It sounds like a plot of a bad movie.
A woman was arrested in late April for scamming flight insurance companies out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in claims over the course of four years.
On June 10, the Nanjing Police in Jiangsu China reported that from 2015 to 2019, the woman, named only as Li, bought almost 900 flights, as well as trip delay insurance for each one.
However Li never actually flew on any of those planes. Instead, she purposely chose flights that had a higher history of delays or cancellations (she’d check online reviews). She’d use that information and combined it with checking local weather forecasts and conditions. She’d buy those flights most likely to have problems, as well as flight delay/cancellation insurance, and then would cash in when “her” flights didn’t take off as scheduled.
Li had over 20 pseudonyms and used each one several times, so as not to look suspicious. However her gambling eventually caught up with her and she was arrested on fraud charges on April 29. By that time, she had made 3 million yuan ($423,000) off the insurance companies.
There is something of a happy ending to the story, though. The scam apparently caused several insurance companies in China to close the loopholes that had allowed Li to make so much money. They inserted amendments into the policies such as requiring the flight to be taken before compensation would be issued.
I’m just wondering why that wasn’t already included in the policies???
Reference: The Paper
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and get emailed notifications of when we post. Or maybe you’d like to join our Facebook group – we have 13,000+ members and we talk and ask questions about travel (including Disney parks), creative ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel points, how to save money on or for your trips, get access to travel articles you may not see otherwise, etc. Whether you’ve read our posts before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
