Romance fraud typically evokes images of people being tricked out of their life savings by partners they meet on dating sites, but some scammers use a different tactic: recruiting unsuspecting victims into fake insurance claims.
The scam involves a fraudster convincing their partner, or a person they are dating, either to say they have witnessed a car accident, or to take out an insurance policy and file a bogus claim in order to secure a payout.
The Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB), a UK body working for insurers, says that although a number of cases have been detected over the last year it is likely some victims have not reported incidents.
Nicola Smith, intelligence and investigation manager at the IFB, says this may be because the scam does not centre on directly exploiting the victim for money.
“The generic reason that it might be going under-reported is because of the shame around the…
Review your monthly bank statements and credit card bills line-by-line to spot small “tester” transactions of R5 or R10, which fraudsters use to verify if a stolen card is still active.