Postal Letter

Asda Stevenage delivery van reversed into my car, can you help?

Can anyone help? Two weeks ago tomorrow an Asda delivery van from their Stevenage store came into the bottom of the close that I live in and made a meal of turning around, hitting the side of my parked car and driving off without stopping.   Luckily my girlfriend and a neighbour saw it happen, as the reversing alarm on the van was going on for a number of minutes and many neighbours were worried he was going to hit something. I saw the van up against my car and driving away.   I didn't get the registration number and received the following response from Asda when I got in touch with them:   <start>   Dear Mr -----------, Thank you for your email. I’m so sorry that one of our Drivers hit your parked car. I understand how distraught this must’ve been as the Driver did not stop after damaging your vehicle. In order to trace the Driver, we’ll need the vehicle registration number to identify from which store the Driver came from. I’ve called the Stevenage store and they would need the registration number in order to investigate the matter. Once again, I’m sorry for the experience you’ve had and thank you for letting us know. Regards,   ASDA Home Shopping   <ends>   This disappointed and infuriated me, as it suggests that they intend to do nothing about the matter. I would have expected the driver to stop, having hit my car with a force that he/she should have felt. I emailed a number of Asda contacts back, both in customer services and high up the head office chain, but received nothing else from them. Dead end.   I've had better results from the store itself, but the going is ridiculously slow. They have admitted that their records show a driver was delivering at the time and have admitted the accident occurred. I now have the driver's details and the van registration number. However, they don't have externally facing emails, so it's all done on the phone and by fax. Each time I ring up, I'm told the person I need to speak to is either in a meeting or not in the store on that day. When I say that I want to speak to the store manager about it, the person is suddenly available and on the phone. Very annoying that I have to cause a fuss every time to get someone on the phone. So far I have had to involve four different store personnel in the process.   I expect more from an organisation of the likes of Asda, which needs to retain a good public profile in the face of its eroding market share.   I've notified the police about the driver leaving the scene of the accident and they will be investigating, but I wonder if anyone here knows if I can escalate this within Asda in any way. I seem to be getting somewhere, as they've admitted liability, but they still haven't alerted their claims management company to the accident, so I'm stuck with a huge dent in the side of my car and no resolution in sight.

Public Comments

1. Asda will have full details of which delivery van was delivering in your street. So there is no need know the reg no. They probably won't tell you though.
2. Hi I worked in car insurance for 3 years and what you need to do is contact your car insurance company. They are experts at getting this sortof stuff sorted out and they will do it way quicker than you could. Also in the meantime they will arrange for your car to be fixed and for any excess you need to pay to be sent back to you. Usually if its a clear non fault claim then you dont even pay your excess anymore as they automatically claim this from the other company. I wouldnt deal with a big company like Asda directly I would let the insurance do it as they have experts that deal with this kindof situation all the time. Hope that helps
3. go down to the store and do some shouting
4. Sorry but that's a fair Response they have many vehicles delivering to and from the store. so their delivery documents will be of no help what so ever. If you had so many people who witnessed the event it is surprising they did not note down the registration! You must remember people are these days making false claims against big companies which in the past used to pay up with out asking questions. The store and their legal department are well within their rights to ask for details which surprisingly you are unable to Supply although you have stated that you had people who saw what happened. Your only cause of action would be to deal with this through your insurance company. I should add its more than possible given the size of vehicle the driver was totally unaware that he had hit your vehicle! So the police are probably just going through the motions of an investigation! As they get so many reports like this every day. You will almost certainly not like what i have said but sadly its the truth! OH dear we have the usual person making the newspaper treat this has never ever frightens big companies that's why they employ Legal teams and public relation companies. Besides which the delivery vans& lorries are normally driven by agency drivers so they never ever come that often to the same store! I repeat its not worth banging heads with companies of this size you only end up with a bigger head ache and problems than you started out with. That's what you have car insurance for!
5. Tell them your gonna take it to the papers if you don't get a response they don't like bad publicity take it to the paper regardless you wouldn't mind so much if he left a note on your car with his reg and contact detail s
6. Use these exact words: "You (ASDA) as the vehicle operator have a duty of care and demonstrate diligence in keeping a full log of which driver was driving which vehicle on any given day. As it is also likely that the delivery records for these vehicles and dates are also kept on file in order for you to maintain customer satisfaction it would be most helpful to our mutual insurance companies if you could furnish either myself or your own elected representative with the details regarding the incident that occurred on (DATE), (TIME). (ADDRESS and POSTCODE)"
7. I'd imagine Asda would have a fairly sophisticated form of real time tracking for their vehicle fleet. I'd think they're messing you about and trying to fob you off. Ask them if they've heard of YouTube.
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