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By Leslie Kim
It’s inescapable. No place or person holds immunity. Succinctly stated, fraud happens. Even the Editor of the John Cooke Fraud Report can be taken … and was. The story is perhaps more interesting because of the identities of the victims.
Istanbul, Turkey. January, 2000.
Brother John returns from a trip to the Grand Bazaar (or, more appropriately spelled, the Grand Bizarre) mumbling and red-faced. He pulls Turkish lira from his pockets, counts and proclaims, I think that #$%&*+ took me for more than fifty dollars.
Who? What? When? How? The story was jumbled, but when all the expletives were deleted and his blood pressure began to settle down, it amounted to a crooked cab driver who preyed on American tourists, laden with shopping bags, needing a 500,000 lira ride (that’s about $9 US) to a large hotel. Three blocks shy of the hotel, John explained, the cab began to sputter and make rude engine noises. Then it conked out and the cabby pounded on the steering wheel a few times yelling No petrol, no petrol as he coasted to the curb. With the hotel in sight, John decided to walk the remaining distance and pulled out his wallet to pay the meter. And pay, and pay, and pay. Like an experienced fast-change artist, the cabby got him. But John, a year out of a quadruple by-pass, didn’t want to get involved in a street rumble with a large Turk and was confused by the look-alike Turkish lira bills.
My soothing remark to my (much) older brother was, Ha! YOU got scammed. But here’s where the story gets a little strange.
John’s wife, Ellie, had done well at the Grand Bazaar. She showed me the dark green full length leather coat she’d purchased for the equivalent of $140 and my eyes lit up. It was gorgeous … and about 20 percent of what it would cost me at a Nordstrom’s sale event. With an hour and a half until closing, I said, C’mon, let’s go back. I want to buy one, too. John wanted no part of a return trip to the madness of the Bazaar, but when it comes to shopping, Ellie is a trooper. I carefully put two 500,000 lira bills into the front section of my purse and off we went. Exiting the cab about ten minutes later, I handed one of those bills to the driver (seldom do they speak English, and if they do, they don’t let on) and we went on our merry way.
It took me less than an hour to find a leather coat that I liked, barter with the shop keeper while drinking the required apple tea in his showroom until we were both exhausted, and walk away with my own steal. Another 20 minutes was spent weaving our way out of the maze of stores, past the hundreds of rug salesman who lure the Americans into their dens (like a momma lion bringing dinner to her hungry cubs) and into the street where about 50 taxis were lined up awaiting a fare.
We got into the first taxi in line, spoke the name of our hotel, and we were whisked away. Ellie leans over toward me and says, This driver looks exactly like the one who just stiffed John. And I laughed at her. There were more than 50 cabs there, 2000 in the city, and you think we got the same one? I chided. They just all look the same…
And then three blocks from our hotel, now in the dark of night, Sputter, sputter, conk, conk and the shouting of no petrol, no petrol. It WAS the same driver. But I was smart. I was fraud-aware. i knew the scam. I was in control.
I reached into my purse and handed him the bill to pay the 450,000 fare. He began waiving his arms as I exited the cab, pointing at the bill. Huh? I stopped and looked at the bill, trying to understand what he was saying. And then I figured it out. He was holding a 50,000 bill … which looks very similar to the 500,000 bill. Oh, I understand, I reassured Ellie. I gave him the wrong bill. So I very carefully counted out an additional 400,000 (four 100,000 notes), handed them to him, and got out and slammed the door. We walked back to the hotel, dropped our packages in my room and I opened my purse to find the missing 500,000 note that I’d kept carefully apart to pay the cab fare. And it wasn’t there.
Me, the Queen of Fraud, the one who thinks she’s so hip when it comes to schemes, scams and flim-flams … HAD by a bill-switching cabby. I did give him the 500,000 bill (it was not now in my purse) and that sleazy little perp had done a quick bill-switch on the front seat, then held up a smaller (50,000) bill and yelled in Turkish. And i went for it.
John was only mildly placated when he heard the story. My being relieved of $19 for a $9 cab ride helped but I think he would have liked the story a whole lot more if I’d been taken for at least the same or more than he was taken for. Family honor, pecking order and seniority concerns, perhaps?
The episode was yet another lesson that fraud knows no geographic boundaries. Bill switches get pulled in the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, by New York City cabbies, on easily confused Turkish tourists, too. Certain countries rarely have indigenous scams in such a highly mobile society, if a scam works in Russia, it will soon find its way to inside the borders of a neighboring country or a nation on the far side of the world. And if a scheme works in Los Angeles, it’s going to show up at a future date in Australia.
In Athens, especially in the area of The Placa, a central shopping area, shells of stripped down cars are commonplace. All are without engines; some a minus windshields, doors and bumpers. Anything of value has been long ago removed. And what’s caused this epidemic rise in abandoned car remnants? None other than reasons like upside-down loans, blown engines or high mileage. What better way is there to get out from under a loan payment than to sell the vehicle to the insurance company?
Socialized medicine is common in Mediterranean countries. But as is the case in Canada and Great Britain, those wealthy enough to afford it opt for health insurance which entitles the insured to a higher standard of care and a better equipped hospital facility. When I asked Yannis Roussos, an Athens insurance products risk manager for one of Greece’s largest banks, what kinds of fraud problems his company was seeing, he described in detail the circumstances of upcoding, bundling and unbundling. We have recently seen cases of doctors who are sending bills for patients they have never seen, for tests and procedures that have not been performed, he said in a tone that led me to believe he thought this was a unique problem to Greek insurers.
But what of liability and less-than-honorable attorneys? Roussos explained that this was a minor problem, but growing in frequency and severity.
Countries in the Mediterranean do not have the US concept of liability and pain and suffering. As if on cue, a screech of brakes and a crash interrupted my line of questions to Roussos. Across the street, at the corner, a motorcycle was down, the helmetless driver bent and bleeding inches from the smashed bumper of a small Audi. A siren-screaming ambulance arrived within minutes, strapped the injured rider to a body board, loaded him inside and drove off eeeeeee-ing toward the hospital. A uniformed police officer was taking notes on a note pad as he questioned the car’s driver. What will happen next? I asked Roussos.
The driver’s insurance will pay for the medical treatment and the motorcycle, he told me, because it looks like the driver of the car was responsible.
And how long until the cyclist gets an attorney and sues? I asked.
Why would he sue? And for what? His bills will be paid. answered Roussos.
It is only in the most serious of accidents that the legal community becomes involved. If a father of four young children is killed in an accident with a drunk driver, the insurance policy will pay a limits amount of about $30.000 (equivalent American) to the widow. But the nation’s collective mind set does not veer toward ten million dollar jury verdicts. Not yet, anyway.
Greek life insurance companies have been seeing a few unusual claims recently, Roussos tells me. Foreign death claims arise after an insured visits India, Pakistan, Middle Eastern or African countries, and a death claim is filed with questionable paperwork. Some of these people are still alive, but the companies have a hard time proving that. Am I surprised? Hardly.
With only the tip of the iceberg apparent, Mediterranean companies have not evolved to the stage of the in-house SIUs. Claims are handled one by one and lessons are learned every day.
As we walked down the street toward a restaurant, a young girl suddenly approaches and pinned a large flower onto my coat. Roussos shrugged and handed her a bill. A rapid-fire exchange in Greek occurred and he placated her with a few loose coins. She tried to give him another flower for his own coat, but he waved her away. Did you know that girl? What just happened? I asked him. He shook his head and said, It is the gypsies. They are everywhere, taking money, even the children.
And once again I am reminded what a small world it really is.
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