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It's long enough ago that the world's moved on.
Background..
I used to work in a counter-fraud office. We spent our lives interviewing high-risk policyholders about claims, with a view to either passing them for payment, or in ascending order of pain:
My hat was not investigating. I did geeky things like call recordings, data analysis, database liaison, audits, and the most fun bit, talking to The Rozzers. As such, none of the policyholders/scammers ever talked to me, and most of the stuff I can tell is somewhat second hand. Usually I was on the next desk or nearby when they occurred.
End Background..
The Shroud of Turin incident
Should you get drrrrrunk, decide to drive home, smash into the safety barriers, decide to leg it before the police arrive and close the road, you might think it clever to take your car key with you. After all, "everyone" knows that if your car is stolen with keys, insurers look closely, and you risk non-payment of your claim. Sadly for you, you have overlooked three things.
One, a stacked not-too-sporty-or-expensive car with no theft-related damage like busted locks, smashed windows, forced steering lock will cause insurers to look really closely indeed.
Two, your shiny new saloon has a smart key that records the mileage and fault codes every time it's used. Y'know, like.. airbag deployed, seatbelt tensioner deployed on driver's side only, every light at the front of the car defective, mileage exactly the same as when the car went on to the wrecker, that kind of thing. Since you sent that key to us, to prove the car wasn't stolen with it, we have that key. We also have a tame locksmith with a key reader.
Three, the airbag going off takes a good imprint of... your face. You see that Shroud of Turin? That's your airbag, that is. DNA testing time! Since trying this probably means you're a habitual pisshead, who really doesn't want to get caught, your DNA is still on record at the police station from last time.
Thanks for playing, you've won a trip to court, where you'll bask in the reflected not-glory of fraud, drunk driving as you were still visibly pished when the police came to look for you at home, driving without insurance (because you were pished), and finally, perverting the course of justice because you comprehensively bullshat us and The Rozzers on tape recorded interviews, and lied to both of us about what the other one had said. Game, Set and Guilty.
Rosetta Stone Reversed.
Right, so #1 son of the policyholder wants to deal with the claim. Why's that? Ah, patriarch of foreign descent speaks no English. Can someone help him with his English? No, we will not provide an interpreter, there are about 8 of you listed as drivers on the policy, surely one of you can help him? No, #1 son is approved to deal with it, take his word? I don't f'kin think so, I need Papa's approval. Thank you sir.
Right, #1 son, about this claim. The alleged car is in papa's name on the insurance, but it has your name on the registration document, your name on the receipt, you were driving it, you keep referring to "my" car, it's a ChavWagon MTNB 2.4 GTi* (*you know the sort of car) and to top it all, it's got your personalised plate on it. Tell me again how it's your dad's and you were not lying to us. OK, we are discriminating against him because he's <ethnic group>, are we? This is a phone not a video camera sir, I've never met any of you and don't know what you look like, so I cannot be discriminating against the colour of your skin. Perhaps since papa doesn't speak English you'd like to explain how he reads English road signs well enough to drive safely, how he filled in the claim form in English, and we'll ask the police to do our discriminating for us? Good, we understand each other.
So, he doesn't drive this car at all, does he? When the insurance was taken out in his name, he declared it was his, and he was the main driver, and that's not true, is it sir? I don't believe your father did take out the insurance at all, and you did it in his name to get a cheaper policy. Lies? Well, since the policy was taken out on the phone, I took the liberty of asking for the call recording from back then. I have spoken to you and your father today sir, and listened to the call taking out this policy, and the caller spoke very good English, unlike your father. I am absolutely certain which one of you took out the insurance, and who's credit card you used. It was yours sir, you read out the name on the card. If it wasn't you, I can call the bank to report the fraud and they will freeze the card and investigate, if you like? No? Does your father even know he has insurance? If he's forgetful enough to forget how to speak English in 4 months, he might have forgotten anything. OK, then, shall we start again sir?
Car-dumb? Not, just normal dumb.
OK, so this car. It's not exactly a standard car. Now, they didn't declare all the modifications, such as new alloy wheels, new air intakes, lowered suspension, illegally overtinted windows, Halfrauds spoiler, and so on.
The answer when asked about all this? "I bought it like that. I don't know much about cars, I thought that was all how it comes."
Sadly, Facebook says he's lying. His email address shows up on a car enthusiast's forum. The dealership he bought it from kindly sent us the spec of the car when they sold it to him, and it was a very different car then. The best bit is when the field investigator found the original steel wheels still at his house.
This is not the key you're looking for
Chap claims for theft of shiny German car. Chap turns in 2 keys for said shiny car on request.
Our side, a young lady of keen eyesight and inquisitive mind noticed the two keys were subtly different types. Both basically the same, but not quite exactly the same. She asked me to check over the keys. I confirmed her suspicions. Not *quite* identical.
These smart keys still have a mechanical key blade, but you have to know how to pull them out. I duly extracted the blades, and as we suspected, they didn't match. One of these things is not like the others.
Off I trundle to talk to German Cars (UK) Ltd's local dealership. They know me. They stuffed the keys into the German Cars (UK) Ltd proprietary key reader, and it returns two different chassis numbers. One of them belongs to the stolen car, the other another completely random one. Fair enough, I collected printouts from the service desk chaps, and went off to see the parts department.
The parts department are, true to germanic form, highly efficient. They know exactly how many keys German Cars supplied with any car, how many extras have been cut, and will tell me how many were active last time the car was serviced at a German Cars dealership. I give them the two chassis numbers, they tap away, tell me about one, and then a cloud arrives on Parts Guy's face.
"You need to check that one out." he says. "There's a note on here not to cut any keys for that chassis, as it's stolen." I, of course, thought he'd mixed them up. He hadn't. It turns out our chap has sent us one key for his car, and the spare key for another, also stolen, German Car. Nothing says "call The Rozzers" like having the keys to two different stolen cars in your possession. Our chap, last we heard, was answering questions that may have included the phrase "organised crime." Sadly, we were too minion-level to be told what happened after that.
These ARE the keys you're looking for
Other German Cars also have a highly efficient key tracking system. When the buyer of a stolen OGC black saloon rocked up to his local dealership in Morocco to get a spare cut (because we had the other key) it took about 5 minutes before our phone rang and the argument started over who would go and fetch said stolen OGC.
The Internet is really, really great... for NOPE.
Some people forget about the Internet. They forget that it's hard to convince us they park their car in a locked garage every night when a glance at Google Street View says they don't even HAVE a garage.
Likewise, although Google Street View obscures number plates, it's quite easy to tell which driveway is yours from the fact there's a matching make/model/colour car parked on it. You as well, what garage is that then, as you don't have one?
Also, when talking bollocks about how an accident occurs, google earth gives us a great view of the area, so no they did not have right of way there, and it's a 30 zone not a 60 zone. Try harder.
The crowning infamy is when you drive your car to the docks, load it into a container, fill in the export paperwork including the registration plate, go home, report the car stolen, and then forget that the bill of lading for the container ship is published on the internet. Including your car. We can google. You can fail.
The grown up version of "my dad's bigger than your dad."
We used to get threatened regularly with trading standards, freedom of information, the Information Commissioner, local papers, Watchdog (consumer rights programme in the UK) and so on. Enough that we developed a handy "how to tell them to GTFO" guide for the office.
People spent ten, twenty minutes at a time bellowing their rights into the phone, demanding this, that and the other, claiming we had no right to do x (where x is whatever nailed their lies,) and I did enjoy hearing investigators putting the fires out by knowing it better than the blowhard.
"Watchdog? Yes, the BBC editorial values give us a right of reply which means they will talk to us, and we intend to show them (incriminating document x) and play them (lies down the phone y) as part of our reply, thank you for telling me so I have time to clear their release."
Freedom of Information Act covers government agencies. We are not part of the government, it DOES NOT APPLY to us. At all. For anything. Ever.
"OK, we'll be happy to talk to Trading Standards. Do you give your permission for them to look into the case, and have copies of the documents? OK, that will include (blatant lie on your part) and (police report proving you are a lying git.)"
"Lawyer, certainly. Their name and address please, including DX number, so I can instruct our lawyers to respond. Once I have confirmation they will act for you, as part of pre-trial action protocol we will supply them with all of the documentation. We cannot settle your claim, as it is under legal review as of now. I repeat, your claim is now on hold because the court case will affect the outcome. You will receive no money from us until the case is settled or the lawyers tell us to. You just took it out of our hands, I have to send the case to the lawyers now."
"Complaint, yes of course. I shall forward a copy of the case file to that department, and transfer your call to the Customer Service department. They will handle your complaint, I should point out that are not able to take over or settle your case. Their effect on the case will be to appoint a new handler if necessary, or to consider your complaint about the conduct of the investigation. They cannot cut a cheque."
Data protection:
No problem, tell them send us the cheque for £10 to the usual address, we'll send them a printout of the database record here, and transcripts of the calls between us.
No, that will not include our calls with the police.
Because section 29.2 of the Act clearly excludes data held for the purpose of investigating crime, that's why. We don't have to, so we won't.
No, it will not include <long list of other things like 3rd party database records, insurance policy from someone else, DVLA records, etc>, because we're only allowed to send data we control, and that's not data we control.
No, the law does not give them a right to demand deletion of <that call recording which is inconvenient to their lies>, and no, withdrawing their consent does not mean we cannot keep a recording of that call.
Item 6, Schedule 2 of the Act says we can continue without their consent if we have a legitimate interest in the data, which we do. It's all online, they can look it up themselves.
I spent enough years to realise that all really do think they'll get away with it. Some undoubtedly did. Many didn't.
Background..
I used to work in a counter-fraud office. We spent our lives interviewing high-risk policyholders about claims, with a view to either passing them for payment, or in ascending order of pain:
- Giving them less money because they inflated the claim;
- Charging them an extra premium to get their claim paid because they told a fib when they took out insurance (this is what we would have charged if you'd been honest);
- Charging them a lot of extra premium and making a note not to let them renew because they told a big fib when they took out insurance;
- Denying their claim because they told a whopper when taking out insurance or making the claim;
- Voiding their insurance back to inception (a legal time machine thing- now they never had insurance at all) because they told such a big lie their pants were on fire.
- As above, plus handing the file over to The Rozzers for consideration for a charge of Fraud.
My hat was not investigating. I did geeky things like call recordings, data analysis, database liaison, audits, and the most fun bit, talking to The Rozzers. As such, none of the policyholders/scammers ever talked to me, and most of the stuff I can tell is somewhat second hand. Usually I was on the next desk or nearby when they occurred.
End Background..
The Shroud of Turin incident
Should you get drrrrrunk, decide to drive home, smash into the safety barriers, decide to leg it before the police arrive and close the road, you might think it clever to take your car key with you. After all, "everyone" knows that if your car is stolen with keys, insurers look closely, and you risk non-payment of your claim. Sadly for you, you have overlooked three things.
One, a stacked not-too-sporty-or-expensive car with no theft-related damage like busted locks, smashed windows, forced steering lock will cause insurers to look really closely indeed.
Two, your shiny new saloon has a smart key that records the mileage and fault codes every time it's used. Y'know, like.. airbag deployed, seatbelt tensioner deployed on driver's side only, every light at the front of the car defective, mileage exactly the same as when the car went on to the wrecker, that kind of thing. Since you sent that key to us, to prove the car wasn't stolen with it, we have that key. We also have a tame locksmith with a key reader.
Three, the airbag going off takes a good imprint of... your face. You see that Shroud of Turin? That's your airbag, that is. DNA testing time! Since trying this probably means you're a habitual pisshead, who really doesn't want to get caught, your DNA is still on record at the police station from last time.
Thanks for playing, you've won a trip to court, where you'll bask in the reflected not-glory of fraud, drunk driving as you were still visibly pished when the police came to look for you at home, driving without insurance (because you were pished), and finally, perverting the course of justice because you comprehensively bullshat us and The Rozzers on tape recorded interviews, and lied to both of us about what the other one had said. Game, Set and Guilty.
Rosetta Stone Reversed.
Right, so #1 son of the policyholder wants to deal with the claim. Why's that? Ah, patriarch of foreign descent speaks no English. Can someone help him with his English? No, we will not provide an interpreter, there are about 8 of you listed as drivers on the policy, surely one of you can help him? No, #1 son is approved to deal with it, take his word? I don't f'kin think so, I need Papa's approval. Thank you sir.
Right, #1 son, about this claim. The alleged car is in papa's name on the insurance, but it has your name on the registration document, your name on the receipt, you were driving it, you keep referring to "my" car, it's a ChavWagon MTNB 2.4 GTi* (*you know the sort of car) and to top it all, it's got your personalised plate on it. Tell me again how it's your dad's and you were not lying to us. OK, we are discriminating against him because he's <ethnic group>, are we? This is a phone not a video camera sir, I've never met any of you and don't know what you look like, so I cannot be discriminating against the colour of your skin. Perhaps since papa doesn't speak English you'd like to explain how he reads English road signs well enough to drive safely, how he filled in the claim form in English, and we'll ask the police to do our discriminating for us? Good, we understand each other.
So, he doesn't drive this car at all, does he? When the insurance was taken out in his name, he declared it was his, and he was the main driver, and that's not true, is it sir? I don't believe your father did take out the insurance at all, and you did it in his name to get a cheaper policy. Lies? Well, since the policy was taken out on the phone, I took the liberty of asking for the call recording from back then. I have spoken to you and your father today sir, and listened to the call taking out this policy, and the caller spoke very good English, unlike your father. I am absolutely certain which one of you took out the insurance, and who's credit card you used. It was yours sir, you read out the name on the card. If it wasn't you, I can call the bank to report the fraud and they will freeze the card and investigate, if you like? No? Does your father even know he has insurance? If he's forgetful enough to forget how to speak English in 4 months, he might have forgotten anything. OK, then, shall we start again sir?
Car-dumb? Not, just normal dumb.
OK, so this car. It's not exactly a standard car. Now, they didn't declare all the modifications, such as new alloy wheels, new air intakes, lowered suspension, illegally overtinted windows, Halfrauds spoiler, and so on.
The answer when asked about all this? "I bought it like that. I don't know much about cars, I thought that was all how it comes."
Sadly, Facebook says he's lying. His email address shows up on a car enthusiast's forum. The dealership he bought it from kindly sent us the spec of the car when they sold it to him, and it was a very different car then. The best bit is when the field investigator found the original steel wheels still at his house.
This is not the key you're looking for
Chap claims for theft of shiny German car. Chap turns in 2 keys for said shiny car on request.
Our side, a young lady of keen eyesight and inquisitive mind noticed the two keys were subtly different types. Both basically the same, but not quite exactly the same. She asked me to check over the keys. I confirmed her suspicions. Not *quite* identical.
These smart keys still have a mechanical key blade, but you have to know how to pull them out. I duly extracted the blades, and as we suspected, they didn't match. One of these things is not like the others.
Off I trundle to talk to German Cars (UK) Ltd's local dealership. They know me. They stuffed the keys into the German Cars (UK) Ltd proprietary key reader, and it returns two different chassis numbers. One of them belongs to the stolen car, the other another completely random one. Fair enough, I collected printouts from the service desk chaps, and went off to see the parts department.
The parts department are, true to germanic form, highly efficient. They know exactly how many keys German Cars supplied with any car, how many extras have been cut, and will tell me how many were active last time the car was serviced at a German Cars dealership. I give them the two chassis numbers, they tap away, tell me about one, and then a cloud arrives on Parts Guy's face.
"You need to check that one out." he says. "There's a note on here not to cut any keys for that chassis, as it's stolen." I, of course, thought he'd mixed them up. He hadn't. It turns out our chap has sent us one key for his car, and the spare key for another, also stolen, German Car. Nothing says "call The Rozzers" like having the keys to two different stolen cars in your possession. Our chap, last we heard, was answering questions that may have included the phrase "organised crime." Sadly, we were too minion-level to be told what happened after that.
These ARE the keys you're looking for
Other German Cars also have a highly efficient key tracking system. When the buyer of a stolen OGC black saloon rocked up to his local dealership in Morocco to get a spare cut (because we had the other key) it took about 5 minutes before our phone rang and the argument started over who would go and fetch said stolen OGC.
The Internet is really, really great... for NOPE.
Some people forget about the Internet. They forget that it's hard to convince us they park their car in a locked garage every night when a glance at Google Street View says they don't even HAVE a garage.
Likewise, although Google Street View obscures number plates, it's quite easy to tell which driveway is yours from the fact there's a matching make/model/colour car parked on it. You as well, what garage is that then, as you don't have one?
Also, when talking bollocks about how an accident occurs, google earth gives us a great view of the area, so no they did not have right of way there, and it's a 30 zone not a 60 zone. Try harder.
The crowning infamy is when you drive your car to the docks, load it into a container, fill in the export paperwork including the registration plate, go home, report the car stolen, and then forget that the bill of lading for the container ship is published on the internet. Including your car. We can google. You can fail.
The grown up version of "my dad's bigger than your dad."
We used to get threatened regularly with trading standards, freedom of information, the Information Commissioner, local papers, Watchdog (consumer rights programme in the UK) and so on. Enough that we developed a handy "how to tell them to GTFO" guide for the office.
People spent ten, twenty minutes at a time bellowing their rights into the phone, demanding this, that and the other, claiming we had no right to do x (where x is whatever nailed their lies,) and I did enjoy hearing investigators putting the fires out by knowing it better than the blowhard.
"Watchdog? Yes, the BBC editorial values give us a right of reply which means they will talk to us, and we intend to show them (incriminating document x) and play them (lies down the phone y) as part of our reply, thank you for telling me so I have time to clear their release."
Freedom of Information Act covers government agencies. We are not part of the government, it DOES NOT APPLY to us. At all. For anything. Ever.
"OK, we'll be happy to talk to Trading Standards. Do you give your permission for them to look into the case, and have copies of the documents? OK, that will include (blatant lie on your part) and (police report proving you are a lying git.)"
"Lawyer, certainly. Their name and address please, including DX number, so I can instruct our lawyers to respond. Once I have confirmation they will act for you, as part of pre-trial action protocol we will supply them with all of the documentation. We cannot settle your claim, as it is under legal review as of now. I repeat, your claim is now on hold because the court case will affect the outcome. You will receive no money from us until the case is settled or the lawyers tell us to. You just took it out of our hands, I have to send the case to the lawyers now."
"Complaint, yes of course. I shall forward a copy of the case file to that department, and transfer your call to the Customer Service department. They will handle your complaint, I should point out that are not able to take over or settle your case. Their effect on the case will be to appoint a new handler if necessary, or to consider your complaint about the conduct of the investigation. They cannot cut a cheque."
Data protection:
No problem, tell them send us the cheque for £10 to the usual address, we'll send them a printout of the database record here, and transcripts of the calls between us.
No, that will not include our calls with the police.
Because section 29.2 of the Act clearly excludes data held for the purpose of investigating crime, that's why. We don't have to, so we won't.
No, it will not include <long list of other things like 3rd party database records, insurance policy from someone else, DVLA records, etc>, because we're only allowed to send data we control, and that's not data we control.
No, the law does not give them a right to demand deletion of <that call recording which is inconvenient to their lies>, and no, withdrawing their consent does not mean we cannot keep a recording of that call.
Item 6, Schedule 2 of the Act says we can continue without their consent if we have a legitimate interest in the data, which we do. It's all online, they can look it up themselves.
I spent enough years to realise that all really do think they'll get away with it. Some undoubtedly did. Many didn't.
He is my Black Dragon (and yes, a good one) strong, protective, the guardian. I am his Silver Dragon, always by his side, shining for him, cherishing him.
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