Insurance claim flummoxes Amsterdam reviewer
SHAUN SMILLIE
RAY Maker, who lives in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, has had some strange emails in the past, but the one he received in early May took the cake when it revealed that he had become tangled up in an attempted crime.
The email was from an insurance claims specialist thousands of kilometres away in South Africa, and he wanted to know if he had taken a photograph.
It took a volley of emails from the founder of the well-known gear review site, DC Rainmaker, to realise what had happened.
He learnt that it all had to do with a supposed robbery in South Africa a couple of weeks ago.
“The agent noted that their client submitted an insurance claim after his two sons were allegedly robbed of their bicycles”, going on to say extra items with the bikes included a Garmin Edge 1030 and Edge 830,” said Maker.
Discovery Insure had asked for proof of ownership of the items, and in reply their client sent them two photographs.
“The agent said they traced the photo down to my website and wanted to verify whether or not I was still in possession of the units.
“I explained that at least the Edge 1030 photo was taken by myself at our Paris office nearly three years ago,” said Maker, who had been given the unit to review.
The photograph of the Garmin Edge 830 appeared on another gear review site called Titanium Geek.
Maker knew it was Titanium Geek from the unique table that the item had been placed on.
“I pointed out that the time line of when Titanium Geek’s photos were taken and the location in the UK meant that it was highly unlikely that the unit was magically reboxed and unboxed a few years later in South Africa on the exact same table.
Maker believes the fraudster had downloaded the photos from his and Titanium Geek’s websites.
Discovery would not go into the specifics of the claim, but did confirm that there had been an attempt by one of their clients to fraudulently claim for two Garmin devices.
“In this case, the client’s policy has been cancelled following the conclusion and admission on his part of the fraud,” said Discovery Insure chief executive Anton Ossip in a statement.
He added that Discovery Insure had developed sophisticated algorithms to help identify suspected fraud.
Maker, however, thinks it was a dumb idea from the start.
“Obviously, that wouldn’t really be a super useful piece of evidence since it doesn’t prove anything, given no serial numbers were visible.
“And certainly, had serial numbers been visible, it would have proven even more so that the unit wasn’t theirs.”