THE GREAT FOOD POISONING SCAM
How sharks are promising British tourists thousands if they claim their hotel meals made them ill. Now YOU could end up paying more for your holiday – and even be banned from all inclusive breaks
THE tout is young, male, from the North of England and anxious to reel in the tourist couple whose co-operation in a criminal enterprise will earn him a healthy commission. The scam is a simple one. Foolproof. Sitting by the swimming pool of an allinclusive hotel in Benidorm, our man explains how the couple have merely to claim food poisoning and submit a photograph of the popular anti-diarrhoea drug Imodium — bought to cure the non-existent malady — to a solicitor employed by his UK-based insurance claims company.
The tour operator, wanting an easy life and minimal legal fees, won’t bother to contest the claim and will simply settle any threatened lawsuit. And anyway, the company will recover its losses eventually by demanding a refund from the blameless Spanish hotelier whose paella has been defamed.
Then, just sit back and wait for the compensation to roll in after about three months — maybe £3,000. Each. ‘That’s more than we paid for our holiday,’ the woman exclaims — exactly what the cocky tout wants to hear.
‘We get solicitors coming into our office and they tell us what I’ve just told you,’ he says. ‘Criteria for solicitors is pure criteria. If you meet the criteria, that’s it.’
Except this is one ‘kill’ he has failed to make. Because this particular couple are undercover private detectives employed by the British tour operator Jet2holidays, dispatched to the Costa Blanca to combat a growing racket. And our scammer is being filmed.
He is one of a band of touts who have been operating at poolsides and in the tacky all-you-can-drink bars of Spain’s biggest resort.
Since 2013, claims involving gastric illness have rocketed by 430 per cent, according to the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), with Spanish hoteliers claiming the figure in some areas is nearer 700 per cent.
The typical payout per case is £2,000, and the scammers — who along with the lawyers skim their fees off these settlements — pay particular attention to families, children’s sensitive tummies being good earners.
Food-poisoning fraud is spreading, from Greece to Turkey to Egypt. But Spain and Portugal produce the bulk of claims, and Benidorm, the original package tourism resort, is one of the places hardest hit.
‘It’s only British people who are making these claims,’ says Jorge Marichal, the owner of several hotels in Tenerife, another target destination. ‘They went up 600per cent in terms of food-related illness claims between 2015 and 2016, and that’s a direct result of the scandalous tactics of these cowboy firms.’
This month, police in Majorca detained two Britons for suspected involvement in the scam.
Antonio Mayor, president of HOSBEC, the Benidorm, Costa Blanca and Valencia region Hotel Association, says insurance claims are reaching hotels this year at the same rate as last year.
‘There are ten times more than three years ago,’ he says, ‘despite us not detecting any rise in anomalies inside the hotels, with guests asking us to contact a doctor or requesting meals in their rooms because they can’t stand up properly.’
Scammers in Benidorm brazenly invade the bars and poolside gardens of huge all-inclusive hotels such as the Flamingo Oasis, Rosamar and Port Benidorm, where thousands of British holidaymakers stay.
The buildings hug what was once a tranquil stretch of coast, now littered with kebab shops, curry houses and disco bars. The majority of tourists who come to Benidorm are not wealthy and, for a few, the temptation to defray the cost of their annual trip by participating in what they are led to believe is just a minor deception must be great. In fact, of course, it is fraud, pure and simple.
It is easy to stroll unnoticed into the hotel complexes, and the British touts look just like other guests.
‘Last year we discovered two of these claims people posing as tourists in one of the hotels in Benidorm,’ says Señor Mayor. ‘And we know of claims vans — one a former ambulance — that have been parked outside hotels in other areas to advertise their services.’
Britain’s reputation for fair play is taking a pounding in Spain. That is embarrassing for the 310,000 or so Brits who make it their home — and embarrassing, too, for Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, whose diplomats have been having their ears bent over the issue by their angry Spanish counterparts.
Mr Johnson took to print to express his dismay, lambasting a ‘rampant culture of false claiming on insurance’ that threatened the future holidays of millions of families.
‘If the figures were to be believed, the digestive systems of the British people had become the most delicate in the world,’ lamented the Secretary of State. ‘We have all at some time been laid low by a dodgy prawn; but these numbers seemed outlandish.’
He continued: ‘It seems people have been simply sending off a form and claiming up to £5,000 a time in insurance, and all with no evidence more compelling than a receipt from a chemist to show they have bought some local carminative (a drug that reduces flatulence).
‘This behaviour is infuriating for the hotels and tour operators, who feel they have had to put up with unwarranted slurs on their kitchens. It is deeply unfair on those who genuinely do fall ill, since they may now find themselves the objects of unjustified suspicion. And, of course, it is unfair on the vast majority of British holidaymakers whose costs will inevitably rise to meet the burden of all these bogus claims.’
The Spaniards, who are suffering annual losses of about £50million, are threatening to get even, hinting darkly about the future of that great British institution, the allinclusive holiday.
The all-inclusive, in which a wristband guarantees limitless food and drink during a hotel stay, is a favourite of the 18 million or so British people who visit Spain each year. And it is essential to the gastricclaim scam — because if you only eat in your hotel, it is easier to blame it as the source of your upset tummy.
Jet2holidays, like its competitors TUI and Thomas Cook, warns of serious consequences if the fraud is not curbed.
‘The sharp rise in the number of sickness claims is costing hoteliers and travel companies dearly,’ says a spokesman, ‘and it’s frustrating when so many claims are made a year or more after the holiday has
Touts brazenly invade the hotel bars and gardens ‘This is deeply unfair on those who really fall ill’
A ‘bed-ridden’ couple had 109 alcoholic drinks
ended. In the longer term, it pushes up prices for everyone and makes it harder for us to secure the best all-inclusive deals for Brits, given the high demand for Mediterranean hotel rooms from all over Europe.
‘There is a risk that hoteliers will start to avoid offering all-inclusive to British customers if they’re going to be at risk from fake claims. We risk the actions of a dishonest few spoiling the holiday plans of the many.’
Gastro-fraud is, to some degree, a successor to whiplash. The claims industry, for ever on the lookout for the next big thing, is coming under pressure on motor injury, a lucrative earner, following the Government’s announcement in the Queen’s Speech of a crackdown on bogus whiplash injury applications.
British consumer law requires barely any evidence of food poisoning. A telephone consultation with a GP can be regarded as adequate proof of illness, together with purchase of a medicine such as Imodium, backed up by a dated receipt. Amazingly, claims can be filed up to three years after the event, leaving hoteliers and tour operators with little prospect of a defence.
So, for now at least, the scammers keep going on the baking pavements of Benidorm, luring in British tourists.
‘They only target the British,’ says a British private eye working in Benidorm for Jet2holidays. ‘If they hear a European accent they move on through the crowds, trying to collar people just like the street hawkers and the party promoters do.
‘They hand out flyers and pester people until they manage to convince an unsuspecting traveller to listen to their sales pitch.
‘Some even trespass inside hotels and circle the pool. They have no shame in interrupting people who are just trying to enjoy their holiday.
‘We are tracking tout activity across Spain but mainly on Majorca and in Benidorm. And we have Turkey on our radar at the moment, too.’
Many hoteliers are also turning to uprated technology to track potential offenders.
‘Most hotels nowadays have room cards that tell them when clients enter and leave their rooms, and electronic wristbands that are swiped when they order food and drink,’ says Nuria Montes de Diego, of HOSBEC.
‘The bands contain a chip with the client’s information, which is passed under a reader every time they order a drink or use a hotel service. There are even cards or wristbands that clients use to open toilets in the public areas of some hotels.
‘We are recommending use of these measures of control, as well as CCTV cameras. The hotels are storing that information on when their clients entered and left their rooms, how long they stayed inside or outside, whether they used the hotel restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and how many drinks they had.’
For the targeted hoteliers, such knowledge is power.
‘If we are told a year later that a person was ill during their stay, and we can show by their patterns of behaviour and consumption that there is no evidence of any illness, the chances of that claim prospering are greatly reduced,’ says Ms Montes de Diego.
‘Against someone who has drunk 27 beers and 14 gin-and-tonics and hasn’t been confined to their room with illness, we have a much better chance of proving that a claim is fraudulent.’
A simple hotel bill can be enough to trap bogus claimants.
This week, it emerged that two people from Liverpool who claimed they were ‘bed-ridden’ because of food poisoning somehow managed to down 109 alcoholic drinks over nine days — all recorded on their bill.
The pair were trying to sue Jet2 and the Gloria Palace Hotel on Gran Canaria after claiming to have fallen ill after dining at a hotel buffet.
But as hoteliers become more watchful, so the touts spread out, to the airport to greet British families arriving in Spain or about to return to Britain. Tourists are also being cold-called at home after being profiled on social media to gauge their suitability as claimants.
‘In my opinion,’ says Señor Mayor, ‘these companies now do most of their work in the UK, using the internet or phone to try to find holidaymakers they can encourage to make these claims.’
A bogus belly ache is not always the path to a free holiday.
Take Sean and Caroline Bondarenko, from Darlington, County Durham, who lodged an allegedly fake claim against the five-star Caldera Palace Hotel on Crete after pleading food poisoning.
The hotel refused to capitulate and instead is counter-suing the couple for £170,000 for injury to its reputation.
The hotel owners say the claim — made three years after their one-week stay in October 2013 — was made despite evidence that the couple had consumed ‘large quantities of alcohol’ during their supposed confinement.
Ms Montes de Diego warns that British tour operators may face tougher contracts in future, increasing their liability for claims while reducing the financial exposure of her member hoteliers.
However, she hopes legislative tightening in the UK can end the scourge of gastro-fraud.
‘The most effective and only real solution to the problem is to improve British law,’ she says.
Britons should all feel shame at their countrymen’s behaviour in regard to their Spanish hosts.
But spare a thought for those few genuine victims of dodgy paella. How dreadful to be doubled up in your hotel bathroom, only to then face suspicious looks when you make your way gingerly through the lobby, grasping your Imodium.