There is an old car accident scam that seems to be resurfacing. This is the scam where a car behind you will bump you from behind, and try to get you to pay for their damages to their vehicle. Usually, their vehicle is already damaged in the front end. And when they bump you from behind, they claim that your car did the damage, and that you owe them money in return for your error, or fault for the loss.
This scheme works like this. A driver in traffic is slowed, or is in bumper to bumper traffic and unable to move more than a few feet forward at a time. The driver is usually in a very expensive model car. The second driver stays very close to the bumper of the driver in the first very expensive car. This is for two reasons. The first reason is that the driver has to set up the situation that the first car is stopping irregularly or is stopping short. This is the story that they will give the police later. If the second driver doesn’t stay right on the first car’s bumper, then there will be room to assert that the second driver is at fault.
The second reason that the second driver will tail-gate the first driver, for all that he is worth, is because he doesn’t want the first driver to see that his bumper has already sustained damage from a prior accident. If the first driver looks back in his rear view mirror, and is able to see the car and its pre-existing damage, he can make a credible statement that the car was already damaged. What usually happens at these accident sites though, is a work worthy of an Academy Award, and in all the confusion, the first driver may not remember nor recall that the second car had already been damaged before it hit his car moments before.
The second driver will usually have others in the car to act as decoys and hype up the situation once the tap to the first driver’s bumper is made. The scenario plays out like this: the first driver stops short because of rubber necking traffic in front of him. The second driver then runs into the rear bumper of the first driver in the expensive car. The first driver gets out of the car to look at the damage. He will see that the “tap” to his 5 mile bumper will have done incredible extensive damage to the front bumper of the second car.
At this point, the driver and ham actors of the second car will jump out of their vehicle, yelling and screaming at the first driver that he caused so much damage to his vehicle front bumper. The other people accompanying the driver will act as “witness” who saw everything and will give false statements to the police as to how the first driver was stopped and then sped up and finally stopped short, not giving the second driver time to react. In all of the confusion, the police may just hand out a citation or ticket to BOTH drivers, since it seems credible at the time that they were both at fault. At the very least, the driver in the first car may have to pay 50% or more in damages to the driver in the second car.
What is the result? This is one of the oldest scams in the book, and it is just enough that if a driver is aware that this can happen, he may be able to prevent it from happening if this situation does in a fact occur.
If you feel that you have been the victim of a bump from behind scam in a car accident, call us at Ledger & Associates at 1-800-300-0001 or email us atwww.ledgerlaw.com.
