Britain’s sole police insurance fraud unit says it is receiving an increased number of reports of fake car insurance policies being sold to young motorists.
Dubbed ‘ghost broking’, unsuspecting victims are targeted via websites, social media and even on university campuses.
Young motorists are offered an insurance policy, usually at a heavily discounted rate, making a bulk payment up front. Many motorists are then left unaware that they are actually not insured and don’t usually find out unless involved in an accident or stopped by the police.
As a result, those falling victim to the scam are then faced with receiving six points on their driving licence and having to pay damage costs out of their own finances.
Case Study – Pete Townsend
Pete Townsend was the victim of such a scam aged just 19. Pete recalls the events: “I went online. I was just having a browse about and a website came up where you fill in a form and they call you back.
This company called me back with quite a good quote, just short of £1,600, where the others were about £2,000.â€
Having thought he’d bagged a bargain, Mr Townsend made an up front payment of £750, assuming he was insured.
He received ‘official looking’ documentation and thought nothing else of it until he returned to the company’s website one month later hoping to get a quote for his sister. To his horror, Mr Townsend was greeted by a blog warning that the company was a scam.
Pete continues his account: “Alarm bells started ringing, I called the DVLA to see if they could tell me if I was insured… I wasn’t.â€
Experts say that it is difficult to determine how many scams of this nature are in operation as many victims are oblivious to the fact that they are being conned. They usually only find out when it’s too late.
In a statement from Dave Wood, Detective Chief Inspector of the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED), he said: “Our units have been operating for the past two years and it’s certainly come to the top of our radar. They can be very sophisticated. We’ve had one ghost broker who was running four different websites.â€
The company that Dave Wood referred to in his statement is understood to have conned over 600 people, raking in profits of £500,000.
DCI Wood added: “Young people are often the ones who get caught out. They attract the highest premiums, therefore, there’s the biggest profit for the criminals.â€
Tags: Car Insurance, Driving Insurance, Young Person Insurance
