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Compensation Claims


SueK

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Hi All

 

This is a bit of a rant and I'm putting this here in case there are any of you who have had similar circumstances and can advise.

 

About 3 years ago I had a car accident at my place of work. A colleague went into the back of my car and basically wrote it off. I wasn't injured at all and once all the paperwork was done and I got another car I went about my business.

 

About 6 months later I received an unsolicited phone call asking if I wanted to claim compensation for a neck/shoulder or whiplash injury. It took me a while to work out the person was talking about the car accident. I said I had no injury and obviously wasn't going to make any illegal claim for compensation. Didn't think anymore about but - to cut a long story short, I STILL get regular calls to claim, right up to yesterday evening when I'm afraid I really lost my rag and told them to stop calling as what they were suggesting is immoral and I am NOT claiming for whiplash or anything else. The guy says that the whiplash can happen even 3 years after an accident!!!!

 

How do I get rid of these people. The company is UK Survey (can't find anything on google) and it sounds like they are calling from overseas (India comes to mind). It's driving me mad - no pun intended ;) but I would love to compalin to an Ombusdsman or something but don't know who.

 

Thanks for listening (I'm not more>than Freeman :D )

Edited by SueK
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How annoying! I hate it when companies keep phoning back when you've already said no.

 

This company sounds a little iffy to me though, UK Survey doesn't sound like a company that deals with accident claims and you would think even if they didn't have a website there'd be some record of them online! Did they definitely know you'd had an accident or did they just say vague things until you told them you didn't want to claim?

I had a phone call not long ago from a woman who was absolutely convinced I was owed £3000 from my bank for a loan I'd taken out... until I told her I'd never taken out a loan. She hung up pretty fast then!

 

I think you can probably just get their number blocked if you call whoever provides your phone line. Hope you manage to get it sorted out :smile:

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Thanks for your reply Hayley. They seem to work on behalf of an agency because they were well aware of my accident (named the date and other info concerning the accident.) I would love to get the number blocked but they withdraw their number before calling so I can't do that. I've told them I'm on TPS but because they've received my details through a third party it doesn't count. Grrrrr.

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We had a similar experience. We had a very minor bump, the front left side of the car was crushed, but we were totally uninjured.

We were getting text messages and phone calls about claiming before we even got back to the house an hour later!! Sharks can smell blood in the water....even when there's no blood.

The were encouraging me to claim when to do so would be fraudulent.

We got sick of the endless phone calls, so we started telling them that we'd made a claim with another company. We hadn't, but they didn't know that. We claimed for the damage to our car and that's all.

They put the idea of entitlment in your head, like you are personally owed money by the poor person who bumped into by accident.

Tell them you've gone with another company and the calls soon dry up.

 

Hope the sharks feeding frenzy quickly passes you by soon.

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Have you tried companies house Sue - every company registered in the UK has to by law be listed with them. It might be worth checking on their website. The reports are not that expensive to order. Failing that, there's always Watchdog !

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Thanks for the replies guys. I have spoken to BT this morning to ask them to block withheld calls. That was going to cost quite a bit extra on the monthly direct debit so I have asked them to give caller display on my phone instead - that's free and at least I can see if I recognise the number before I pick up the phone. It doesn't stop the sharks from still calling but at least I have an option to pick the phone up or not.

 

Yes, June, Watchdog is a good idea but I don't seem to have enough info about the company for Matt Allwright to go round and beat them up :D

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When faced with calls like this I always do the same thing.

 

Caller - "Hello, can I speak to Mr X please"?

 

Me - "Certainly, I'll just go and get them"

 

 

Put phone down and walk away - leave for at least 10 mins. They've usually given up by then

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Hi Sue/Mrs. Freeman

 

I hope the thing with BT works out for you. It seems no matter how you try and protect your privacy some shyster company always manages to get hold of your details. I suppose its the price we pay for living in a digital world. Sometimes technology sucks!

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Amen to that Milo.

 

Hi Ian, I've done that before ..... leaving the phone off the hook for a few minutes. But it's not right, is it, that we have to resort to these measures to get rid of these people.

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I'd suggest that you inform them that you will be involving the police as what they are doing is fraud and it may be international. Tell them that you will be recording all conversations with them and handing them over to the authorities who will be investigating their business.

 

Nothing stops a crook quicker than police involvement.

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I've found the one surefire way to stop repeat callers is to tell them you are going to report them to the police for harrassment. It's worked for me for several persistent companies who were repeatedly asked to remove us from their lists (we're ex-directory and on the list for DO NOT CALL - you know the thing you do to get your number rmoved from those lists). We used to get loads of calls from a window company till we threatened them with legal action. They then mysteriously stopped calling us - hurrah! :)

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I remember telling the company some time back that it was harrassment and I was calling the police but they insisted they weren't doing anything illegal!! The were almost willing me to admit to having an injury, even a slight neck ache so that I could claim. I wonder how people actually do go on to try to get compensation on the back of these calls!

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