I confirmed that the claim was the reason for the increase.

Wouldn’t they waive your deductible if you are not at fault?

No. Typically you have to pay the deductible until fault is determined. Depending how much damage there is and how quickly that determination is made, you may want to pay the deductible and get reimbursed when the insurance companies agree on fault. I once had to pay my deductible and wait over a year before that determination was made.

I personally have had deductible waived and never had to pay up front. Must vary by state and insurance company

I think this is the case. So many people in here are scared to report to their carriers because they got the cheapest provider. So now they may as well have no coverage. You pay your premiums so that the company reimburses you and subrogates against the at-fault party without you ever having to know about it.

 

[JAA]

I just don’t get the hesitation from people to use their insurance

What do you mean? My insurance company is looking for any and every excuse to raise my rates. If I can avoid them snitching on me and raising my monthly payment I’ll do what I can to avoid that.

They're really not, especially when the accident was the fault of the other driver.

My experience is 100% the opposite. I actually started a claim with my insurance company and then decided (because I have a large deductible) that it made more sense to just pay for it myself. Just filing the claim, even though they never had to pay out, raised my rates. I confirmed that the claim was the reason for the increase.

Wouldn’t they waive your deductible if you are not at fault?

No. Typically you have to pay the deductible until fault is determined. Depending how much damage there is and how quickly that determination is made, you may want to pay the deductible and get reimbursed when the insurance companies agree on fault. I once had to pay my deductible and wait over a year before that determination was made.

This has been my experience (Maryland)

 

[coopersdad]

We've been w/ the lizard for 4-5 years now, never made a claim (except windshield chips). Every year look for cheaper alternatives. No one could ever beat them, or even get close. Last summer youngest son got hit and her insurance paid for the issue. Never contacted our insurance. February bill comes..............and we are up from the previous 6/month policy by 650 for 3 cars, which now takes them close to other agencies. I called and asked, and the lady said it was NOT because of any claims, but just the price of doing business (supply chain) with auto repair companies now.

 

[Keerock]

I just don’t get the hesitation from people to use their insurance

What do you mean? My insurance company is looking for any and every excuse to raise my rates. If I can avoid them snitching on me and raising my monthly payment I’ll do what I can to avoid that.

They're really not, especially when the accident was the fault of the other driver.

My experience is 100% the opposite. I actually started a claim with my insurance company and then decided (because I have a large deductible) that it made more sense to just pay for it myself. Just filing the claim, even though they never had to pay out, raised my rates. I confirmed that the claim was the reason for the increase.

Wouldn’t they waive your deductible if you are not at fault?

I don't remember that being the case...

 

[ChiefD]

I think this is the case. So many people in here are scared to report to their carriers because they got the cheapest provider. So now they may as well have no coverage. You pay your premiums so that the company reimburses you and subrogates against the at-fault party without you ever having to know about it.

Yeah. I'm a big fan of using someone for my insurance that is someone I know personally. I've had two insurance agents in 35 years. The first one was a recommendation from a friend and so I got to know her really good over the years. I would meet with her once a year and occasionally drop my payments off over at her office just to show my face and say hi. To make a long story short it paid off because our rates never went up after my wife wrecked the car AND our agent pushed through some other things over the years on my house.

She ended up retiring about 7 years ago so now my insurance agent is a friend of mine I went to grade school with. We've been friends for 40 years.

EVERYONE knows an insurance agent - to me these relationships pay off big time and is well worth a few extra bucks a month.

 

[STEADYMOBBIN 22]

I just don’t get the hesitation from people to use their insurance

What do you mean? My insurance company is looking for any and every excuse to raise my rates. If I can avoid them snitching on me and raising my monthly payment I’ll do what I can to avoid that.

They're really not, especially when the accident was the fault of the other driver.

My experience is 100% the opposite. I actually started a claim with my insurance company and then decided (because I have a large deductible) that it made more sense to just pay for it myself. Just filing the claim, even though they never had to pay out, raised my rates. I confirmed that the claim was the reason for the increase.

Wouldn’t they waive your deductible if you are not at fault?

No. Typically you have to pay the deductible until fault is determined. Depending how much damage there is and how quickly that determination is made, you may want to pay the deductible and get reimbursed when the insurance companies agree on fault. I once had to pay my deductible and wait over a year before that determination was made.

This has been my experience (Maryland)

Yes, that’s how it works but if you are found to not be at fault you still get dinged for being in an accident.

 

[Grahamburn]

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert,

Pardon my ignorance, what does this mean?

He's just trying to tell us his wife drives a BMW.

Model 3

An M3 or just a 3 series?

 

[Grahamburn]

Yeah not sure why we are going easy on the guy when he fled

Anyone remember that movie with Laurence Fishburne and Steven Baldwin called "Fled," and one of Laurence's lines is actually "We gotta Fled!" just to get the title of the movie in? Man, good times.

 

[Chris B.]

I think this is the case. So many people in here are scared to report to their carriers because they got the cheapest provider. So now they may as well have no coverage. You pay your premiums so that the company reimburses you and subrogates against the at-fault party without you ever having to know about it.

Yeah. I'm a big fan of using someone for my insurance that is someone I know personally. I've had two insurance agents in 35 years. The first one was a recommendation from a friend and so I got to know her really good over the years. I would meet with her once a year and occasionally drop my payments off over at her office just to show my face and say hi. To make a long story short it paid off because our rates never went up after my wife wrecked the car AND our agent pushed through some other things over the years on my house.

She ended up retiring about 7 years ago so now my insurance agent is a friend of mine I went to grade school with. We've been friends for 40 years.

EVERYONE knows an insurance agent - to me these relationships pay off big time and is well worth a few extra bucks a month.

Absolutely. The industry is small, and even just among broker/agents, names and reputations are known. Relationships are key up and down the chain.

 

[culdeus]

Filed a police report. Going to let that play out before going to insurance. Will probably get a more formal quote in the meantime.

 

[Tom Servo]

Yesterday evening wife's M3 hit me with a security alert,

Pardon my ignorance, what does this mean?

His wife’s car yelled at him, “I’VE BEEN HIT!!”

Teslas send you a notification if the alarm gets set off.

You realize that was joke GB?

 

[culdeus]

UPDATE

Filed police report and had a call from detective about a week and a day or so later. He was confused because the car was still registered to my wife's work. I explained that he claimed he bought it from their surplus asset sales, and owned it outright.

Cop indicated that the DA would not likely pursue this as a hit and run and instead would probably go after him for not registering the vehicle. Also indicated my insurance would have a hell of a time with this and I needed to get the work involved and try to come up with a bill of sale before they try to press her work.

ok

Sent a note with the updated police report to the HR person which was copied by security at one point. Explained the facts and that most likely my insurance would be reaching out to them first since the car was never registered.

They were surprised as the asset sale was in 2019! For a whopping $400 which was taken as a paycheck deduction. Neat.

Anyways, went and got a formal bid on the damage which came to 1450 and change from a body shop I use.

This morning the work contacted me and said send the bid their way, they offered to pay the whole thing out of their pocket. Additionally, the person who was responsible wasn't at the office today.

One thing the HR person didn't realize was that the alarm was going off after the hit, I said, nah it went off and it was logged in the computer. No way he didn't hear it or know this. I'm not sure, but I do think they maybe fired him for inconsistency in how he told that part of the story.

Happy ending.

 

[JAA]

Thank god SOMEONE cares about closing out threads!