Tesco dented my car!

89 UKDM BA4 4WS (resto job!) · Post by **wurlycorner** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:09 pm

Rich wrote:Mr. Lennox

Like it.

That will just be their standard letter no.237 <insert customer name here> 'press print' to attempt to get someone to give up with a claim the first time round.
Hopefully their next response should be more interesting.

Post by **rob quilter** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:23 pm

Send them a poop in an envelope.

Post by **SPYDOR** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:26 pm

Haha, their letter isn't worth the paper it is printed on! A solicitor would laugh if they read it, as they appear to have made up their own interpretation of the law with regards to property damage.

I would go and speak with a solicitor if you receive another useless letter like that, or better yet have a chat with either the Citizen's Advice Bureau and/or Which? Legal Services, who can put you in touch with solicitors for a fairly reasonable yearly price. You should ask about advice with regards to a claim through your policy and how it would affect you, as it would be non-fault so you should not lose any of your no-claims bonus, Tesco's property insurance would be covering the costs.

Might be interesting as its the same insurance company though, so independent advice would be a good idea!

The key to these things is to keep fighting. If they realise you are serious about it then they will need to starting giving some serious thought about how to resolve it and not trying to brush you off.

Rich · Post by **Rich** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:29 pm

wurlycorner wrote:Hopefully their next response should be more interesting.

I hope so.

I don't want to have to stop going to Tesco, it's the only supermarket in the immediate area where I'm moving to!

Post by **Donald** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:03 pm

The legal team you can afford vs. the legal team that a company that made £2bn profit last year can afford.

Good luck

In their reply they've made no mention of CCTV availability.

Why is CCTV footage not available from the date and time the incident occurred? I reported the incident to yourselves the next day (see email chain below) – when I identified the extent of the damage - and I not convinced that CCTV footage is deleted so soon.

Did you get denied availability in the chain email or something?

They don't have to disclose how long they keep their CCTV footage for and they are not obliged to show you any CCTV footage. The only way you can get around this is requesting footage of yourself (subject access request), so if you were at the car at the time of the incident then the footage of yourself should include said incident.

Don't even bother pursuing anything until you send them a subject access request, unless you can get footage of yourself with the incident occurring in frame, you're not going to get a penny. From a legislation standpoint, this is the only way you can force them to give you the footage without going to court. However if the footage has other individuals in it and Tesco wont play ball the only way is to take it to court, at which point AFAIK the footage can only be given to the police (again because DPA). I'm sure at this point you'll agree it's getting extreme.

IMO you'll be lucky to see anything of the CCTV because of the DPA and its many exceptions.

For a subject access request you need to include as much identifiable information about yourself (e.g. time of arrival, where the parked, car reg) as possible and you will more than likely have a fee that needs to be paid first. You should find out the fee amount of prior to request as they wont fulfil a request until they receive payment, so send payment with the SAR.

Hope that helps.

CARRisma · Post by **CARRisma** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:23 pm

I would never park next to one of those signs.

Post by **paul bristol uk** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:29 pm

Typical Tesco letter FU CK OFF.They are the biggest set of jobbies on the planet. Do not give up.

Rich · Post by **Rich** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:39 pm

Donald wrote:The legal team you can afford vs. the legal team that a company that made £2bn profit last year can afford.

Good luck

To be honest I'm not looking go down the legal route, I'm just hoping they'll see sense and make an ex-gratia payment of however much it costs repair the damage.

In their reply they've made no mention of CCTV.

True, but I'm finding it hard to understand why they can't investigate it unless they don't have cctv footage. The guy in the shop who I reported it to said they would review cctv footage which is why I brought it up in the first place.

I might ask if I can see the cctv from that date, which would help my case but to be honest it's not worth going through the effort for the sake of probably a sub-£100 repair.

I am pi5sed off at them though so I'm not spending another penny with them until they give me money for damage.

Rich · Post by **Rich** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:40 pm

CARRisma wrote:I would never park next to one of those signs.

I won't now, but it was closest to the shop, it was raining and I was in a rush at the time.

Shiny · Post by **Shiny** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:56 pm

I hate to say it, but you will have difficulty proving negligence if you didn't report it at the time.

Do you have pictures of the sign blown down next to your car with the damage in view?

Without them, you will have difficulty proving that the damage didn't occur before or after the actual incident, as Tesco were not aware of the incident and can verify that happened.