Are These Nuts for Real? From the Crime Doesn’t Pay Files

          I don’t know, maybe it’s just me but I’m thinking if insurance scammers and master-criminal wannabes spent as much time on doing the right thing as they do in developing their schemes, they probably would lead  much better lives. Although we should probably ask Marc Rich, he only owed what, $50 million in back taxes? Once he connected with one of the best presidents money can buy, he got a waiver and a pardon.

          But I fear that we are in for a storm of fraud and bad behavior especially because of the state we’re in, and it’s not just economics either. Unfortunately our society has undergone a massive erosion of moral and guiding principles. Here’s what I mean, remember an Ikea commercial where the shopper looks at her receipt and can’t get away fast enough because she thought the cashier made a calculation error? What does that say about us as a society? What’s wrong with simply pointing out the error to the cashier to help her save her job? Of course it wouldn’t be a funny commercial, but that script unfortunately reflects a growing segment of our society today. 

Contrast that with a news item I read in the 70s where a  guy found a wallet in a phone booth at the LA airport and it had $30,000 in it. He called the owner and told him he found it, and to the owner’s surprise he told him the amount that was in it. The guy offered to return it all, but the businessman told him to keep the money but just send back the wallet and the rest of the contents.

           It’s different today though. Now we have surveys that tell us that 30 percent or more of high school students think it is okay to cheat on a test or assignment. And a recent insurance survey tells us that approximately 1.4 million more people are willing to commit insurance fraud than there were 12 months ago. They’d be more likely to do it because of the economy, and in their minds that apparently justifies it.

Why not? Can anyone say what our new treasury secretary is famous for? I’m wondering how many potential defrauders out there are thinking that they could commit fraud, and if caught they might get appointed to run the very company they scammed.  Hmmm.

 So this gem below came to me and proved to be some fun reading, and for guys like me who believe there is still a difference between right and wrong, it was great to see the outcome. But there is some irony here, read through it and I’ll tell you what that irony is at the end of the excerpt.

BEST  LAWYER/INSURANCE STORY OF THE  YEAR, DECADE, AND POSSIBLY THE CENTURY. 

This took place in Charlotte North  Carolina.  A lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then  insured them against, among other things, fire.  Within  a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars, the lawyer filed  a claim against the insurance company.

In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost 'in a series of small  fires. The  insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason, that the  man had consumed the cigars in the normal  fashion. The  lawyer sued and  WON!   (Stay  with  me.) Delivering  the ruling, the judge agreed with the insurance company that the  claim was frivolous. The judge stated nevertheless, that  the lawyer held a policy from the company, in which it had  warranted that the cigars were  insurable  and also guaranteed that it would insure them against  fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable  'fire' and was obligated to pay the claim.

Rather than endure lengthy and costly appeal process,  the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid  $15,000 to the lawyer for his loss of the cigars that  perished in the  'fires'.

NOW  FOR THE BEST   PART...

After  the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company  had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON!!!   With is own insurance claim and testimony from the  previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted  of intentionally burning his insured property and was  sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine. This true story won First Place in last year's  Criminal Lawyers Award contest.

 So here’s the irony. It’s a fake.  I thought that this was a worthwhile item to write a piece on, but after some research it turns out that it is a joke.  However, since it’s billed as a true event that means it’s fraud!

 The research brought to light some real ones though, and that is what’s disturbing. A California doctor is facing 276 counts of insurance fraud, and a claims adjuster created a phony accident scam that included the deaths of kids who didn’t exist. He got $710,000 for his efforts but is facing a long time in jail. A business owner faked a fire and ended up killing one of his accomplices, so now he’s charged with fraud and murder. And the list goes on and on. These people had built careers and businesses yet somehow, somewhere they decided to toss it all away on a get rich scheme, and now we know that there are about 1.4 million more people who might be ready to give it a try.

 Why should we care? Because it affects us; all, individually and as a society. When people cheat and get away with it, they’ll keep doing it until they get caught. We could be their next victims, and even when we’re not we pay a higher price for our services because the companies they cheat have to recoup the costs of the losses and the investigations.

 Back when we all lived under the Golden rule with adherence to right and wrong; we had a sense of honor and duty to each other. Those who didn’t were often caught and made to pay for it. But somehow the lines got blurred and where has it got us? How many nominees for public office had to pull out because of their failure to pay their taxes or were on the take? How many more didn’t get caught? My friends, this is only the beginning. Sad to say, there’s much more to come.

 Ted