Episode 6 Claimed and Shamed

Insurance fraud in the UK has hit epidemic levels.

It's costing us over £1 billion every year.

That's almost £3.5 million every day.

Deliberate crashes, bogus personal injuries, even phantom pets.

The fraudsters are risking more and more to make a quick killing

and every year, it's adding over £50 to your insurance bill.

But insurers are fighting back,

exposing just under 15 fake claims every hour.

Armed with covert surveillance systems...

Subject out the vehicle.

..sophisticated data analysis techniques...

..and a number of highly skilled police units...

Police, don't move, stay where you are.

..they're catching the criminals red-handed.

Just don't lie to us.

All those conmen, scammers and cheats on the fiddle are now

caught in the act and claimed and shamed.

Today, car insurance fraud, a victim's story.

I felt absolutely sick knowing that I'd been driving around uninsured

all that time, one of the worst days of my life.

A tall tale about a mugging is knocked back.

And an American woman's appearance on national television leads

to her come on down fall.

Nice to see you.

The City of London Police's

Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department, or IFED,

is a dedicated team of detectives,

committed to stopping insurance fraud cheats.

Since IFED started at the beginning of 2012,

1,200 individuals have been either arrested

or interviewed under caution, suspected of insurance fraud.

This elite squad has prevented millions of pounds being paid out

to criminals in fraudulent claims.

From now on, insurance cheats need to look over their shoulders.

Insurance fraud isn't easy money. It has risks and consequences.

You could get a criminal conviction and you can go to jail.

Police, don't move, stay where you are!

One particular problem is ghost broking.

DS Mark Forster knows how this scam works only too well.

Ghost broking is effectively the unlawful selling

of insurance policies.

It's done by criminals who will sell you false documents

in the belief that you have bought legitimate insurance cover

when, in fact, you haven't.

The more sophisticated ghost brokers use inside knowledge

of the industry to appear legitimate.

But people like Alison Middleton of Tradewise know exactly

how their scams work and how to spot them.

Our policies are motor trade policies

which provide cover for persons

that are involved in the motor trade,

and the cover afforded under these policies is for a number of vehicles

rather than one vehicle which you'd see on a private car policy,

therefore making motor trade policies attractive to somebody

who's trying to set up a ghost broking organisation

because they can put a number of vehicles onto those policies

which would then all be flagged up on the motor insurers database

and appearing as genuinely insured.

In December 2013, Tradewise were approached by a member of the public

who believed they were insured with the company.

They had been experiencing some problems in obtaining documentation

and getting hold of their broker

and, having looked into it themselves,

they managed to find that the vehicle was insured

through Tradewise by looking on the motor insurers database.

However Tradewise doesn't cater directly to members of the public.

They decided to take a closer look to see

if there was indeed a connection to the car.

We identified that the vehicle in question had been placed on one of

our motor trade policies and that's where our investigation started.

The indicators showed that the risk had potential to be involved

with ghost broking.

At the same time, IFED had been alerted

to a pattern of suspicious activity.

A large number of individuals reported to Action Fraud that

they'd purchased insurance for their vehicle

through a company by the name of Personal Touch.

Web-based Personal Touch Insurance was run by just one man

based in Andover.

Enquiries showed that this company did not exist.

Once we started to look at the bank accounts,

and also the insurance policies that had been set up

in order to facilitate this fraud,

it soon became apparent that there was just

one individual that was behind all of it.

That individual was Jaymz Clarke-Tomlinson.

He'd set up what looked like a genuine insurance intermediary

and through that company, he was supplying members

of the public with certificates, cover notes, documentation

which they would have believed had been issued by an insurance company,

and therefore showing that they had a real insurance policy in place.

But the vehicles appeared on the Motor Insurance Database

in name only, and there was never any actual insurance cover.

Clarke-Tomlinson was simply pocketing his victims' money.

Approximately 150 victims had purchased insurance

through Personal Touch,

it was apparent nearly £60,000 had gone through his account

in just over a 12-month period.

But it wasn't just strangers who'd found his website

that were targeted.

He was prepared to deceive those closest to him.

Clarke-Tomlinson would befriend a number of his victims.

He would become friends with them,

he would circulate in their communities.

He was a car enthusiast, as were a number of his victims.

One of whom was Vicky Small.

I've got a limited-edition Subaru Impreza.

It's number 6 of 100 Acropolis Rally limited editions...

..that were made in 1993 in Japan.

But as Tomlinson well knew,

getting affordable insurance for high-performance cars isn't easy,

which made people like Vicky more vulnerable to the scam.

I met Jaymz Clarke-Tomlinson at Bournemouth Pride in 2013.

After we'd done the parade and everything,

we all came back to my house

and it was there that he was telling,

not just me, but everybody else, about his insurance company,

or the company that he worked for,

how they would beat any other quote by a minimum of 20%

or they'll give you £100.

Sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

He said all the right things.

He'd been working in insurance for a long time.

I spoke to him about two days later

and that was when I took out the policy.

And it wasn't just Vicky who was caught in the fraud.

Every one of those 150 victims thought they had purchased

legitimate car insurance to drive their vehicles on the road.

In fact, they were not insured at all.

They'd had a forged certificate, they didn't have any insurance

and therefore, not only were they putting themselves at risk,

by driving on the road, but also other road users.

Clarke-Tomlinson even went so far as to offer his so-called customers

rewards for recommending others.

I recommended not only friends in the car scene,

in the modified car scene, I recommended family, friends,

people that I've known for years.

The introduction of this loyalty scheme

showed how greedy Clarke-Tomlinson was,

how determined and underhanded he was.

A lot of my friends do have high-performance cars

and they're a lot younger than me and they do struggle with insurance.

You know, the cost of it.

So, I thought, two birds with one stone,

my friends are going to be getting a really good, amazing deal -

not only prices, but a great level of cover -

and I'm helping a new company to flourish.

You know, I just really wanted to help everybody.

But just six months later, Vicky's world crumbled.

A friend of mine, messaged me and then phoned me and said

'that his car...

'He had a letter from the Motor Insurance Database,

'saying his car wasn't insured.

'He'd tried to phone the number'

in the Manchester offices of Personal Touch Insurance

and he couldn't get through.

So then I tried phoning, couldn't get through,

and it was then that a couple more people e-mailed me

and then we realised that it was just a massive con.

I felt absolutely sick knowing that I'd been

driving around uninsured all that time and, unfortunately,

I believe for some other drivers, people have had accidents,

had points, had fines, lost their cars because they thought

they were insured and they weren't.

On hearing the news, Vicky moved quickly.

The next step for me was to alert as many of my friends as possible.

One of the worst days of my life, it was horrible.

I had a few people come round and see me.

There was tears, people were angry, people were shouting.

But for Vicky, things were about to get a lot worse.

Vicky Small had had a serious heart condition for some time.

Clarke-Tomlinson was aware of this

and yet, despite the fact that they'd become quite good friends

and Vicky Small trusted him, he continued to lie and defraud her.

The stress was horrendous

and I ended up in hospital shortly after.

But unbeknownst to him, the man who'd exploited Vicky

and others was being tracked by IFED.

Initially, he proved as elusive as his fake policies.

We established that a number of the victims knew

Clarke-Tomlinson by various different names.

He seemed to frequent different addresses

in different areas of the country and one initial report

we had at the very beginning of the investigation,

when he was first identified,

suggested that he was actually working on a cruise ship.

But before he could sail off into the sunset,

IFED officers tracked him down.

When IFED detectives arrested Clarke-Tomlinson,

he was extremely upset.

He seemed surprised that the police had managed to find him

and he became very obstructive.

He was a very obnoxious individual,

so much so that, during the police interview,

he decided that he'd had enough

and didn't want to answer any more questions

and that it was a waste of his time.

So that... So he turned off the recording equipment

halfway through the interview.

Despite this behaviour, IFED was able to build a watertight case

against Clarke-Tomlinson and before long,

it was time for him to face justice.

In May 2015, Clarke-Tomlinson appeared at Southampton Crown Court

and he pleaded guilty to 18 counts of forgery and fraud.

Attending court was Vicky,

the victim who had, at one point, counted him as a friend.

When it was time for the sentencing, because he did plead guilty,

I felt that I needed to be there.

Clarke-Tomlinson's £60,000 fraud

resulted in a sentence of four years behind bars.

No amount of money, for me, will ever undo the damage

that's psychologically and physically been done to me.

People like Jaymz Clarke-Tomlinson are just scum.

They don't care who they hurt and the consequences they leave behind.

All they want to do is get as much money as quick as possible.

Clarke-Tomlinson was an extremely arrogant individual,

who thought that the police wouldn't catch up with him.

My message to any other would-be insurance fraudster

is that you will not get away with your crime and that the police

will catch up with you and detectives from IFED will ensure

that you receive the most severe penalties at court for your actions.

Later, a dodgy medical claim has a whiff of trouble.

Our investigator also noted that the operation was listed as rhinoplasty.

And an unconvincing tale about a mugging is dealt a blow.

Come on down!

The famous three words that give contestants

on America's Price Is Right game show

the chance to make their dreams come true

with a big money win.

Lucky Cathy Cashwell pumped the air as she took to the floor.

-But would her luck continue?

-On The Price Is Right!

-Cathy.

-1,000.

1,000. And Molly?

801, Drew.

801!

Actual retail price is, 1,375.

Cathy, come on up here.

Thinking her luck was well and truly in,

Cathy elbowed her way onto the stage,

barely able to contain her excitement.

Nice to see you.

We have a trip to Palm Springs and a trip to Santa Barbara.

But appearing on one of the nation's biggest game shows with

millions of viewers exposed the web of lies she'd been spinning.

Oh, I hope you're right.

Now she's going to try to beat 80 cents, whenever you're ready.

In truth, Cashwell was already cashing in

to the tune of thousands of dollars in worker's compensation.

Some years prior to her appearance on the show,

the former postal worker had claimed

that a serious workplace shoulder injury

meant that she couldn't stand, sit, kneel, squat, climb,

bend, reach or grasp.

As a result, she'd been collecting compensation since 2005.

Sorry, Cathy.

So she shouldn't have been able to do this,

this,

this,

and certainly not this.

That's right, in addition to appearing on national TV,

Cathy Cashwell had also posted a photo on social media

that showed her, arms high, paragliding.

You tell me where that price goes and you're going to win both trips.

-Santa Barbara.

-Santa Barbara.

And when I say three, flip it up - one, two, three.

You got it.

You're going to Santa Barbara, going to Palm Springs,

5,000 dollars worth of travel.

But, in reality, Cathy Cashwell was going nowhere except court.

Unsurprisingly, her ill-judged Price is Right appearance

tipped off investigators that she was pulling a fast one.

Evidently, she didn't think through the consequences of being

pictured on national TV standing, reaching and grasping -

things she claimed to be unable to do.

On September 11th 2013, she was sentenced to three years

of probation and was ordered to pay back the agreed amount of 30,000.

Finally, it was time for her to shoulder the blame.

What do you get when you combine 15 years' experience of policing,

hostage negotiation skills and a degree in psychology?

You get Tara Shelton from I-COG.

Her unique background means that she can identify fraud

more swiftly than normal.

Our specialism predominantly surrounds something called

conversation management.

This comes into play when Tara and her team

talk to claimants on the phone.

We use very gentle techniques

to identify fraud faster,

but those techniques are significantly embedded

on a cognitive and psychological basis.

For insurance cheats, there's nowhere to hide.

If someone is lying, we'll know.

Often, it's the small giveaways that make Tara suspicious.

Things that might not be obvious to you or I,

but stand out a mile to an expert.

In one recent case, a photographer claimed that he'd been

the victim of a serious offence.

He said he decided to go to the local park

to take some moody photographs in the bad weather.

However, when he got all of the equipment out in the park,

in order to take the shots,

he was approached by three youths in hoodies,

who presented a large knife out of a pocket, threatened him.

He then handed his equipment over, went home

and then reported the matter to the police.

The total value of the claim was approximately around £50,000

and the equipment ranged from a MacBook, through to different

types of cameras, different types of lenses.

Erm...all of which are quite high in value.

Not only was the claimant seriously out of pocket,

but his livelihood was on the line, too.

We did identify that the claimant was genuinely a paparazzi,

quite a well-known paparazzi individual.

Meaning that without his camera, he couldn't work,

and therefore had no money coming in.

As always, before making contact with a claimant,

Tara did her homework.

What was interesting, when we carried out some further research,

is he had changed his name on three occasions previously,

was being, again, chased by debt collectors

and was now, as a grown man, living with his mother.

It was time for Tara to get a fuller picture of the case.

I found the claimant quite a fascinating character

because he described a knife-point robbery in the most vaguest...

..shortest, non-emotional detail I think I've probably ever heard.

If someone has genuinely been held up at knife-point,

it should be either quite a traumatic incident,

or certainly an incident where you can provide some detail.

But there was.... There was nothing like that at all.

If he couldn't believe it, how did he expect others to?

At this point, the conversation started to get even more surreal.

And on top of this, he still remained very, kind of,

non-emotional but, he was also making really inappropriate jokes.

which I found quite bizarre,

considering you're talking about a knife-point robbery.

Would you Adam and Eve it?

At this stage, he probably wanted to put down the dog and bone.

But Tara wasn't done yet.

But hitting the hard stuff wasn't going to help,

and in reality, the photographer had shot himself in the foot.

Tara could see right through the snapper's flimsy story.

People scrabble to spontaneously lie

and when they are in a position

where they have to spontaneously lie,

what happens is the brain goes into a meltdown.

The cracks were just getting more and more and more obvious to me.

Sorry to keep you, mate!

For Tara, there was one moment where the photographer's account

really started to lose all focus.

The main game changer was actually my natural response

to something that he said to me,

which was that he walked home quite calmly after this had happened.

Even though there was a landline available in the home,

he decided not to call 999 there, and to walk to the police station.

And then I asked how far the police station was away.

According to the claimant, it was just down the road.

That is one heck of a long road,

but, unfortunately for him, it finished in a dead end.

"Yeah, OK?"

Surely a genuine claimant

would be protesting their innocence at this point.

Tara had heard enough.

Finally, the photo journalist

accepted that his story had been spiked.

He completely underestimated the level of detail

that is required and, ultimately, he failed at the first hurdle.

But there was a way to pick himself back up.

Tara had already agreed a strategy with the insurance company.

When I outlined that one of the options that the insurer was willing

to accept a withdrawal of the claim,

he was quite happy to withdraw the claim.

Thanked me for my time and for my professionalism.

Clearly, he realised that he'd more than met his match.

The news man had been well and truly scooped.

Holidays should be spent on the beach,

not in a hospital emergency department.

But that's where one unfortunate traveller ended up.

CEGA, a company that provides global travel

and medical claims services processed the paperwork.

Simon Cook is their head of special investigations.

The customer told us that while she was on holiday in Lebanon,

due to an accident, she had to have an emergency operation to her nose.

And that she wanted to claim for the cost on her travel insurance.

The value of the claim was approximately £2,000.

Covering medical costs abroad is all part of the package

that CEGA provides.

On the face of it, we had no reason to doubt that this was

a valid claim.

And it was only when they began to sniff around

that there were concerns.

It is a condition of this particular insurance policy that you contact

the emergency medical helpline if you require an operation,

so that we can ensure that you're getting the right treatment.

But there had never been any communication from the claimant.

Most genuine customers want to contact

our medical emergency helpline,

because it is quite a daunting experience

being in hospital overseas.

And there was one thing in particular

which made them sniff danger.

Our medical expert explained that there were no x-rays

or any other tests carried out so they were unsure

how they could determine whether an operation was required.

The lack of assessments of her injuries clearly

went against normal medical practice.

To perform an operation such as this

without first conducting x-rays or some form of test

goes against normal medical practice.

Due to the concerns we had with the claim,

we decided to conduct a telephone interview with the customer.

CEGA's investigator sensed that there was something

iffy about the nose injury story itself.

The customer told us that she

had been chasing her daughter around her sister's flat.

Unfortunately, she ran straight into a glass door.

The first question that sprung to mind for our investigator was

well, "What happened to your daughter?"

Surely, if the customer was chasing after her daughter round the flat,

then her daughter must have hit the glass door first.

At this point, there was a long awkward silence,

and we had to actually check whether the customer was still on the line.

The customer broke her silence and she told us

that she'd got the circumstances incorrect.

She was, in fact, being chased by her daughter

as opposed to her chasing her daughter.

The story was starting to reek

and the investigator decided to nose around the doctor,

who was genuine enough.

However, the doctor did not specialise

in emergency medical treatment.

CEGA then took the radical step

of appointing an overseas investigator

to pay the doctor a visit in person.

Our investigator made an appointment at the hospital

to speak with the doctor and when our investigator arrived,

the doctor was well aware that we were going to be visiting.

Without even referring to any paperwork,

the doctor actually validated the claim

and said that our customer had received

an emergency medical operation.

The doctor actually told us

that he had nothing further to add to the situation and left.

Undeterred, the investigator spoke to the hospital receptionist

and it was at this point that things started to get interesting.

She then decided to bring up the official computer records

in front of our investigator.

Our investigator also noted that that the operation was

listed as rhinoplasty.

This is more commonly known as a nose job.

A cosmetic procedure, definitely not something associated with

a medical emergency.

Given the significant inconsistencies

with the circumstances the customer provided us with,

we were satisfied that the incident

involving her running into a glass door did not happen.

They saw right through the story to the likely explanation.

As far as we were concerned, this was a case of medical tourism

and the customer had travelled to Lebanon

with the intention of having a nose job whilst on holiday.

Needless to say, travel insurance doesn't cover

this type of plastic surgery and the claim was declined.

The customer initially tried to contest our decision,

but after we wrote back to her,

she decided not to pursue the claim any further.

Shown that she knows what's good for her,

the woman finally walked away.

This investigation just proves that we take a hard-nosed approach

to investigating fraud.