About a month ago I was at a store shopping, when all of a sudden I hear my name over the intercom..."this can't be good!" I thought to myself...I was told somebody had hit my car in the parking lot and they were waiting for me so we could exchange information. I hurried outside with Jacob on my arm and met a nice older man. He said he was sorry and he wanted to take care of it but didn't want to involve any insurance companies or anything else...hmmm...I agreed and asked him to give me his name, address and phone number so I could get an estimate and then call him. He refused to give me his phone number. He said he was going through some personal stuff and that he would rather not give me his phone number. I told him I needed it because we needed to get a hold of him when we got the estimate etc...to make a long story short, he continued to act 'shady' and ended up not giving me much information other than his address and his name. I hadn't called the police at this point...and after talking to one of the managers at the store I decided I better call the police. Both the manager and the police officer kept saying to me "You just can't go by what people tell you these days..." I wanted to believe that he was going to pay for the damage on the car...but he just acted so suspicious that I had no choice but to involve the police. I filed a report and the officer said they would charge him with a hit and run due to the lack of information he left me with. They also looked him up and found out he had a criminal record! But the good news is that the car he was driving was registered to the person he said he was, and they had the same address he gave me on file.
The next step was for us to go to an auto shop and get an estimate...we actually went to one he suggested which was by his house, and luckily there was another, more professional shop across the street which also guaranteed their work. We got the estimates, and found out it was more than $1,000 in damage, so we went to his house to drop them off...there was nobody home but he had told me he would be out all day...so we wrote our phone number and headed home. We were not expecting to get a call from him and we were afraid we might have to take him to court.
A couple of years ago we had 4 car accidents in one year...none of which were our fault. One of those people didn't have insurance so we had to take her to court. We got the money for the car, but to this day Randy has ringing in his ear which started right after that accident...and there's nothing we can do about it! I don't think it's fair for people to drive without insurance, I know some people may not have a way to get insurance, but first of all, it's the law, and I think in the end, if they get into an accident they end up making it worse for themselves.
Anyway, a few hours after we got home that day, we got a call from this man, and he said he had the money, that he would pay us cash, and if we wanted to go to his house to get it, he could see us in an hour!! This was shocking to us! I think we really misjudged him, we thought he would evade us! But he kept his word, and he paid us in full and with cash! I guess the police hadn't gotten a hold of him yet to tell him about the hit and run, so I felt bad and called the officer. I told her he kept his word and there would be no need to charge him with a hit and run. So I guess he proved us wrong. It's nice to see that there are still people who keep their word. People who do what they say they will do! I am very grateful for that!
We hadn't had time to take my car to the shop until this week...I have been carless since tuesday! But the good news is, it should be ready tomorrow! I'll have to post some 'after' pictures...I'm so excited to see my little car again :)
