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From the Editor – In the November/December issue, we ran the story of The Nine-Fingered Dentist. It concerned a multi-million dollar insurance fraud that was uncovered by a Colorado private investigator, Greg Caldwell. The story ended with his notation that no one from the involved insurance companies ever took the time to offer a simple “Thank You” for his efforts (that saved a number of carriers millions of dollars in bogus payouts and cost those same carriers nothing). As of the beginning of December, despite our splashing Greg’s name and phone number across our pages, he had still not enjoyed the pleasure of those two little all important words.
Since the November/December issue was distributed, we have heard from other Private Investigators that the Caldwell story is not unique. And that is how “Beyond the Call of Duty,” a column dedicated to unsung PI heroes, has come to be. Its intent is to tell an insurance fraud story – and remind our company readers that “Thank You” is the single best way to acknowledge a job well done. It costs nothing to the person who says it, yet it’s worth untold millions to the person who hears it.
Private Investigators are invited to submit “Beyond the Call of Duty” stories for publication in future issues of The John Cooke Fraud Report. We’ve chosen the following letter for publication in this issue:
Dear Editor:
Three cheers for Greg Caldwell for all he did to fight fraud as an independent with little recognition or appreciation (until “Stupid Editor Tricks”). We don’t want a free ad or a crying towel, but we can heartily sympathize with him.
On a case involving an estimated $6 million in fraud, our assistance was dismissed by the insurance company we sought to warn. The case came to us as the theft of $5,000 in guns, cash and the safe they were stored in, ostensibly by a disgruntled former employee. The client asked us to locate the offender and recover the valuables.
Working closely with law enforcement, we discovered that the “offender” was actually an informant who had witnessed the fraud and turned state’s evidence. The “theft” had been set up to discredit the employee who had run for his life after receiving threats against his children from my “client.”
We were being set up to “search and destroy.” We volunteered to wear a wire at our next meeting with our client where he requested “termination” of his former employee. State and federal agencies were listening from the parking lot across the street.
We let law enforcement take it from there, but we made the additional effort of notifying his insurance carrier in confidence that they might want to postpone paying off on their client’s loss until a local investigation was complete.
We offered to provide the data we had, confidentially, for the cost of copying. (We had incurred thousands of dollars of time and expenses on this case that we knew our “client” wouldn’t pay and we also couldn’t expect law enforcement to pick up the tab. We just couldn’t absorb any more.) The insurance people treated us like crackpots.
Weeks later, when an insurance investigator tried to sort things out, he asked for an hour of our time. We explained the history of our attempts to protect their company from loss and the less than professional reception we received.
They explained (not apologized): “We couldn’t believe you were legitimate. We don’t know any private investigators who would have done what you did.”
We suggested they associate with a better class of investigators and if they wanted any more information and time from us they could pay our hourly fee just like our other clients. They declined. Some people just don’t know who their friends are.
The writer of the letter is Sharon Frink, CPP, of N.M. Factfinders, Inc. For those readers so inclined, the contact information for JCFR’s unsung heroes appears below. C’mon guys, pick up the phone!
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