'I found the man who ghosted me after rear-ending my car. I'm going to make him pay.' UPDATED

"I found the man who ghosted me after rear-ending my car."

On June 18th, I was rear-ended by a gray Dodge Ram. I caught it on my dash cam, and the man who hit me appears on the video twice. I got a picture of his insurance card, damage done on both vehicles, and license plates. He told me he would like to take care of this out of pocket, as he didn't want his insurance rates to rise. I was okay with this, I've done it before with no issues.

The next week, I sent my truck in for an estimate. Up until this, we had been texting back and forth with no issues. I emailed him a copy of the estimate....and communication stopped. After hearing nothing from him for three days, I called his insurance and filed a claim, because I'm not about to be jerked around.

They came back in the same day, telling me he had stopped paying back in March, and so his insurance had been cancelled. They could not honor the claim. I was furious. I called and texted him relentlessly, with no response. He was not going to pay, and neither was his insurance, despite his insurance card saying it expired July 1.

I called my insurance, and even though I was at no fault, I have to pay $500 for repairs (Deductible). I immediately went to the Denver County Court, and filed paperwork for small claims, then on to the Sheriff's department to serve him paperwork.

The police were no help (shocker). The address he provided on his insurance was falsified, and after telling the deputy 4 times to run his license plates, he finally did. The same address was used to register his vehicle. There was no other way we could find him, and so I was hopeless. I was going to pay for this dickhead's damage, and he was going to get away with it.

Until this morning, I decided to do a few Google searches for "his name, Denver." A "ripoff" review popped up - a man with the same name had redone a patio, and did a shitty job at it, fortunately for me. I thought I'd go ahead and call the company.

I asked the receptionist for an estimate/consultation to do some yard work, and specifically requested (Name of dick face), as "I heard he was great at this stuff". She said he was great at landscaping, so I asked "He's the one who drives the gray Dodge truck, right?"

She said "yes." My heart stopped. That was all I needed. I called the deputy who was attempting to serve him, and they're currently on their way to serve the paperwork at his company. I found you, you POS, and I'm going to make sure you pay me. The court date is August 12th. I'll see you then.

TL;DR - Got rear-ended, the dick face was evading payment, and I was better than the police at finding him. Also - everyone should own a dash cam. Seriously.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

Doppleflopper wrote:

NICEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! That feeling, super sleuth extraordinaire, not enough arms in the world to hold all that goodness feel. I had a similar incident, I went outside at like 8am to find the side of my bumper destroyed, no dashcam. Called the cops, but they literally couldn't do anything except take my info.

Confused and angry, I knocked on a bunch of doors, and found this older, ballin' neighborhood watch gentleman that just happened to have one security camera that just happened to be pointing exactly where my car was parked across the street. It was a huge stretch.

We couldn't make out the license plate, but we saw he was hauling a boat, so I went to every single docking area looking for a dark truck and a slightly damaged boat trailer.

At the end of the day I finally found the same looking truck with a trailer, the boat wasn't there, so I backed up behind him and measured the damages CSI Miami style (nah I just used a lame little ruler): put my sunglasses on and screamed when it was a match.

Just then and totally unrelated though, two cop cars, a firetruck, and an ambulance show up and pretty much block me in. I'm feeling like batman right then getting in trouble for doing justice, the cops come over like "dude seriously what are you doing", so I explain my story and show them the video and the damages.

They both just sort of laughed, and one officer said "you really did it, great job" and they both just walked away. The guy who hit me ended up being in town for that day only, drove back to Nevada the same night. He was just an old chiller who wanted to go fishing though, so he payed for the damages no prob when he heard.

OP responded:

That's crazy. If he was okay with paying for the damages when he heard, why didn't he stop when the damages occurred?

junkmans1 wrote:

There might be a complication with the insurance. Generally, when you file a claim under your collision you transfer your rights of recovery to your insurance company. They will always go after the person that caused the damage to recover their costs and if they can recover they will repay you your deductible.

This is called "subrogation" and is a common element in every car insurance policy I've seen. You might want to discuss this with your insurance company as you might have given away your right to sue him when you filed a claim with them.

OP responded:

That's a great point! I'll talk to my insurance about that.

No_body_knows wrote:

Make sure you hide your car for when he shows up to your house so he doesn't see it and run some more!

[deleted] wrote:

Gosh I would love for this to happen. I was hit by an uninsured driver last year who took off and fled the scene. They never caught her but I did get pictures of the car and its license plates. Police suspected it was a stolen car and they essentially did nothing. Paying the deductible when someone HITS YOU freaking blows.

OP made sure to come back with an update once he had one.

To clear up a misconception from last time - I did call the police at the time of the incident, and they would not come out because it was on private property. When I left you guys last time, the police were about to serve this dude the paperwork. I had found him, and I was awaiting a phone call from the sheriff's department with a confirmation. But their phone call wasn't the best news.

They arrived at the defendant's business address, and no one was at the address. The deputy told me he could try again tomorrow, but I was already not a fan of the way the police had acted until this point, so I told him to leave the paperwork at the police station, and I'll take care of it myself. I enlisted a coworker, David to serve this guy instead.

I drove David to the place of business - a two story, decrepit business complex with grey stonework and 70's style brown trimming. The defendant's place of business was on the second story, in a dark corner amidst other small businesses. It was extremely quiet, and not one of the offices upstairs were occupied. David knocked on the door, with no answer.

However, there was a mail slot in the middle of the door. We looked through it, and saw that the "office" was about the size of a mini cooper, with a solitary desk and a Dell PC. Nothing was on, and there was no phone. We called the phone number I had tried earlier, and no one answered.

So we went downstairs, hoping to speak to another business owner as to the whereabouts of this guy. For some reason, the empty office gave me a really uncomfortable feeling. On the first floor was a phone repair shop, with two sales reps at the counter. David nervously asked one of them if they knew who George G****** was.

The man responded - "Are you here to serve him?"

Dave laughed and asked how he knew that. The man told him that they get people in here every week attempting to serve George G******. So this dude has been running from people for quite a while.

I need to tell you here that the internet really helped in this investigation. One user told me about Colorado's Secretary of State Website. I used it and found another business address for the same company. David and I drove there, but the office space was completely empty. Those were the only two leads I had. I felt defeated, and without closure.

The last resort I had was a user who offered his private investigative services to me on another thread. I messaged him, and within one hour, I was on the phone with him, giving every piece of information I had about the defendant. Semyonov (we'll refer to him as "P.I.") told me to give him a few hours, and he'd call me back.

Sure enough, within an hour, he called and went through the full background on George G******. Who has liens and judgments against him stemming all the way back from 1997. The defendant has been all over Colorado since 1997, setting up at least 10-12 small businesses - all with multiple P.O. Boxes. The addresses were impossible to find, and the phone numbers were bunk.

One address happened to be a prison in my hometown of Canon City, CO, so we assumed he was a convicted felon. The multiple businesses this man set up was a telltale indicator of money laundering activity. He had filed for bankruptcy twice, but he recently sold a business in 2013 for over $600,000 - so he wasn't exactly poor.

Unfortunately, despite the full record P.I. pulled up, there was absolutely nothing new for us to go on. After a few back and forth phone calls from other attempts - I told P.I. that he had done his job, and that I had felt a strong sense of peace, knowing that not only have dozens of people attempted this very same thing before to no avail, but that I had exhausted every resource available to me.

I went back home and relaxed for the day. 30 minutes later, my phone rings. P.I. called and told me that he tried another database, one that usually doesn't pull up many results. However, this time an address popped up for a home about 15 minutes north of me in Commerce City. The home is owned by an Asian couple...but the utilities are in the name of the defendant.

P.I. told me that he could do surveillance of the home at an hourly fee, but I told him that I would go by and see if I found anything first. I got in my truck and drove to the address. The home was among an absolutely gorgeous neighborhood surrounding a golf course, each of them worth $500k+. I rounded the corner for the address, and two houses down - the grey Dodge Ram was sitting in the driveway.

The license plates matching the photos I took. He was at the house. I drove down to the end of the street and called P.I. I needed him served right here, right now, while we still have a chance. I met up with him at a King Soopers (grocery store) about two blocks away, and he went through the game plan - He would park across the street and use his binoculars to spot George.

All the P.I. needed was a visual confirmation, and the papers would be served. Both the P.I. and me carry concealed, so I parked two houses down and stood on the sidewalk, as P.I. pulled across the street.

As P.I.'s brakes quietly squeaked as he stopped, George came outside and started loading his truck. He was getting ready to leave somewhere. P.I. got out of his car and had his cellphone in his shirt pocket, recording the entire exchange. P.I asked "Are you Mr. George G******?"

"No" George replied.

"Well, does he happen to live here?"

"No, no one by that name lives here."

"Oh really? Because I know what you look like, and your plates and vehicle match up to you."

"Are you profiling me, bro?!"

"Dude...don't pull that crap with me"

George surprisingly answered - "Okay"

P.I. gave him the documents. We served the douchenozzle. We got him. We had his address. At this point, he has to either move to another residence, or pay the full amount in order to get out of this mess. George and I exchanged looks as he turned to walk back into his house, papers in hand. I gave him a huge smile, and I walked back to my truck.

The P.I. and I met around the corner, and I left my truck running while I came up to his car to sign the paperwork and pay him for the services rendered. While I was signing - I heard my phone ring through the truck's Bluetooth. I walked back and picked up my phone, with the words "Private Number" sitting across the screen. My adrenaline shot up, and I could feel my eyes dilate.

There was absolutely no one else who would call from a private number at this time, so I picked it up while the P.I. was scrambling to begin recording on his phone. I answered - "Hello?"

George threatened - "I'm coming to your house tonight - and I'm gonna come up on you."

"Oh yeah? How do you know where I live?" (I had intentionally left my address off of his copy of the service notice)

"Doesn't matter, you better watch your back, you pudgy MFer" (I'm not even fat! As I answered back, the phone hung up. The P.I. wasn't able to record the exchange, but he pointed to my dash cam - the thing that had already been quite the useful tool before - it was running the whole time, with audio to go with it.

The P.I. and I parted ways, and on the way back to my house I called 911, hoping I could get him arrested. I reported the threat he had just made. I was shaken, mostly by the tone of voice George had, plus the fact that he had spent time in prison. He had nothing to lose, so why wouldn't he kill me for $1,000?

The police officers were...you guessed it...unhelpful. They told me it wasn't a real threat, because he didn't specifically use key words like "gun" or "knife", or even "hurt". So they refused to come out, but I could go in on Monday to request a restraining order.

IT WAS FRIDAY NIGHT, and a piece of paper wasn't gonna do much anyway. I was thankful that I was carrying at the time, and that I had more than one weapon at home. I went home and did a quick Google search. If you type in my name and zip code, which was on the copy of paperwork George received, my home purchase IS PUBLIC RECORD. The very first result is my address. Great.

So I started packing my weapons into my truck, set my home video cameras to record, talked to my neighbors, had my roommate go to her friend's house for the weekend, and left. I met up with the P.I., who attempted several times to get the police to come out and at least file a report, to no avail.

After waiting for a while, I went to my girlfriend's house and stayed there for the weekend, periodically logging in to my cameras from my tablet and checking on the house. Fortunately, he didn't show up, and my neighbors didn't report a grey Ram driving around the area. I laid low for the next three weeks.

My bumper got fixed, and this morning, I walked into the courtroom with my pages of pertinent documents, videos, and audio recordings, and waited. George didn't show up, and the (surprisingly, very rude) judge ruled in my favor by default, for a total of $1,067.88. My next step is to have P.I. go back and serve him with interrogatories - a piece of paper which has him declare any assets, his banking accounts, etc.

If he is served the interrogatories, and he does not comply, a bench warrant is issued for his arrest. Throughout this WHOLE time, George hasn't done anything illegal, technically. Colorado driving laws state that insurance is not required on private property, which the Home Depot parking lot is.

So I'm hoping to get these papers served, and get a criminal charge against him. If I don't, it's really not a big deal. I got under his skin enough that he had to call and threaten me, and that makes me a happy man.

Here's what people had to say to OP's update:

zombieesandpandasohmy wrote:

If I were you, I'd go back to the first place of business you went to, and helpfully give his address to his neighbors to pass along to the other people coming there to serve him.

OP responded:

That's an amazing idea. I appreciate it.

poorloko wrote:

Nice work man. Glad you got him.

Serious question though: why do you have so much surveillance equipment? Dash cam, cameras at your house, plus you carry. Have you run into a similar situation before?

OP responded:

Nope, I've just seen too much crap go down online, so I know that having equipment can seriously help in case of an unexpected event. I'm also prior military, I've always carried.

toothball wrote:

What you should do is get in touch with all of the people who are after him for warrants or to serve him and let them serve him ASAP before he moves.