A major insurance firm is warning Britain’s car owners to be alert from the rising number of ‘ghost brokers’ offering fraudulent insurance policies in social media.
The policies often appear to offer comprehensive insurance at massively discounted rates and with more than 2,300 new cases in 2019, there are more victims than ever. The average loss for those caught out by the fraud is £1,209 per incident, with insurance companies themselves often spotting the frauds. Aviva detected 3,100 car insurance applications with links to fake policies and the problem could be even bigger than that with a Times investigation revealing that the company is looking into a further 4,000 cases.
Most of the cases appear on social media and practices including forging a certificate of insurance, falsifying a driver’s details to get cheap cover and paying for the first month of a policy before cancelling it and not notifying the customer.
Direct Line insurance have worked with the social media companies to get up to 500 fake insurance adverts removed from the internet.
The company’s head of motor insurance, Steve Barrett, commented: “Social media platforms are being targeted by these scam artists, and it is important we continue to work together to protect consumers from being misled into buying a worthless car insurance policy.”
He added: “Consumers need to be aware when responding to adverts and profiles that appear ‘too good to be true’ on social media, as they could find themselves a victim of fraud, losing money and potentially facing criminal charges.
“Whilst insurers are doing all they can to spot these fake accounts to protect honest policyholders, drivers may only find out they have been scammed when they come to make a claim or if pulled over for a random police check.”