RTC involving a ‘Clone’ - Libellous MID record
Discussion
Only a month after having taken delivery of a nearly new (pre-registered ex demo) company car we receive a letter in the post from a solicitor acting for an injured party claiming that our vehicle 'has been involved in a collision that has written off their clients parked vehicle by ramming it into another vehicle' and demanding to know who the driver was. The date of the collision was only a few days after we took delivery of the car and it happened in a part of the country that's a long way from us, that we have never ever visited. We have the car registered in our company rather than my personal name. Only me and the other half (both company directors) have access to it and it's kept at home. Prior to our purchase the car had been on AutoTrader with a main dealer with the number plate on full display (....foolishly).
I phoned the solicitors up and explained they had ‘got it wrong’, either there was a digit wrong or the vehicle involved was a clone. They confirmed the colour, make and model - which matched our vehicle. They disclosed a police incident number and that the offending driver was a ‘female’. I told them they were clearly dealing with a clone. They said to me ‘prove it’. I said I don’t need to, I will talk to the police and go from there. End of call.
A week or so later I get a letter from our company car insurer saying “I understand you have been involved in an accident”. A few days later I get a letter from my personal car insurer (renewed a week after the supposed accident date but before the claim letter was received) saying that “I had failed to notify them of an open fault claim” and that I now owed them a lot more money... pay up or my policy will be cancelled in 7 days!!
So despite it being a 'female' driver involved and despite our car being insured and registered to a 'company' and no name of driver being provided and despite being told it was a clone, this outfit have seen fit to put it on the MID database as a claim against my personal name!! And I am definitely male. Dealing with this over the last few weeks has been a frigging nightmare... stress that I could have done without, for all sorts of reasons.
Our insurer sent an assessor out. He confirmed our car was ‘as new’ and had very clearly ‘never been involved in an accident’. They also arranged a solicitor to take a witness statement (over a zoom call) that our company car has never been anywhere near the scene of the collision and to state where we were on the day of the collision (at home - a very long way from the scene).
I have chased and chased the police force where the incident happened to try and get their take on it...without a reply. So a couple of weeks back I raised a ‘formal complaint’ on the police. Just last week the officer dealing responded by email confirming that the vehicle involved; was definitely on cloned plates (with our reg), was a stolen vehicle, that it was seized at the scene and that the female driver was arrested.
Our insurers have diplomatically described the solicitors outfit that are involved as ‘difficult to deal with’ - which I read as code for ‘assholes’. They continue to write to me asking me to ‘provide proof that I was not at the scene’ on the day. Yet they know the culprit was a female driver and they know the police incident number. With a bit of diligence the police record would confirm to them that the vehicle involved was an uninsured, stolen, clone with the female driver cuffed at the scene.
By putting a claim on the MID database against my name I believe that I have been ‘libeled’ and have suffered damages as a result (stress, time and effort involved in sorting out all this crap - already quite a few hours). My private vehicle insurer has been copied in along the way and they have ‘put on hold’ their demands for more money / cancellation of my policy, pending the claim against me coming off the MID database, eventually.
What are my chances of making a defamation / libel claim on this bunch of
s? Should I send them a ‘cease and desist’ letter? If I do send one would I still be able to make claim for damages on them if they pull the claim off the MID database? I have not yet forwarded the police email to them (my insurer will no doubt do that anyway).
I know that my insurer (who have been very good in collecting defense evidence) will eventually clear this up from their side... but in the meantime we have other cars with other insurers, where I am a named driver, coming up for renewal and this could well still be listed as an open ‘fault’ claim on the MID database against my personal name. I also so want to poke this bunch of s hits in the eye.
Sorry for the long post.... but better out than in. I feel less bloated already. Thank you.
I phoned the solicitors up and explained they had ‘got it wrong’, either there was a digit wrong or the vehicle involved was a clone. They confirmed the colour, make and model - which matched our vehicle. They disclosed a police incident number and that the offending driver was a ‘female’. I told them they were clearly dealing with a clone. They said to me ‘prove it’. I said I don’t need to, I will talk to the police and go from there. End of call.
A week or so later I get a letter from our company car insurer saying “I understand you have been involved in an accident”. A few days later I get a letter from my personal car insurer (renewed a week after the supposed accident date but before the claim letter was received) saying that “I had failed to notify them of an open fault claim” and that I now owed them a lot more money... pay up or my policy will be cancelled in 7 days!!
So despite it being a 'female' driver involved and despite our car being insured and registered to a 'company' and no name of driver being provided and despite being told it was a clone, this outfit have seen fit to put it on the MID database as a claim against my personal name!! And I am definitely male. Dealing with this over the last few weeks has been a frigging nightmare... stress that I could have done without, for all sorts of reasons.
Our insurer sent an assessor out. He confirmed our car was ‘as new’ and had very clearly ‘never been involved in an accident’. They also arranged a solicitor to take a witness statement (over a zoom call) that our company car has never been anywhere near the scene of the collision and to state where we were on the day of the collision (at home - a very long way from the scene).
I have chased and chased the police force where the incident happened to try and get their take on it...without a reply. So a couple of weeks back I raised a ‘formal complaint’ on the police. Just last week the officer dealing responded by email confirming that the vehicle involved; was definitely on cloned plates (with our reg), was a stolen vehicle, that it was seized at the scene and that the female driver was arrested.
Our insurers have diplomatically described the solicitors outfit that are involved as ‘difficult to deal with’ - which I read as code for ‘assholes’. They continue to write to me asking me to ‘provide proof that I was not at the scene’ on the day. Yet they know the culprit was a female driver and they know the police incident number. With a bit of diligence the police record would confirm to them that the vehicle involved was an uninsured, stolen, clone with the female driver cuffed at the scene.
By putting a claim on the MID database against my name I believe that I have been ‘libeled’ and have suffered damages as a result (stress, time and effort involved in sorting out all this crap - already quite a few hours). My private vehicle insurer has been copied in along the way and they have ‘put on hold’ their demands for more money / cancellation of my policy, pending the claim against me coming off the MID database, eventually.
What are my chances of making a defamation / libel claim on this bunch of
s? Should I send them a ‘cease and desist’ letter? If I do send one would I still be able to make claim for damages on them if they pull the claim off the MID database? I have not yet forwarded the police email to them (my insurer will no doubt do that anyway).I know that my insurer (who have been very good in collecting defense evidence) will eventually clear this up from their side... but in the meantime we have other cars with other insurers, where I am a named driver, coming up for renewal and this could well still be listed as an open ‘fault’ claim on the MID database against my personal name. I also so want to poke this bunch of s hits in the eye.
Sorry for the long post.... but better out than in. I feel less bloated already. Thank you.
If all is clear from your insurers and the police..letters bin.
Alternatively write to them ask them via a subject access request for all your data, then demand to have everything deleted.
Then shop them to ICO.
It's not you, as I see they'll be in breach of GPDR unless they remove the incorrect details from their system.
However if it were me, I'd take insurance letter down to police station, looking worried until they assured me in person, everything was okay - but's that's because I talk big, but am not!
Alternatively write to them ask them via a subject access request for all your data, then demand to have everything deleted.
Then shop them to ICO.
It's not you, as I see they'll be in breach of GPDR unless they remove the incorrect details from their system.
However if it were me, I'd take insurance letter down to police station, looking worried until they assured me in person, everything was okay - but's that's because I talk big, but am not!
There wont be anything recorded on the MID, the MID is there to provide details of who insures a vehicle.
It will be the insurance companies that record accidents, and ultimately, unless the third party can provide some evidence to prove it was your vehicle that was involved in the accident, then your insurance company will just argue it was a cloned vehicle, or that the Third Party or witnesses have made a mistake with the registration and will not accept the claim, therefore there will never be a claim registered against you at all for this.
It will be the insurance companies that record accidents, and ultimately, unless the third party can provide some evidence to prove it was your vehicle that was involved in the accident, then your insurance company will just argue it was a cloned vehicle, or that the Third Party or witnesses have made a mistake with the registration and will not accept the claim, therefore there will never be a claim registered against you at all for this.
Sadly there are some scummy individuals the police and legal establishment have to deal with. Endless sob stories and “it wasn’t me what did it gov”.
Even more sadly, some perfectly innocent individuals get caught up in it and it becomes a prove your innocence case.
I can sympathise with the OP.
Even more sadly, some perfectly innocent individuals get caught up in it and it becomes a prove your innocence case.
I can sympathise with the OP.
I believe it is in the CUE database and not the MID. There is a process to get it corrected - I ended up tracking back a couple of policies ago to my insurer who had incorrectly labelled me as the driver in a claim. Took a few days to go through and my current insurer (who had flagged up the discrepancy) confirmed it was no longer there.
Chris
Chris
There has to be more to this than meets the eye. (Not from OPs point) Are the 'injured party' and the 'cloned car' working together? Why on earth would the 'injured party' go straight to a solicitor, surely they would just claim off their insurance? Why would the solicitor start writing letters to the OP when he has been told by the police that it's a cloned car.?
I smell a rat, good luck OP trying to sort it out.
I smell a rat, good luck OP trying to sort it out.
ScoobyC - Yes, you are right it will be the 'CUE' database they have put the claim on.
NGee - the solicitors may well be acting for the insurers of the injured party.. I don't know, but they have named the injured party on the letters sent.
I have no doubt that our insurer will get it all sorted and cleared from the CUE database... eventually. The question is mainly about getting redress and compensation for my grief against the solicitors that have put this against my name (is it libel ?).
I have asked for their Formal Complaints process which they have so far ignored. I haven't yet detailed my complaint on them yet. I want them to first provide the process and am also waiting CUE / MID database records for firm evidence, which I have requested. I can't take it to the legal Ombudsman / SRA for 8 weeks (Jan). In any case I may not consider what the Ombudsman can offer to be sufficient recompense, because they only allow a slap on the wrist for procedural breaches, rather than claims for actual 'damages'.
NGee - the solicitors may well be acting for the insurers of the injured party.. I don't know, but they have named the injured party on the letters sent.
I have no doubt that our insurer will get it all sorted and cleared from the CUE database... eventually. The question is mainly about getting redress and compensation for my grief against the solicitors that have put this against my name (is it libel ?).
I have asked for their Formal Complaints process which they have so far ignored. I haven't yet detailed my complaint on them yet. I want them to first provide the process and am also waiting CUE / MID database records for firm evidence, which I have requested. I can't take it to the legal Ombudsman / SRA for 8 weeks (Jan). In any case I may not consider what the Ombudsman can offer to be sufficient recompense, because they only allow a slap on the wrist for procedural breaches, rather than claims for actual 'damages'.
Edited by Martin-G on Monday 14th December 15:42
Martin-G said:
S
I have no doubt that our insurer will get it all sorted and cleared from the CUE database... eventually. The question is mainly about getting redress and compensation for my grief against the solicitors that have put this against my name (is it libel ?).
It's not the solicitors that have put it on the CUE database, it's your own insurance company, having been notified of an accident you were involved in (which you weren't, but until they've carried out all investigations, they don't know that). I have no doubt that our insurer will get it all sorted and cleared from the CUE database... eventually. The question is mainly about getting redress and compensation for my grief against the solicitors that have put this against my name (is it libel ?).
And no, it's not libel.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
It's not the solicitors that have put it on the CUE database, it's your own insurance company, having been notified of an accident you were involved in (which you weren't, but until they've carried out all investigations, they don't know that).
And no, it's not libel.
Yes this may well be it. If so then I will just have to sort out this sAnd no, it's not libel.
t out at my time and worry without redress. FFS !If the tp was indeed hit by a cloned car with a reg plate and make/model/colour the same as yours no one has really done anything wrong (apart from the person who cloned the plates.)
The tp is an innocent victim in this, and are the ones who will eventually be out of pocket. There solicitor is acting for them in the only way they can, by holding responsible the person who owns the car with the same reg plate as the one who hit their client, and your insurers are dealing with what, at first sight, appears to be a genuine claim against you.
The tp is an innocent victim in this, and are the ones who will eventually be out of pocket. There solicitor is acting for them in the only way they can, by holding responsible the person who owns the car with the same reg plate as the one who hit their client, and your insurers are dealing with what, at first sight, appears to be a genuine claim against you.
Thanks TW. I get it. I hadn't appreciated that it would by my insurer that registered it on the database. However it's just so annoying how much grief and hassle it causes... with it seems there is no redress for.
How does it end up against my name when it was female driver? My other half is a named driver against our vehicle that was cloned... but she isn't on the other policy i renewed that i got informed there was 'undeclared claim' on the database - so it must be registered against my name.
How does it end up against my name when it was female driver? My other half is a named driver against our vehicle that was cloned... but she isn't on the other policy i renewed that i got informed there was 'undeclared claim' on the database - so it must be registered against my name.
Martin-G said:
Thanks TW. I get it. I hadn't appreciated that it would by my insurer that registered it on the database. However it's just so annoying how much grief and hassle it causes... with it seems there is no redress for.
How does it end up against my name when it was female driver? My other half is a named driver against our vehicle that was cloned... but she isn't on the other policy i renewed that i got informed there was 'undeclared claim' on the database - so it must be registered against my name.
In my understanding it gets registered against the policyholder and the driver, be that the same person or 2 people. They registered it against you in the first instance. How does it end up against my name when it was female driver? My other half is a named driver against our vehicle that was cloned... but she isn't on the other policy i renewed that i got informed there was 'undeclared claim' on the database - so it must be registered against my name.
I get that the whole episode must be infuriating, but it could be worse. You could have been the one hit by a cloned plate car, they will eventually find out they have no one to claim against so if they have comp, it'll be a "fault" claim on their record and loss of no claims bonus.
The person responsible for this is the scumbag in the cloned car, that's who to be angry with.
My insurers have said that their claim needs redirecting to the MIB as they were hit by an uninsured driver. I assume that the vehicle claim will settled but perhaps not the solicitors cost.
I get the impression it won’t be cleared down from CUE until the solicitors admit defeat and redirect their claim.
I get the impression it won’t be cleared down from CUE until the solicitors admit defeat and redirect their claim.
Edited by Martin-G on Monday 14th December 17:10
Happened to me, first I knew of "my" accident was a claim from my insurers saying I'd not notified them of an accident. Eventually another claim came in from a homeowners for the car having knocked down their wall.
I had the car inspected by my insurers and I ended up writing a 10 page report as to why it was cloned as the police never even got in touch.
Int he end I got the fraud team at the insurers to recognise it as false and then rebut every claim.
It then took nearly a year t get it removed and a bit of persuasion as my insurers said you can't remove it from CUE.. they are wrong they can but I had to go to CUE to get it confirmed and press very hard.
All in all a load of faff. Reason I think was that the ad for our car showed the plates and it was the only grey MX5 for sale of that type at the time with the plate displayed on autotrader!
Have fun.. but I don't think you'll get very far with libel etc because you can't show financial loss.
I had the car inspected by my insurers and I ended up writing a 10 page report as to why it was cloned as the police never even got in touch.
Int he end I got the fraud team at the insurers to recognise it as false and then rebut every claim.
It then took nearly a year t get it removed and a bit of persuasion as my insurers said you can't remove it from CUE.. they are wrong they can but I had to go to CUE to get it confirmed and press very hard.
All in all a load of faff. Reason I think was that the ad for our car showed the plates and it was the only grey MX5 for sale of that type at the time with the plate displayed on autotrader!
Have fun.. but I don't think you'll get very far with libel etc because you can't show financial loss.
OP, you have no claim for libel for the following reasons.
1. You are not able to identify the use of defamatory words by any party. A libel claim requires that you specify the words complained of and identify when, how, and by whom the words were used. In some circumstances you can obtain a third party disclosure order to reveal a libellous communication, but that would be a pointless waste of (lots of) money in this case.
2. A report of a car accident to the police or an insurer would usually be covered by qualified privilege, arising from a legal, social or moral duty on one party to make such a report, and a corresponding interest of the other party in receiving it. Qualified privilege can only be displaced by proof of malice, and that is in most cases almost impossible.
3. A libel claim requires proof of serious harm. Inconvenience and annoyance are not sufficient.
Libel claims are very expensive, and best left to silly celebrities.
You are better off writing a calm and measured letter to the solicitors. Write in plain English and avoid fake legal language such as "cease and desist" (that is an Americanism anyway). You could as mentioned about make some subject access requests to see who holds what info.
IAAL. IANYL.
1. You are not able to identify the use of defamatory words by any party. A libel claim requires that you specify the words complained of and identify when, how, and by whom the words were used. In some circumstances you can obtain a third party disclosure order to reveal a libellous communication, but that would be a pointless waste of (lots of) money in this case.
2. A report of a car accident to the police or an insurer would usually be covered by qualified privilege, arising from a legal, social or moral duty on one party to make such a report, and a corresponding interest of the other party in receiving it. Qualified privilege can only be displaced by proof of malice, and that is in most cases almost impossible.
3. A libel claim requires proof of serious harm. Inconvenience and annoyance are not sufficient.
Libel claims are very expensive, and best left to silly celebrities.
You are better off writing a calm and measured letter to the solicitors. Write in plain English and avoid fake legal language such as "cease and desist" (that is an Americanism anyway). You could as mentioned about make some subject access requests to see who holds what info.
IAAL. IANYL.
Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 15th December 07:20
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