Last week I was sick with a bad cold and thus groggy. I came out of the grocery store, and a lady and her teenage daughter were walking away from their car, which was next to mine. They almost didn't stop, did a sort of stutter step before finally walking back to my car and their car, as I was getting into my car. She said: "my daughter scratched your car." The word scratch made me think she may have done it with her door as she was opening her door. So the mother shows me the "scratch"; which is actually a dent and a gouge/scratch. And I pointed out another scratch that was nearby. I didn't even think to check the lower plastic body cladding (which after getting the car home I noticed was gouged and scratched in several places). My car only has 16K miles and is almost new.
Anyway because the teenager was driving, the mother says she wants to pay me cash for the repairs and not go through her insurance. I got her info. (DL #, license plate #, description of her car, insurance info., address, phone #'s, her place of employment (sheriff's office), etc.. I took my car to the local body shop that I like to deal with (have been hit 2 previous times in parking lots by hit and run drivers). It's $900 for the repair (they have to paint and blend in the paint on 2 large body panels). I've been calling this lady everyday for 5 days and only got one return call, which was to the tune of "$900 for a small dent?!?!".
So I reminded her that the entire front-right of her car collided with my car, so to expect the damage to be confined to 'one small dent' is ridiculous. I also reminded her that my car only has 16K miles and that the damage wasn't there before (my wife and myself both drive this car and would have noticed it). And I reminded her that I was a nice guy and didn't insist on calling the police, so she could pay cash and avoid insurance rate hikes, and I asked her to please not take advantage of my niceness by not cooperating and by dragging this out, especially when its their fault.
Any advice as to what I can do now, to make sure I don't get shafted on this situation? And my advice to you guys is: CALL THE POLICE, NO MATTER HOW SLIGHT THE DAMAGE! AND CARRY A CAMERA WITH YOU. If I would have called the police, I'd have a police report and pics (assuming policemen take pics of accidents), but now I am left with an uncooperative person who caused the damage who may try to say: "most of that damage must have already been there because I only saw ONE dent." You just can't rely on the ethics of the average human, even one who seems nice.