Industry news roundup: week ended 14 Oct 2013:
In the world of accident claims, whiplash accounts for quite a bit of fraud – but at least two scams were caught cold thanks to photographic evidence this week!
First up is the story of how one driver collided with a lorry in what turned out to be a complete scam. The lorry, which had luckily been fitted with a video recorder just for such an eventuality, bore witness that the lorry driver was not at fault, despite the other driver’s protestations to the contrary – it’s kind of hard to argue that the other bloke was at fault when you career across three lanes of traffic, isn’t it?
I’ll wager that the scammer was in for more than a little bit of a surprise to learn that he had been caught on camera. It makes me giddy to learn that there’s one less fraudulent personal injury compensation claim out there thanks to this technology.
Meanwhile it’s not just at the scene of the accident that digital footage is playing a role in discouraging fraud. Another story that broke this week revealed how a former police officer, someone who was supposedly suffering from a severe case of whiplash, went out and took part in a professional cage fight less than a fortnight after the ‘injury’ took place – and there’s video footage of the fight!
Well too bad for this bloke that prosecutors viewed the footage and determined that there’s no way he could have been suffering from whiplash and also participated in the heavyweight bout. This is pretty much an open-and-shut case of attempted insurance fraud, and now there’s a very good chance that there could be some jail time in this foolish man’s future. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke, if you ask me!
I swear, it’s like these fraudsters are getting less and less intelligent with each passing day. It’s like they’re just not thinking at all besides about the shedloads of cash they’ll supposedly get from making their fraudulent personal injury claims; perhaps they’re so blinded by greed that their basic reasoning skills go on holiday? Then again you have to be rather thick to attempt fraud like this anyhow, so I shouldn’t really be surprised by stories like this now should I? What a pack of idiots.