Fraud Is Getting Harder To Pull Off
Michael Babboni
Personal Injury
If you’ve seen a lot of TV or film that covers aspects of the American legal system, you may have seen either humorous or serious portrayals of people trying to make “easy money” by faking an injury and then going to court for a personal injury lawsuit.In the case of humorous portrayals, there’s one particular cliché that many people know very well. People get into the mildest of car accidents, sometimes even just a “bump” on the fender, immediately grabbing their neck, and screaming “whiplash!” Then they make a lot of money at court while wearing a neck brace, which they immediately remove once they get home put to the side as they dive into a swimming pool in the mansion their lawsuit made possible.
In part because of jokes like this, and other lawsuits, such as the Stella Liebeck case in 1994, where she was awarded $640,000 from McDonald’s for burning her mouth on hot coffee, many people have the wrong idea about personal injury cases. They believe that the road to success in America is about finding a clever way to fake an injury, then either go to court for a highly publicized case that results in millions, or settle out of court as “hush money” from an anxious company or wealthy individual.
The truth is that in 21st century, setting out to deliberately fake an injury in order to deceive a defendant, known as “hard fraud,” is very difficult to pull off, and there are many reasons for that.
Better Surveillance
Unfortunately, we have a recent example of this particular form of fraud that comes from right here in Florida. Sheyla Veronica White, working from an undisclosed office in Ft. Lauderdale, noticed a defective sprinkler when it fell from the ceiling and landed on her desk. She saw an opportunity to make some of that “easy money,” and so took the sprinkler, and hit herself on the face with it, providing proof of an injury that she planned to use to get workers comp benefits from her employers.
Unfortunately for Sheyla, she either forgot or was unaware of the surveillance camera in her own office, which caught her in the act, red handed. She was put on probation and charged with third degree felony for attempting to fake an injury and make her workplace pay for it. Fortunately for everyone involved, she didn’t have to pay restitution, as her claim was neutralized before it got a chance to go anywhere and pay out benefits.
In other incidents, surveillance cameras in public spaces like grocery and convenience stores have caught people doing things like spilling drinks on the ground, then lying beside the spill in an effort to fake a slip and fall. Obviously, once these surveillance videos come to light, the case gets thrown out, and the people in question are charged.
Social Media
As hard as it may be to believe, there are many, many people out there who make a distinction between what they say and do publicly on the Internet, and what they say and do in the “real world,” believing there is no crossover between the two. Somehow, despite the fact that people are making public posts online using their real name, that anyone can look up, they have convinced themselves there’s no connection.
This kind of foolishness has made it very easy in recent years for investigators to uncover fraud personal injury claims. In 2016, in the United Kingdom, William Owen got involved in a car accident where another vehicle reversed into his car at a gas station. He was later diagnosed with whiplash, and would require 9 months of treatment and recovery. His insurer, Aviva, honored the claim.
However, over the following months, William Own then used social media to proudly show off photos of himself running in marathons, bragging on social media like Twitter that he had just worked three days non-stop at his job, and generally doing things that should be medically impossible for someone as injured as he had claimed. When confronted with the evidence, his case was revoked, and he ended up having to pay his insurer, Aviva, 9500£ of the money he’d already spent.
This is far from an isolated incident. Many people now claim injuries but then go online and post images of themselves or appear in the social media of others proving that they are the picture of health. In some cases, large accidents involving apparently random groups of people with no connection to each other have proven false once a quick check on Facebook shows they’ve been friends for years who planned a “mass injury” together.
A personal injury case is not a quick and easy way to make money. And a personal injury lawyer is not a con man that is looking to help you beat the system. A personal injury lawyer in St. Petersburg is here to help people wrongfully injured to get the justice they deserve. If you are trying to exploit that, odds are you will fail, get caught and have to face criminal charges instead.