Scammer Tried to Rip Off A Guy After A Fender Bender, So He Got The Last Laugh And $5,000
by Matthew Gilligan
Are scammers the worst, or what?
They go out of their way to try to screw over honest, hard-working citizens who are just trying to do the right thing…it’s enough to drive someone crazy!
This story about a scammer who tried to pull a fast one and failed miserably will bring a smile to your face.
Take a look at what happened…
I won over $5,000 for in court after a car accident that I caused?
“I (22 M) work construction and run a few crews and I’m a foreman because I’ve been working in this field since I started working summers when I was 14 (that’s legal in my state) with this being said I have a lot of experience and get paid really well.
For my job I need a truck that can pull a lot of trailers and also get into a lot of sketchy job sites (especially in the winter) so I drive a new lifted pickup (f-350).
So about 4 months ago now I got off work one day and just really didn’t feel like making dinner, so I decided to go get myself the trusty Big Mac at McDonalds. well after I got my order I was going to pull out into the parking lot to drive home and I was looking hard over to my left to see how busy the road was before I got over there.
He had a little accident.
Well I wasn’t paying great attention to what was happening in front of me and as I was creeping forward someone who was in front of me was stopped and not paying attention either, I ended up barely hitting his mirror and scraping his door with my front end.
I Immediately reversed and hopped out, I made sure the guy was okay and apologized, knowing it was my fault and I asked him if he wanted to call the cops. Let’s call him Brent.
Brent says, “nah bro we are all good, if you just get me your insurance info I think we can get this taken care of.”
I was fine with that as there was no damage done to my truck and its not required to call the cops for an accident if it occurs in a private parking lot (this is relevant later).
We exchange info and he seems pretty cool so I tell him to go get the damage bid and ill just pay in cash so my insurance rates don’t go up as long as he’s okay with it.
It seemed like it was all taken care of…
He says that’s fine and we both just leave and I feel like a moron, but all in all Brent seems like a cool dude and I just hope we can get it sorted out smoothly.
About a month passes by and I haven’t heard anything from Brent or the shop I told him to go to, honestly I wasn’t too stressed about this because if he decided to not get it done that’s on him.
Well, he calls me up one day at about noon saying he can’t remember my name and he wanted to tell the guys at the shop who sent him there cause it seemed like we knew each other, I told him my name and the guys at the shop “gave him a deal” (pretty sure they say this to everyone lol).
Okay, whatever you say…
He sends me the bid for damages and it comes out to $2,403!
This was more than I imagined but I said to get it done and id take care of the bill afterward and that was that, he hung up said it was cool and I went on with my day as usual.
ANOTHER month goes by and I don’t hear anything until Brent calls me up while I’m at work again and says, “hey brotha, I talked to the shop and they said they can’t get me in for another 2 weeks or so, and they may end up charging me more if they find more damage.”
I say, “okay sounds good just let me know man, I hope it goes smooth for you and I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
He seems to take it good and I’m really trying to just be a good person.
He responds with, “well after talking to my wife I’m okay if you just wanted to write a check for $2,500 and we can call it even.”
This seemed odd to me because why the hell wouldn’t someone want their vehicle repairs all paid for?
I say “okay man lets set a time and place to meet and ill get you paid.” he liked the idea and ended the call by telling me he would let me know.
Yet ANOTHER MONTH passes by and I hear nothing again, at this point I’m getting fed up and just want this situation to stop being over my head.
He got a call from this character…
He hits me up at 11 pm, one night and asks if we can meet in town.
I found this kind of disrespectful because I was nearly asleep and had to be at work at 5am the next day.
Either way I said that was fine and took my $2,500 cash and wrote up a quick contract saying this payment would be accepted as payment in full for the damages and by accepting it, it would release me from ANY AND ALL LIABILITY.
He thought something seemed off…
This was a pretty fair contract I believe as it was the deal we had already made over the phone, just in writing.
I get to the place we suggested as a meet up spot, I give him the cash and he signs the contract without hardly even reading it and he didn’t want the copy.
This was a red flag to me but I just assumed he really didn’t care about it all that much, so I just send him the photo of the contract and go back home for some beauty sleep.
Then he got a surprise in the mailbox.
As you can guess by now, ANOTHER MONTH goes by with me just living life carefree and not a worry in the world about this stupid car accident.
Well, I go to check my mail and I have a notice from this guys lawyer that he is suing me for not paying after wrecking his car!
This ****** me off but I also knew I had plenty of text messages and a CONTRACT on my side.
I immediately call Brent and he blocks my number.
Luckily enough my girlfriend works for a lawyer so I get him updated and he says he’d love to help.
He lets me know I saved my neck by writing that contract as any contract worth over $500 is to be held up in any level court in my state.
He got to work and did his research.
I immediately get to work on my revenge, I remember on the side of this guys car he had a business logo and I took pictures of the damage, so I hop online and get to the BBB to look up who owns this company, thinking that surely he couldn’t own the business because he is such an idiot. I was wrong.
This guy owns the company and I can see that he has about twelve 1 star reviews all in dispute because of his shady business practices telling people it will cost one thing and then charging them FOUR TIMES what he said it would. sound familiar?
Remember when he said the shop may charge more than the original $2,403? that’s right he was suing me for $10,000. FOUR TIMES what the shop told him it would cost. unbelievable, he was trying his same sneaky **** on me.
My lawyer takes note of this and we show up to court ready for war.
This guy is sleazy.
As we get there and all set up he says, “you ready to give me more of daddy’s money?” with a smirk.
(I guess just cause I’m young and drive a nice truck and could afford $2,500 lol) his lawyer gets up and starts trying to say BS from me hitting and running and Brent barely got a picture of my license plate.
So I tried bullying him into taking a deal for only $2,500 when the damage was clearly more than that. there were obvious holes in his story and he really didn’t have much to say.
But he had an ace up his sleeve.
Just imagine the smile on my face as my lawyer lays out the print outs of our text messages and the PHYSICAL COPY OF THE CONTRACT which was signed by Brent.
His lawyer was ghostly white and looked sick.
After laying out all of the evidence my lawyer pulled out a little hidden gem, the print outs of all the complaints we found on the BBB and how he was doing the same thing to me.
That was the final nail in the coffin as the judge said he had seen enough.
He asked Brent for any final statements and Brent said, “I don’t even have the $2,500 anymore, can I just get that then and we will be okay?” literally admitting to the judge that he had received my money and his story was just a load of horse ****.
I thought his lawyer was gonna strangle him!
All’s well that ends well!
It was beautiful.
The judge ended up ruling in my favor and demanded him to pay my legal fees as well as damages and lost wages because I had to miss work to be in court.
The absolute sweetest part was that this particular day my crew was on a VERY high wage job and I was technically the one getting paid before I paid them out as sub contractors.
This means I was to be paid $475/hour and this whole ordeal took about 5 hours, he ended up having to pay ME almost $5,000.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy in my life. sort it was so long I just really felt the need to share, thank you to anyone who made it this far.
Here’s what people had to say.
This person had their own story to tell.
Another individual made a good point.
This reader talked about how a lot of of folks treat their cars.
Another Reddit user won’t buy new cars.
And this Reddit user said that it pays off to work in construction!
Scammers are everywhere!
Keep your eyes peeled!
If you enjoyed this story, check out this guy’s helpful tip to get free tools at Home Depot without buying anything.
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