“A New York lawyer busted a trio of Hungarian scammers trying to fake the death of a 5-year-old girl and her mom aboard the Costa Concordia cruise ship. … ‘Even after they were busted, they said “we would have gotten away with it” if the neighbor [posing as a grandmother] hadn’t embellished the story and said the girl was missing too,’ [attorney Peter] Ronai said.” [NY Daily News] “‘They’re called “jump-ons.” It’s normal, this is just on a grander scale,’ Ronai said. ‘People will do horrible things for money.'” [UPI]
One Comment
First- Kudos, Walter for posting this story about an ethical plaintiff’s lawyer busting these faudsters. I doubt it will get the same amount of attention that it would have if he had done the opposite, but it is always nice to see the 99% of us that try our best to do the right thing get some attention.
Second- I wish the article had explained what a jump-on is. It refers to people claiming to have been injured in bus accidents, who were never actually on the bus. Generally there would be passers-by or friends or relatives of real passengers who would claim to have been injured in the accident without having been there. Early in my career I worked in a firm that handled these cases, and I learned very quickly that if the name wasn’t on the police report, it was a scam. Many busses have cameras on them now, and more than one lawyer I know has been burned by a scammer who claimed to have been injured and then wasn’t on the video.