Pothole damage rejected for fraud.

AndyMc.....

Zainie786 wrote: »

Andy, you’re clearly very helpful, I drove at a speed which was safe for the car, obviously if I remembered the pothole it might be different.

You drive 10-15 mph on a motorway and see how safe it is...

30 feet of visibility, you drive at 70 it's not safe even without snow.

Aylesbury_Duck

I expect it was probably all anyone else could drive at if visibility was 30 feet.

AndyMc.....

Zainie786 wrote: »

They had already made an offer at this point, would that change things? It was a genuine misunderstanding, and I was obviously a prat

What you misunderstood the vat or you misunderstood submitting a false document is wrong?

Zainie786

So,

I was driving 40-60 depending on snow patches and traction. There was no surface snow. I was overtaken by pretty much everyone on the 15mile stretch of the m11 I drive on. Probably neither here nor there anyways, retrospectively there was loads of stuff I could have done, but at that time I feel I did the best I could, and the damage is therefore unavoidable...

I misunderstood what they wanted, they wanted a an itemised invoice which is what I provided. It wasn’t the original but this wasn’t requested.

It didn’t have details of payment because it wasn’t requested. It had the name of my friend and his old business, as he was operating on their premises as a sole trader.

It had details of the items sorted, with the total price paid displayed, which corresponded with the claim amount.

It had a 20% vat added automatically by the program used to create it, but this was taken out of the total, rather than added onto it.

Therefore, yes VAT was shown as paid, but from my understanding, because no vat number was shown, it was invalid.

As for submitting a false document, was it a false document, I would argue no as they didn’t request an original invoice or say anything about getting the work done somewhere Vat registered or at a company. I provided what I thought they were asking for and I made the vat mistake.

At no stage did I try to deceive them into thinking that this was the original invoice, it had the date of sending as the invoice date not the date of repair 5 months prior, intentially.

HE wasn’t going to be out of pocket, rather they were honouring their offer of a fixed amount (which was less than the claim amount.) the issue of the invoice was not an issue when I made the claim so, I don’t understand why It’s such a big one now.

When HE queried this, I explained this all to them.

cubegame

Regardless of the in and outs of this case it really !!!!es me off when anyone us claiming for pothole damage.

No wonder the roads don't get repaired. It goes to pay careless people who drive cars with fragile inappropriate wheels and tyres when they fail to notice a hazard.

If you can't see a pothole and avoid you wouldn't see a child stepping into the road.

AndyMc.....

Zainie786 wrote: »

So,

I was driving 40-60 depending on snow patches and traction. There was no surface snow. I was overtaken by pretty much everyone on the 15mile stretch of the m11 I drive on. Probably neither here nor there anyways, retrospectively there was loads of stuff I could have done, but at that time I feel I did the best I could, and the damage is therefore unavoidable...

I misunderstood what they wanted, they wanted a an itemised invoice which is what I provided. It wasn’t the original but this wasn’t requested.

It didn’t have details of payment because it wasn’t requested. It had the name of my friend and his old business, as he was operating on their premises as a sole trader.

It had details of the items sorted, with the total price paid displayed, which corresponded with the claim amount.

It had a 20% vat added automatically by the program used to create it, but this was taken out of the total, rather than added onto it.

Therefore, yes VAT was shown as paid, but from my understanding, because no vat number was shown, it was invalid.

As for submitting a false document, was it a false document, I would argue no as they didn’t request an original invoice or say anything about getting the work done somewhere Vat registered or at a company. I provided what I thought they were asking for and I made the vat mistake.

At no stage did I try to deceive them into thinking that this was the original invoice, it had the date of sending as the invoice date not the date of repair 5 months prior, intentially.

HE wasn’t going to be out of pocket, rather they were honouring their offer of a fixed amount (which was less than the claim amount.) the issue of the invoice was not an issue when I made the claim so, I don’t understand why It’s such a big one now.

When HE queried this, I explained this all to them.

It's not a true record and Highways England stood to lose the cost of your claim.

All the elements of fraud have been met, it's lucky you've not been subject to the dishonesty test in court.

Best put it down to experience and move on.

Zainie786

Hi.

Sorry to upset you. However I would say a few points, although I fundamentally agree with you.

1. I’m not really going to sit here with a <£2000 loss hoping that they use the money they would have paid me to fix the roads? Even if nobody claimed, no additional investment would be made, rather the money would be sent somewhere else... the roads are clearly the smallest priority for the government. If you look at other countries with substantially better roads, they manage to do it with far less taxation of the average citizen, because infrastructure ranks higher on their priorities than it does in this country.

2. Surely with the amount of claims made against government agencies, councils, insurers ect someone will eventually realise the dire straits of the roads today.

3. Claims against the road maintainer would surely motivate them to do a better job. If I’m expected to jump through hoops and ensure that my car is road worthy then the government has a duty to ensure that the road is car worthy.

4. Cars today are a lot more flimsier especially as alloy wheels are now pretty much the standard. Merc wheels are especially fragile and I’ve had lots of small cracks develop in wheels in the past. Surely this should be accounted for when road maintaining.

5. I would a child wouldn’t be filling the entire sliproad on a motorway at 4 am. That would be a bigger problem in itself...

Zainie786

Thanks for the advice. However I will still be wanting to pursue this because it is not right. Appreciate the help...

AndyMc.....

Zainie786 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice. However I will still be wanting to pursue this because it is not right. Appreciate the help...

Good luck taking on a government agency when they have evidence of fraud.

Zainie786

I’m all about the little guy &#55358;&#56631;!♂️

Still not accepting it as fraud though.

According to a solicitor I spoke with this afternoon. As I still have the damaged wheels in my pocession, the damage to those should still be HE responsibility, and could be negotiated at market rate. Which means HE would cover the damage to those wheels instead of the entire claim and removed from the claim. I’m not sure how that will work as I got a damn good deal on the wheels I sorted.

However I’ve got some calls to make in the morning and will let you know how it goes