There are many reasons to verify customer ID, especially when it comes to starting down the insurance claims route. But sometimes would-be fraudsters can be quite tricky when it comes to identity, or identities. Here’s some news from the City of London Police;
A man who changed his name multiple times by deed poll and used the identities of his family and friends to make bogus travel insurance claims worth an estimated total of £75,000, has been sentenced. Sam William Carr, 34, of St Peters Terrace, Bolton, took out 13 travel insurance policies with five insurance companies and made fraudulent claims for lost luggage and money against them.
Carr pleaded guilty at Inner Crown Court on 31 January 2024 to 10 counts of fraud by false representation. He was sentenced at the Royal Courts of Justice on 20 March 2024 to 20 months imprisonment, suspended for two years, and must also complete 200 hours of unpaid work and a 30 day rehabilitation activity requirement.
HOW IT WORKED – LOST LUGGAGE, STOLEN CASH
The case was referred to the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) in February 2020 by LV= General Insurance. On 11 April 2019, Carr, who had taken out a travel insurance policy with LV= under the name Cruise Pierce, claimed that his luggage was lost during a flight to Australia 15 days earlier and £1,000 in cash had been stolen from his hotel room.
Checks made by LV= and its fraud team showed that the luggage could only have been missing for 11 days, and the claims were rejected after Carr did not respond to the insurer’s attempts to contact him.
Further enquiries showed that Carr had used different legal names and aliases, the most prominent being Cruise Archer Pierce and Sebastian Prince Alexander, to make fraudulent claims with Aviva, AXA Partners, Travel Insurance Facilities and Reactive Claims. He supplied numerous addresses including those of family members and storage units he rented when he took out the policies.
Carr would either claim for baggage that he stated had gone missing during flights abroad or money stolen from his destination hotel room. He supplied fake banking documents, utility bills and flight boarding passes to evidence the claims. In other instances, he genuinely booked the flights, but did not travel.
SUCCESS MEANS REPEATED ATTEMPTS
Carr’s activity resulted in him being paid a total of £11,321, as the majority of the claims were not paid out after they were deemed fraudulent. He made claims with three insurers for an iPhone 7, which he had already received compensation for following a burglary in 2017. He also bought two travel insurance policies, using different names, for a holiday to Los Angeles. However, when Carr made claims for lost luggage, he provided inaccurate flight times and mixed up the names of the policy holders.
IFED officers located Carr during a search warrant executed at his cousin’s home address with Greater Manchester Police. When nobody answered the door, officers forcibly removed it and found Carr standing behind it, and he was arrested.
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