I could be left £6,000 out of pocket

SUSAN RYAN is liable for a bill of £6,000 after making a claim with a firm she thought was acting for her insurer.

The 58-year-old had been left in shock after a driver smashed into the front of her car in Anerley, South London, in August last year.

Susan says she used her smartphone to look up contact details for insurance firm LV= and called a number that came at the top of Google.

She presumed she was speaking to her insurer, but had instead been put through to a claims management company, whom she claims told her LV= farmed out no-fault claims to credit hire company Spectra Drive. LV= says it doesn’t work with Spectra. Susan noted in her diary that she would be getting a courtesy car.

The pensioner says she then received a call from Spectra, which arranged a replacement car. LV= only got wind of the claim after the AA billed it for recovery costs in December.

Shortly after, Spectra sent Susan a letter saying the car she had been given was a credit hire car, not a courtesy car, and it would pursue her for the costs if she stopped co-operating with it or its lawyers, DGM solicitors, which is run by two directors of Spectra.

Susan says this is the first time she became aware that she was liable for charges. Susan, from Beckenham, South London, says she was ‘concerned’ that she might be liable to pay a bill of £6,000 after leasing the car for almost three months. A claim is yet to be made. There is no suggestion that Spectra acted illegally, nor is it known whether it was aware of what had been said between Susan and the firm that dealt with her initial call.

Spectra was contacted for comment.