Smart Car Stolen

Scrapit

Physical keys can be defeated and have been long before keyless cars. I expect there is no connection to previous owners and their possibly non existent offspring.

bob_a_builder

Would her phone location information help show/remind her where she was - not 100% conclusive I suppose 

coffeehound

jk0 said:
She hadn't, but the car had. It had smashed into a parked car, and the young driver ran off. 

If you know it was a young driver then apparently there was a witness.  Can this fact be put in a crime report or something; perhaps the witness can confirm that the driver was not the owner.

facade

Stick to the truth- the car was taken by persons unknown, get the crime number from the Police, then if they refuse to pay out use their complaints process and if that gets nowhere escalate to the ombudsman.

They should eventually pay out through gritted teeth if there is no proof the owner permitted the driver to use it, suspicion should not be enough to refuse.

I can see why they are suspicious- the undamaged steering lock. The vast majority of opportunists simply smash locks, which they can do in a fraction of the time that it takes to pick them (unless they have a key).  Look at your house insurance, likely there is a clause about not paying out unless there is clear sign of "forcible & violent entry"- if someone picks/bumps your back door lock they will swear blind you left it unlocked.

sheramber

Not being able to give the insurance company two keys is a red flag.

AdrianC

sheramber said:

Not being able to give the insurance company two keys is a red flag.

How many people only have one key for their car...?

mattyprice4004

AdrianC said:

sheramber said:

Not being able to give the insurance company two keys is a red flag.

How many people only have one key for their car...?

I've only had one key come with the last 3 cars I bought - and one of them was nearly £15k. It's quite common (seemingly!)

Grumpy_chap

I agree, one key is very common.  Especially for lease / company cars.
I once worked at a company where they gave the driver one key and kept the second key in the company key safe.  When I gave the car back, they did not have the second key because the company had moved offices and all the keys were left behind in the key safe, to which they had lost access.

photome

Grumpy_chap said:

I agree, one key is very common.  Especially for lease / company cars.
I once worked at a company where they gave the driver one key and kept the second key in the company key safe.  When I gave the car back, they did not have the second key because the company had moved offices and all the keys were left behind in the key safe, to which they had lost access.

yep same here

Ditzy_Mitzy

The problem with this, from the insurance company's perspective, is that it bears all the hallmarks of a fake TWOC/car theft.  
Looking at the facts: the Smart car was taken by a third party, the third party crashed it and ran away, there is no physical evidence to suggest the car was stolen.  The police's job is to follow up all available leads, however these have not produced fruit so far.  They do not have to decide on the truth of the situation; if nothing can be proved then it remains nothing more than an allegation.  A crime number will be issued, but then crime numbers are issued for all sorts; it does not mean that the owner's account is true.  
The insurance company has a more complicated job: it needs to work out whether the owner's account is more believable than the picture created by the circumstantial evidence.  We know, from the witness's account, that the driver who crashed was not the owner.  What we do not know, for certain, is how the young man witnessed driving gained custody of the car.  There are two possible explanations: he stole/TWOC-ed it, or he was allowed to do so by the owner. 
There is no evidence for theft occurring, meaning that we now only have the owner's word that the car was stolen.  Remember that the third party driver does not, in isolation, provide evidence of a theft.  He could, for instance, have been given permission to drive the car by the owner.
The car was apparently opened and started with a key.  This means that the driver either had another key for the car, had copied the car's key or was a sufficiently good car thief that he could defeat both the door locks and ignition switch without causing damage.  Anything is possible, but then one would question why a top end car thief would waste his time stealing a Smart car.  
The other possibility is that the owner knew very well who the driver was and had allowed him to borrow the car.  Crash happens and driver claims theft/TWOC to get the driver off the hook.  He ran away, after all, which suggests he was not insured to drive.  It also, conveniently, absolves the owner of liability for a 'use, cause, permit' offence.  The owner, therefore, has a lot to gain by this being an act of theft, and a lot to lose by it being a case of a loan gone wrong.  Unfortunately, then, the circumstances point to the latter with the theft element being the cover story.  
This is also where the second key becomes relevant.  The driver, we assume, used something to start the car.  This could have been a genuine second key, a copy or some variant of a skeleton key.  He crashed and ran for it but, dashed inconveniently, had the presence of mind to turn the engine off, pull his key out of the ignition and take it with him.  He did not, we are told, use the owner's main key; but without it there is nothing to disprove the allegation that the owner gave the driver her second key.  The owner claims this is not possible, as she has never had a second key, but again there is nothing to support this account over the other one.  The second key's mysterious disappearance does not help. 
There is, of course, the possibility that the owner has fallen victim to some sort of sales scam where the seller retains one of the keys and steals back the car he sold some months later, but then how would he know where it was.  Perhaps there's a tracking device in the car?  Perhaps we're moving into the realms of fantasy?  
Nobody's going to know what happened, not really, without the driver being found.