Scams

This article is hopefully the first of many highlighting the current scams going around and hopefully everyone will participate and post those scams which are not popular currently to prevent anyone getting caught up in them as during such periods of hardship and people looking to save money it is increasingly easier to set up a legitimate looking scam which many will fall for and they lose a lot of money and hardship times means scam time for many people.


Ghost Insurance Scam

This is a scam involving car insurance and they only run for a couple of weeks and suddenly disappear without trace and my version came from a Father of a young driver who was stopped by the police for driving without insurance.

This lad spent several years saving to buy a car and insure it as he didn't want to be leasing a car with insurance included and passed his test and saved for his first car and decided it was cheaper to pay outright for his insurance so looked online for quotes and found a company specialising in young drivers and phoned them up and spoke to them and while being pleasantly surprised at their apparent welcoming charm he asked for a quote and it came back as very competitive as they asked what he had been quoted and used the excuse "to see if we can beat it" which we will find out is a scam.
He was quoted £2500 and clearly stated he wanted to modify his car in the future and they said fine, just notify us when you do and they duly paid the premuims of £2500 which was £2400 premium and £100 arrangement fee and they checked later that day on an online insurance database and certainly it was showing as fully insured and all appeared well until 15 days later when he was stopped by the police for having no insurance and following the advice of his father, being a young driver he kept a copy of his insurance policy document in the car with all the relevant information on and when he was stopped for no insurance he was gobsmacked. This constable was actually a constable anmd not the other version beginning with CUN as he checked the document and said it was fraudulent and he now know why and explained it was what was called ghost insurance and a pure scam and he had another cate two weeks earlier from the same alleged company and he fully explained it.

A legitimate looking website pops up for 1-2 weeks and has a legitimate looking company number and claims to be a member of the requisite trade associations and even has a legitimate phone number which you can ring and they answer and a very clear and concise and very helpful and they trot out the well rehearsed rhetoric of trying to help you het cheaper car insurance and this begins with:

Have you had any previous quotes and what was the best price? this is so they can give you a cheaper quote and it is only slightly cheaper to be realistic.

He was given a quote of £2590 and told them and they always nearly say it is a competitive quote and will be difficult to beat and they said it would be £90 cheaper with them and begin "bulking it out" by adding fees and they said the insurance was £2400 and the arrangement fee was a standard £100 and even with these fees it was still £90 cheaper than his best quote so accepted and paid the £2500 in full and gave them the start date and the first part of the scam was completed.

With their scam working they had his cash in their account and if he is savvy which many people are he will check the Motor Insurance Database (MID) to check they are insured and to do this they need the vehicle insuring to prevent the bank stopping the transaction and to do this they use a legitimate insurer and the scammer arranged legitimate insurance through a genuine insurer who instantly logs and insurance onto the MID and now the vehicle is legitimately insured.
Now comes the crux of the scam because you have a 14 day cooling off period and you can cancel your insurance within these 14 days but you do have to pay the insurance time used and generally an administration fee and they use this cooling off period and cancel the insurance after 10-12 days and the scammer gets the rest of the premuim returned to them, so lets look at the figures.

A premium of £2500 per year equates to £208.33 per month and generally most legitimate insurers charge £15-25 admin fees and they usually break it down into monthly sections so you have to pay a premium of a full month if you only use a part month, so lets put the figures to this.

He has paid £2500 premium to the bogus insurer and lets assume the genuine insurer charges £3000 per annum as this is £300 per month premium.
Bogus insurer cancels the insurance within the 14 day cooling off period as he is lawfully entitled to do and the genuine insurer charges the full months premium of £300 plus the £25 administration premium which is now £325 and the bogus insurer has received the original £2500 premium and has had to top it up to £3000 by using £500 of his own money.

Genuine insurer received £3000 and deducts one months premium of £300 plus the £25 admin fee and reimburses the balance which is £2675 directly to the scammer which he pockets and if he decucts his £500 he pot in to pay the genuine insurer he pockets £2175 profit on every scam for simply accepting the premium and arranging genuine insurance and cancelling it within the prescribed 14 day cooling off period.

Back to the case, this constable had seen the same thing 2 weeks earlier and used his discretion and clled the boys father and suggested he arranged full insurance instantly or one of those part time short insurances which you can get for a day, a week, or a short period as he needed insurance on the car to release it otherwise he would have to call the tow truck and impound the vehicle which would incur recovery and storage charges and he would still have to pay insurance to allow the vehicle to be released. Fortunately the father arranged a short insurance of one week and printed out the insurance document which he took to his son and the car was released as it was now insured.

Has anyone ever wondered how much car insurance would cost......


....... if it wasn't compulsory?

Many thanks for the heads up Assassin.

MikeThomas wrote:Has anyone ever wondered how much car insurance would cost......


....... if it wasn't compulsory?

It isn't as all you are required to do is mitigate the potential liability Mike.

Ask yourself the question? why are no police cars, Royal Parks vehicles, fire engines and ambulances insured, oh and the irony, an ininsured police car stopping you for having no insurance and impounding your vehicle.

Is mitigating the potential liability the NINO?

IMO only commercial entities or 'legal' - corporate things get insurance for anything.

Is the vehicle simply the number plates? After all a bicycle is mechanically propelled but is NOT registered & has no number plates.Is a bicycle classed as a vehicle?

assassin wrote:Ask yourself the question? why are no police cars, Royal Parks vehicles, fire engines and ambulances insured,

You'll find the answer to your question here,  s144.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/part/VI/crossheading/compulsory-insurance-or-security-against-thirdparty-risks

LionsShare wrote:Is mitigating the potential liability the NINO?

IMO only commercial entities or 'legal' - corporate things get insurance for anything.

Is the vehicle simply the number plates? After all a bicycle is mechanically propelled but is NOT registered & has no number plates.Is a bicycle classed as a vehicle?

please note  - assassin likes my post, is that saying something (not saying I am right)?

C'mon work it out.?????

is the system of 'Titles' wrong or even corrupt?

DI started this fantastic thread:     https://goodf.forumotion.com/t4916-know-who-you-are

can't say it any simpler......

What is a 'Title'? What does holding 'Title' mean?

Its really simple - piece of paper with........

please ask questions, nothing gained nothing ventured.

Hewl Fawr ac Nos Da!

gormod o gwrw