Twittering away to prevent fraud

Iranian dissidents aren’t the only twitterers seeking justice these days. The city of Chandler, Arizona on Friday sent a message to local residents via Twitter to warn about a scam artist trying to stage a pedestrian accident in a city parking lot.

A city employee sent out the warning after viewing video footage of the alleged scam from a security camera. The suspect seems to clearly wait for a car to back up and hit her, and then as the car goes forward to pull into a parking space, she maneuvers in front of the car to try again.

After making what appears to be a call on her cell phone — and a full two and a half minutes later — she falls to the ground. The other oddity is that a women she was with (perhaps a convenient witness?) doesn’t come to her aid until three minutes after the car brushed her.

Passerbys who witness the scene apparently aren’t convinced she’s injured either because they stroll by like nothing’s happened.

She stays on the ground for three minutes and then gets up when police and an ambulance show up. The women was taken away and filed a police report, which should be available later today. Stay tuned to see if any charges are levied against her.

Kudos to the folks in Chandler for posting the warning and for uploading the video. If more cities took such initiatives, fewer people would chance committing these scams that not only raise everyone’s insurance rates but also make it more difficult for real victims to get the help they need.

Good video

VIDEO LINK:

http://www.insurancefraud.org/videoNews0030.htm

Beware of this parking lot scam. Watch out when you back from a parking spot!

They prey generally on the ederly or those driving a vehicle that looks well insured.

These fraudsters are out there.

Something similar happened to my son a few years ago. He was picking up his boss at a shopping center and parked away from the other vehicles and shops so that he could be easily found. His boss got in my son's car. My son started backing up, and suddenly saw an old lady pushing a shopping cart. He bumped the shopping cart, but not the lady. She "fell" because she was hanging onto the shopping cart. The police and fire department both came and knew this lady very well. Seems her daughter has been accused of elderly abuse. There was no reason for her to be near my son's car--there was other vehicles near, it wasn't near a walkway of any kind.

My insurance settled with her for $4700. At one point before the settlement, a younger woman called my insurance claiming to be me and wanted to know the limits on my insurance. She sounded suspicious, so the claims adjuster didn't believe who she claimed to be (me) and wouldn't tell her anything. She got irate and he told her he would call her back. So, he called me at my number and confirmed that it wasn't me calling for the limits.

I believe the daughter set her mother up to do this. The daughter was the one pushing the settlement. The old lady had claimed at the time that "nothing was wrong with her" except for a scraped knee.

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