Car buying scam - insurance claim

DDFUNK

I've been trying to sell my old car. Early today, I caught someone pouring a small amount of oil into my coolant whilst his friends tried to distract me. This gave the impression that a head gasket had blown, and they then suddenly offered me a lot less money to buy the car for parts.

Fortunately, I've not fallen for the tricks and the police are now involved, but I still want to sell my car.

It's not worth much £1,500 maybe and now I will have to get a mechanic to drain the coolant and give the engine a once over to check if they haven't tried any other sneeky tricks.

I was wondering of what the implications of claiming the mechanics bill or possibly the car as a write of would be? The police recorded the crime as both criminal damage and fraud.

If I try and put the mechanic's bill through the insurance would it affect my no claims?

Same question about if the car is a write off. 

I'm not sure what to do with the car now. I think I can get it fixed, but it isn't really worth the money. I certainly don't want to sell it to the scumbag scammers, but they are the only people offering me money.

Sandtree

You need to check your individual policy, Direct Line for example the act probably falls within the definition of vandalism and as such both would be covered by the policy but also their "vandalism promise" if you have comprehensive cover but not if you have TPFT.

Without such a promise your excess would be payable and it would be considered a fault claim against your policy and NCD unless they were able to recover their outlay from the vandals. 

I've seen the TV alerts about such scams but the whole point of what they do is that is very easy to correct else they've just written off your car rather than bagging themselves a bargain.