Hounded by Accident Recovery Calls

100mphplus

I renewed a vehice insurance in June and since doing so the occurancies have ramped up to the point that I am now getting calls from accident 'recovery' firms on a daily basis.

As legally required, in adding my wife to the policy, I declared an accident she had in 2012 where someone drove into the back of her. The claim was settled through her own insurance, but the thing that appears to be triggering these calls is she made no claim for personal injury, (i.e. standard whiplash claim!)

I am getting calls with the opening line 'we are calling about the accident you had in 2012...' so they haven't even go the correct facts!

I actually enganged with the callers the first few times and in doing so it was explained that the law change last year and there appears to be a pot of unclaimed compensation that she is entitled too and all these ambulance chasers are trying to get their cut of it.

How can I stop these calls?? I am past being polite to them anymore as it's getting really annoying :mad:

InsideInsurance

100mphplus wrote: »

I am getting calls with the opening line 'we are calling about the accident you had in 2012...' so they haven't even go the correct facts!

Most of them have no facts and are randomly calling you hoping that if they call enough people with a loose enough story about "your accident" that some people will fall for it and assume they do know about it and this is all official etc.

Really there is little way to stop it. Register for the TPS, wait the period required and then advise any that still call that you will be reporting them. Probably will only cut down the calls and cause those that do still call to hang up

OnanTheBarbarian

The source of the increased activity since you renewed your insurance will undoubtedly be the selling of data by price comparison sites, who need bringing to book over this.

InsideInsurance

OnanTheBarbarian wrote: »

The source of the increased activity since you renewed your insurance will undoubtedly be the selling of data by price comparison sites, who need bringing to book over this.

Or it could be anyone on the panel, or it could be some of the third party system providers that deal with the aggregators etc on behalf of smaller players or it could be coincidence of the timing.

I know I get peaks and troughs in all these calls RTA, PPI, IVA and many other TLAs with no real discernible correlation to other events. Just depends when someone sells a big list of names/ numbers to a reseller of contact info etc.

Quentin

100mphplus wrote: »

How can I stop these calls?? I am past being polite to them anymore as it's getting really annoying :mad:

No way to stop them. (TPS is useless)


You can only claim for injury for 3 years, so once the 3 years is past they will stop.


Alternatively get a call blocking device/phone (which will stop all nuisance callers)

Yolina

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Most of them have no facts and are randomly calling you hoping that if they call enough people with a loose enough story about "your accident" that some people will fall for it and assume they do know about it and this is all official etc.

Indeed

Really there is little way to stop it. Register for the TPS, wait the period required and then advise any that still call that you will be reporting them. Probably will only cut down the calls and cause those that do still call to hang up

Been registered for many years and still get the occasional random call too.


I normally just politely tell them after their first sentence that no-one in my household (I'm single, no kids but they don't know that :rotfl:) need to claim for anything and to please take my number off the dialler. Usually does the trick, however, the most recent call, a month or so ago, the woman just was a right PITA and kept going and on with her script even after I'd told her several times that no, I hadn't been in any car accidents, hadn't tripped on the pavement or at the supermarket etc. After a while I just got annoyed and plain told her that they sounded really desperate to drum up a claim, and did they imply I should just make something up. Obviously she immediately said that no, of course not, and she hung up after that :T
I unfortunately can't just block international numbers as I am not from the UK and need to be able to receive calls from the family