I had a phone call from Direct Line Insurance today, the same lady I spoke to when I reported my car stolen back in July. Do you know what? The first thing she said to me was ‘do I know a MrDaz.com website?’…
Why yes, I do!
Seems that Royal Sun Alliance have been on here, and notified Direct Line that my stolen car had been recovered. Hello people from RSA if anyone’s reading!
She mentioned to me that Direct Line had paid out on the car, and that they wanted to take the car from me. Now hold on, it’s my car and I haven’t been paid at all. You see, my estranged wife collected on the car. I don’t know where she is, and had no way of contacting her.
I reported the car stolen back in July, to Direct Line. They said that given the circumstances of the theft, it was probably the garage’s fault and their insurance should cover it. They also said that they could pursue the garage’s insurance company (RSA) to ensure that they acted quickly. They said they needed some documents, including some from the wife as she was on the policy. I notified the wife of the theft, and told her that Direct Line had requested some info from her.
Now, when I called Direct Line the next day I was told to stop where I am, as they cannot speak to me. Seems the wife had instructed them not to talk to me at all, and to deal only with her.
This was annoying, as you can imagine. I tried to contact the wife about it, and managed to speak to her once where she told me that she was claiming the money. I explained that the garage’s insurance was coving the theft, but she wasn’t interested in that.
Then in August the car was recovered. By this time the wife had changed her mobile number, and I had no way of contacting her. As you remember, Direct Line told me they could not speak to me on the matter, so what could I do?
You’d think that perhaps the police would have notified the insurance company that the car was recovered? However, Direct Line never even knew the crime number as the police took 10 days to asign one (which I believe is a fast speed for the police) by which time I had been banned from speaking to Direct Line, so I couldn’t tell them the crime number at all.
The car was fixed by the garage, paid for by RSA and returned to me safely. Then I find out that Direct Line paid my wife over 6K for the car, as she sent a letter via her solicitor to mine notifying me of this fact.
So, my car is stolen, then the wife collects the insurance money, then the insurance company say they want the car! Not bloody likely. I’m sorry, but the wife knew that the garage’s insurance was dealing with it, and removed me from the policy deliberately so I couldn’t speak to Direct Line. She obviously saw the chance to grab a wedge of cash, and took it.
I’m the victim here, multiple times over. I hope Direct Line get their money back, and I offer my help in any way possible
Darren Jamieson, aka MrDaz, is the Technical Director and co-founder of Engage Web and has been working online in a career spanning two decades. His first website was built in 1998 and is still live today.
