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Fraud - Auto Insurance Fraud
In the United States auto insurance fraud is becoming one of thebiggest fraud problems this country is faced with. In thisarticle we're going to discuss some of the more common autoinsurance fraud scams and what somebody can do to prevent them.Today one of the most popular insurance fraud scams involvesauto insurance and auto accidents. More specifically, stagedauto accidents. These have actually become quite complex to thepoint where they involve multiple participants. There are manyvariations of these. We'll cover the main ones here.First there is what is called the swoop and squat. This scaminvolves three vehicles. Two are driven by the criminals and thethird is driven by the victim. The driver of the "squat" vehiclepositions himself in front of the victim. The person driving the"swoop" vehicle pulls ahead of the squat vehicle andintentionally cuts the vehicle off. This causes the driver ofthe squat vehicle to slam on his brakes and stop short. Usually,the victim can't react quickly enough and rams into the squatvehicle. In the meantime, the swoop vehicle that caused theaccident takes off and is never seen again. The victim tellspolice that the swoop vehicle caused the accident, but becausethat vehicle can't be located the victim ends up having to payfor the damage and any personal injury claims.Then there is what is known as the side swipe. This type ofaccident usually happens at busy intersections with dual lefthand turn lanes. The criminal positions his vehicle in the outerleft turn lane. When the victim's vehicle drifts into the outerturn lane the criminal side swipes him. To make sure the schemeworks the criminal does preliminary surveillance to make surethat the intersection is busy enough where drifting will occurbecause of the amount of traffic.Another common auto accident scam is what is known as the PanicStop. In this scheme the criminal drives a late model car filledwith a lot of passengers. The criminal will then positionhimself in front of the victim and have one of the passengerslook out the back window watching to see for any signs ofdistraction such as answering a cell phone call or changing astation on the radio. Any sign that the victim is taking hiseyes off the road. Once this happens the passenger signals thedriver who then slams on the brakes thus causing an accident.The victim will claim that the criminal stopped short for noapparent reason but usually to no avail. In the meantime thevictim has to pay for all damages and injuries reported.Unfortunately there is only one way to avoid these type ofaccidents and that is to be observant at all times and keep asafe distance from any vehicle ahead of you. The sad truth is,if all motorists would just obey the speed and distance laws andrules, accidents like these would never happen. But people drivetoo fast and too close and thus these type of frauds will alwaysbe pulled off. Drive safe and smart and your chances of beingthe victim of auto insurance fraud will be greatly diminished.
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