What can you say about a company without facing legal action?

Not_Me_Officer

I was hit by a vehicle of a national company (I was stationary). My car isn't worth a lot in resale terms but it's reliable and priceless to me. The damage was a broken wing mirror - the rear casing is now knackered & the glass smashed. A new unit alone is over £100. I know some corners will say just buy your own glass for £10 and move on - but why should I?

So in the end i went through the insurance and also showed them my dash cam footage.

They're coming back saying the other guy is denying all liability. They've forwarded my footage to his depot who've 'investigated' and say there's no evidence. They deny liability and they're washing their hands of the matter.

Since the camera is obviously facing forwards it doesn't actually show the image of him hitting my wing mirror, you can just hear it as he passes me. You see me then turn around to go looking for him. Clearly that's what the sound is & that's why i've turned around but this seems to be not good enough.

Since it seems i can't go anywhere with this i was going to then put it on YouTube (video footage) with photos of the damage and a shot of the letter they sent me saying no can do. I'm just wondering how much you can say before getting in to legal action. Are you only allowed to post factual information - video, shot of letter & damage, registration plate, company name, or can you put anything in the video title / description like how dishonest they are?

I know some would say move on and i will, once the video has been posted. It's easy for anyone not involved to say move on but i wonder if i keyed down their door for example would they just 'move on'. I just want to know what can land you in legal hot water. When you think of reviews such as for restaurants and hotels, plenty of reviews can say how dirty the place was and really rip the place apart and i doubt legal action gets taken against all of those people.

Just didn't want to shoot myself in the foot since they've already screwed me over.
And for anyone wondering why it's in this forum then i'm looking to see if what i am doing would have anyone warn me against it or the wording of it purely from the standing of legal action.

swingaloo

What exactly do you hope to gain from posting on YouTube?

DoaM

What you can say is evidential factual information.

Not_Me_Officer

swingaloo wrote: »

What exactly do you hope to gain from posting on YouTube?

Just to simply put it out there and get views, that's it really.

I'm clearly going to get nowhere with them. Perhaps if i went to court over it and challenged it i may get somewhere. Maybe they're banking on the chances being that i wont do that who knows. Maybe i wouldn't get anywhere with it even if i did take it to court and common sense has gone out of the window in life and the dash cam footage would need to actually show the incident happening where it picking up the sound of him hitting my mirror is not good enough (so it seems dash cams are only much good in head on collisions then).

I don't expect uploading it to YouTube to make them reverse their decision if that's what you think but equally i wont be happy by just doing absolute zero either. So what can i do? Employ someone to go round to their depot and 'see to' their vehicles? Risky and expensive. See the driver as he does one of his collections as i know where one of them is? Not wise, it'll only wind me up and if i get too wound up then i know it wont do me any favours.
So what can i do? All that's left since i already said i wont be happy doing nothing is posting it to YouTube, letting whoever sees it see it and then moving on.

I was thinking something like [reg plate] - *company name* - a dishonest company
or [reg plate] - *company name* - hit me and drove off before claiming no liability.

You do actually see the company name in the video clip by the way. And the reg plate.

DoaM wrote: »

What you can say is evidential factual information.

Meaning?

So i can't say anything like them being dishonest - since i can't prove it, is that what you're saying?
Can i even say something like hit and run, since they hit me and didn't stop yet they're saying they never hit me and technically i can't 'prove' they did or at least not to anyone without common sense. When the tail end of their vehicle passes my mirror you hear bang ... but that doesn't prove they hit me apparently.

So if i get you correctly then all i can say is: [reg plate] - company name. My car is damaged, they deny liability.

foxtrotoscar_2

If you've informed your insurance company of an accident expect an increase in premium when you renew. Personally I'd have replaced it with a second hand unit and let it not go on this far.

Cornucopia

I would be suing them under the Money Claim procedure. Or writing to their Chief Exec. Either of those things is more likely to produce a positive result compared to Youtubing about it.

Youtube is a private company, and therefore they are concerned not just about defamation (which is what you are talking about) but also privacy (so identifying a person, or possibly their company or vehicle). They tend to work on a complaint/report basis, so your video may go up and be subsequently taken down.

Not_Me_Officer

foxtrotoscar wrote: »

If you've informed your insurance company of an accident expect an increase in premium when you renew. Personally I'd have replaced it with a second hand unit and let it not go on this far.

I looked at second hand units. My first point there is the one i made with the glass - why should i have to? Like i said, it's like me keying your car & then telling you to deal with it because 'that's life'. Go get the door of your 19 plate Audi sprayed out of your own pocket because why should i pay? I'm only the guy who damaged it, you're the guy who owns it.
But anyway, i couldn't find a paint match at all, so then you're getting in to the realms of a) waiting on one turning up, which may not as my paint code wasn't the most popular one of the shades b) get a totally different one - not good, c) paying someone to spray it - again the cost is going up and why should i?
but then there's d) getting someone to fit it. I had a look on YouTube how to replace it and the guy ended up breaking stuff doing it. Now bearing in mind i've broken plenty of things on jobs that should be easy and i'm not confident of doing this myself without causing more damage.

Cornucopia wrote: »

I would be suing them under the Money Claim procedure. Or writing to their Chief Exec. Either of those things is more likely to produce a positive result compared to Youtubing about it.

Youtube is a private company, and therefore they are concerned not just about defamation (which is what you are talking about) but also privacy (so identifying a person, or possibly their company or vehicle). They tend to work on a complaint/report basis, so your video may go up and be subsequently taken down.

I get your point about YouTube and fair enough.

I do wonder about all those dash cam clips on there though that show big company names in a bad light.I don't know if you've lost any time on YT looking at those kind of clips but i have.

Regards MCO, i experienced that probably about 18 months ago. Story short the situation was spend money trying to chase money only for the other party to ignore everything. The option was to then spend even more money trying to chase money and you may not even get the money or just cut your losses.
I'd be concerned about a repeat of that.

Mistral001

You have already given this video to the appropriate authorities why do you think Joe Public would be interested in it?

As a youtube fan myself what you have is of no interest to anybody. It is a noise as a car passes your car and perhaps an exclamation from yourself.

You might get some sort of gratification from "shaming" the alleged perpetrator of this crime, but it is unlikely that he/she will see it or will care whether it is one youtube or not.

Not_Me_Officer

Mistral001 wrote: »

You have already given this video to the appropriate authorities why do you think Joe Public would be interested in it?

As a youtube fan myself what you have is of no interest to anybody. It is a noise as a car passes your car and perhaps an exclamation from yourself.

You might get some sort of gratification from "shaming" the alleged perpetrator of this crime, but it is unlikely that he/she will see it or will care whether it is one youtube or not.

Except my question isn't about whether you're interested though is it.

Take the many "my reaction to [event]" videos that are on YouTube. I'm not interested in a single one of them. Why do i want to watch someone watching something? I don't, but looking at the view counts on many of those videos it's evident that some people are interested and that's the point - what i'm not interested in, you might be and vice versa. It's also not about a noise is it, as in itself that's quite boring. It's the fact that this company are playing the dirty tricks or whatever you wish to call it.Bad form, dishonest, slick & slippery, smart, whatever. So when it's that they're getting out of settling the insurance claim then it's more a case of wonder why - let's take a look. View 1.

And no i don't expect a million views, i don't expect everyone to agree with me on it either. It's the internet - the land of the abusers where everyone grows a third ball and becomes all brave with their keyboard talk and their monitor shield. That doesn't bother me. Whether the guy who did it sees it or not doesn't bother me. Whether the company see it or not it doesn't bother me (likely they would though).

Quite simply i want to post it without risking a legal claim, simple as that and then i move on. Am i asking if that's what others would do? No. Am i asking if you'd do it? No. Do i want to know if you think it's worthwhile? No, i'm not bothered. Do i want someone with a bit of knowledge to say well if you say this then you'll be ok but if you say that then you'll get yourself in trouble - yes. Even if they finish it off with - "but you're wasting your time and nobody will be interested in your poxy video" :rotfl: at least they'll have answered the question.

Mistral001

If you are not worried about the people in the other vehicle seeing the video, why are you worried about any legal consequences? They are the only people who are likely to take any legal action against you.

missile

If what you post and state is factually correct then you should have no issue.