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A COUPLE who claimed hotel food left them so sick they could barely leave their room have been exposed as fakers – by their own Facebook posts.
Craig and Lisa Boyd’s claim for £2,000 compensation was proved to be a sham by photographs they posted of themselves abseiling, knocking back cocktails and enjoying a yacht t ri p when t hey said t hey were violently ill in bed.
Mr Boyd even commented in one online message that the Mexican hotel was ‘perfect’.
Now the couple have been branded ‘fundamentally dishonest’ by a judge and hit with £6,000 legal costs after holiday firm TUI mounted a legal challenge against their claim.
The Boyds, from Liverpool, claimed they had fallen ill during their honeymoon at the Dreams Villamagna resort in 2015. They said they booked the same resort the following year, where they again suffered crippling stomach bugs. Despite this, they had booked to go back for a third time next year with two friends.
The Boyds withdrew their compensation claim at Liverpool County Court last week after TUI’s lawyers confronted them with evidence from their Facebook accounts.
Mrs Boyd told the judge: ‘We know we’ve messed up, so it’s guilty as charged. We’ll just have to take it on the chin and pay the costs.’
Her husband, 57, said they had been pressured by a claims cowboy, adding: ‘We just took the advice of the person who came to the house. Any paperwork from the solicitors we’ve just signed and sent back. We may have been wrong, but that was the advice we were given.’
The case is the latest to be revealed in The Mail on Sunday’s year-long campaign to expose the shocking
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434 per cent rise in holiday sickness claims – fuelled by no-win, no-fee lawyers – which has cost travel firms millions of pounds and threatens to push up prices.
Until recently, travel companies had simply paid out on such claims as it was cheaper than going to court. But the volume of fake allegations has prompted the industry to strike back, and major holiday firms now hire experts to investigate cases.
After the Boyds’ deceit was exposed, TUI managing director Nick Longman said: ‘The potential consequences of making a false or exaggerated claim relating to holiday sickness are now obvious.
‘Here there was no truthful basis for Mr and Mrs Boyd’s claim and in fact they had enjoyed their honeymoon so much they decided to return to the hotel twice in subsequent years. They have now been found to be dishonest by the court and ordered to pay our legal costs.
‘ Anyone making a claim against TUI should understand that we do not pay compensation in claims of this nature. We will bring all similar cases to a court hearing.’