Successes8

A 2007 registered left hand drive Ford Transit based camper van was reported stolen by it's UK based owner. The specification of the van provided by Ford was "Left hand drive, single chassis cab base vehicle minus cab roof for motorhome conversion, minus deadlocks, minus central locking, 2.4 diesel, RWD twin rear wheel". Therefore I was be expecting two plain mechanical Wedge transponder keys. What turned up was one Ford W1 key (tampered with) and an aftermarket copy (also tampered with) key minus transponder. This key was allegedly produced for the PH in Holland whilst abroad on holiday to use with his vehicle. The missing transponder tells us different.

Also to be noted here is the deliberate attempt to mislead the claims handler as the transponder carrier from a genuine Ford W1 key has been cut down and inserted into the end of the aftermarket key to make it "appear" to be a W1 type key.

I see keys like this every day - either altered in a way to attempt to mislead the insurance agent, or totally the wrong specification key for the vehicle in question. My expertise in spotting these attempts at fraudulently claiming from the insurance company is becoming widely known and more and more of my clients are being able to repudiate these otherwise costly payouts.

Camper van theft is something widely reported, and open to a huge amount of abuse. Owners short on cash are selling their camper vans on for a song and then claiming on their insurance. Bedfordshire police found one 2 weeks ago 3 hours after it was reported stolen and already it had it's ID changed (not long enough to do this so clearly the owner was involved in a fraud somewhere along the lines. Because the initial theft was reported in Herts, Herts police will not take over that investigation.

"Woooooow wo woooooaaaah, my Passat's on fire..."

One "flaming" fibber of a PH submitted a claim for the loss of his 2001 Passat. He claims it was stolen, only to be found abandoned with minor interior fire damage. There were no signs of a break in.. because the PH drove the car to the burn locus himself, set fire to the interior, shut and locked the doors with his key and then "hot footed" it away. The fire quickly went out due to a lack of oxygen due to the doors and windows being shut. He should have spotted the CCTV camera... it spotted him!!