Car insurance - scam?

HeavensDevil

Firstly, I apologise if I've posted this in the wrong area.

My dad contacted me earlier to say a woman had called asking for me. She wants me to get in touch regarding "the bump I had in 2010", as I had been rear-ended by someone. He forwarded me a Liverpool-based number, which Google returns no results for (other than those sites which seem to contain thousands of phone numbers without any names to go with them).

This seems very suspicious to me - mainly because, whilst his number was previously mine (I gave him an old phone along with the SIM card in it), it hasn't been for about nine years - well before I was even old enough to get my provisional licence! Also, there's the fact that I didn't get rear-ended last year. I hit a car when in Germany, but it's all been dealt with now, and why would someone from an unspecified company in Liverpool be calling about that, to a number that neither my insurance company nor the German one would have? Dad also said that the woman did hang up pretty quickly.

I haven't rang her back because something about the whole thing just screams scam to me, but I just wanted to know if anyone has any thoughts or experiences on this kind of thing or something similar.

Thanks in advance.

scheming_gypsy

it's not a scam it's a 'you had an accident, would you like to claim compensation', call.

HeavensDevil

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

it's not a scam it's a 'you had an accident, would you like to claim compensation', call.

That was my other thought, but don't those normally come as texts? And why am I being called on a number I haven't used in years?

Do you suppose it doesn't actually refer to a real accident, just something generic that happens quite often to people, and the compensation company are just hoping they were lucky enough to pick something that actually happened to me? As the real accident that year happened in another country and I was to blame for it, so surely ineligible for compensation?

scheming_gypsy

it's probably because you've had a reported accident and that number is registered somewhere. Most of the time you get a text but also the odd call; I find the easiest way to get rid of them is to tell them you've already claimed, as you can't claim twice they take you off the system.