‘Pretending to steal, then crying slander’
Fake shoplifters ‘make thousands’ in compo claims
FRAUDSTERS are pretending to shoplift from stores, then making thousands in ‘compensation claims’ for wrongful arrest, a leading insurance broker has revealed.
The rampant ‘compo culture’ from repeat claimants is crippling the country’s retail industry, a leading insurance broker has warned.
Jonathan Hehir said the scammers may as well ‘hold the owner up with a loaded gun’, and warned that if the culture was not tackled, it would lead to ‘the forced closure of pubs and shops throughout the country’.
Business and insurance industry leaders recently told the Oireachtas Joint Committee how firms throughout the country were closing as a result of crippling fraudulent public liability claims and subsequent premium increases.
A wrongful arrest pay-out can cost between €2,000 and €8,000 and in one common fraud, small convenience shops are being targeted in a wine-bottle scam that can quickly lead to payouts of thousands with no risk to the Warning: Jonathan Hehir fraudster. A scammer checks which wine is on sale in a shop, then buys a different but similarlooking bottle elsewhere and brings it into the first shop.
They then ‘pretend’ to steal a bottle in the shop, but don’t take it away with them.
Neil McDonnell, of small businesses group Isme, explained: ‘They would be very furtive-looking and even in some cases remove a bottle from the shelf very obviously and place it in a pocket inside their jacket.
‘The alcohol aisles are normally covered by CCTV, so they would go to another aisle and replace the bottle on another shelf and then they would “engineer” their being caught at the door, at which point they would only have the bottle they had purchased elsewhere and the receipt for it.
‘They then claim for wrongful arrest, assault, and slander as they’re being held at the door by a security person who does have to instigate a search.’
He said shop-owners were complaining the law was being used against them, but they have no protection.
‘People feel they are being taken huge advantage of, and the law is not in any way protecting them; it’s protecting the perpetrators. It’s a legal minefield,’ he said.
Broker Mr Hehir, who runs the insuremyshop.ie website, said: ‘It’s a wicked irony that the economy might be improving, but the benefits are being negated by increased litigation from “professional” insurance claimants and a subsequent rise in the cost of insurance.
‘Unfortunately, 2018 could be pretty bleak for the affected businesses unless the Government acts fast and introduces harsher penalties and jail time for these unscrupulous fraudsters whose “profession” is “dive and pseudo steal” in businesses nationwide.’
Mr McDonnell added: ‘Shopkeepers are also complaining vociferously about the use of children in these scams, and rather than go through the pain of a €5,000 or €10,000 claim, they are watching €50 or €100 worth of stock going out the door and they know it.
‘They said it’s quite blatantly being done with a number of children. It’s really in-your-face blatant.’
He said employing security measures would save €50 or €100 worth of stock, but ‘the downside if you get it wrong’ would mean the shopkeeper paying out ‘thousands in the courts’.
‘That’s why so many shopkeepers just let them go.
‘The larger shopping centres do try to preempt this by stopping people going in, but they’re also afraid of the discrimination legislation.
‘So it’s unfairly loaded against the small retailer who can’t afford security at the door,’ Mr McDonnell said.
Letting thefts go to avoid big claims