Latest Fraud Headlines
All the headlines from our Fraud Topic Page, ordered by recency.
U.S. Insurers Say Fraud Costs on the Rise: Survey
Oct 9 2012 // Forty-five percent of insurers estimated that insurance fraud costs represent 5-10 percent of their claims volume, while 32 percent said the ratio is as high as 20 percent. This is according to a survey of U.S. insurers...
Police Say Louisiana Stolen Property Website Helping Owners
Oct 8 2012 // A new website launched last month by the Opelousas Police Department to help the rightful owners to recover their stolen property is producing results. Police Chief Perry Gallow told The Daily World he personally returned...
Austin, San Antonio to Share $400K to Fight Intellectual Property Theft
Oct 5 2012 // United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas Robert Pitman announced that the San Antonio Police Department and the Austin Police Department will each receive $200,000 in federal grant money to combat the...
Father and Daughter in Central Calif. Workers’ Comp. Fraud Must Repay Over $600K
Oct 5 2012 // Jerry Buffington, 69, and Cynthia Russell, 47, have pled guilty in Kern County Superior Court to one count each of workers’ compensation insurance premium fraud and eight counts each of tax evasion and were ordered...
CNA Canada to Use CargoNet, NER to Combat Cargo Theft
Oct 5 2012 // CNA, a global business insurer, is now using CargoNet and the National Equipment Register (NER) — two national information sharing systems designed to help policyholders combat the growing problems of cargo and heavy...
Surplus Lines: Regulators Vetting of Alien Nonadmitted Insurers
Oct 4 2012 // The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is a non-profit entity that acts as the trade association for state insurance commissioners. Although the NAIC may play a central role in regulation of the...
Tennessee Court Upholds Man’s Paternity Fraud Claim
Oct 3 2012 // The Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a man who was misled into thinking he was a father and ordered the child’s mother to reimburse him more than $25,000 for child support, medical expenses and insurance...
New York’s Fraud Suit Against JPMorgan May Aid Private Lawsuits
Oct 3 2012 // New York state’s lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase & Co. alleging fraud in mortgage-backed securities sold by Bear Stearns may be one of the broadest cases to come out of the financial crisis, but its impact is...
US Fidelis Founders Sentenced to Prison in Missouri
Oct 2 2012 // The co-founders of defunct St. Louis-area auto service contract seller, US Fidelis, has been sentenced to prison on charges of stealing consumers’ refunds, insurance fraud and consumer fraud. Missouri Attorney...
Mississippi Ending 11-Year Old Insurance Fraud Case Involving Frankel
Oct 1 2012 // Mississippi officials are dropping the remnants of an 11-year-old lawsuit after collecting as much money as they think they can get in reparations for insurance fraud by a convicted financier who claimed Vatican...
Ohio Insurance Agent Sentenced for $39K Theft
Sep 24 2012 // A Cincinnati, Ohio-area insurance agent has been sentenced for theft from Hamilton County residents, the Ohio Department of Insurance announced. Former Ohio insurance agent Cecil Young, of Cincinnati, was sentenced to four...
Former Hackensack, N.J., Police Chief Sentenced for Insurance Fraud
Sep 21 2012 // A judge sentenced former Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa to five years in prison on Thursday. Zisa will remain free on bail while he appeals his conviction for improperly removing his then-girlfriend from the scene of an...
Former Arkansas Agency Owner, Standridge, Pleads Not Guilty in Fraud Cases
Sep 20 2012 // A Mount Ida, Ark., man who operated several insurance agencies across the state has pleaded not guilty to federal fraud charges. Steven Alan Standridge entered the pleas Sept. 18 in federal court. He was indicted in August...
Maine State Worker Guilty of Workers Comp Fraud
Sep 20 2012 // A state Transportation Department worker has been convicted of stealing thousands of dollars’ worth of workers compensation benefits by doing strenuous activities at his home when he was supposedly too hurt to...
Bank Group Warns of Heightened Risk of Cyber Attacks
Sep 20 2012 // A financial services industry group warned U.S. banks, brokerages and insurers on Wednesday to be on heightened alert for cyber attacks after Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase experienced unexplained outages on their...
Virginia Woman Sentenced for Health Care Fraud
Sep 19 2012 // A Richmond woman has been sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison for health care fraud and other offenses. A federal judge last Thursday also ordered Veronica Sharon Cunningham to pay more than $6.6 million in...
US Fidelis Co-Owner Gets 40 Months in Prison
Sep 19 2012 // A former co-owner of auto service contract seller US Fidelis has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison. Cory Atkinson of Lake St. Louis, Mo., was sentenced Sept. 18 in St. Louis. He pleaded guilty in...
US Bank: Lawsuit in Iowa Fraud Scandal ‘Without Merit’
Sep 19 2012 // US Bank is rejecting allegations in a lawsuit that claims one of its employees helped Peregrine Financial Group CEO Russ Wasendorf Sr. mislead regulators about his misuse of customer funds. Wasendorf, the founder of the...
Tennessee Insurance Agent Pleads Guilty to Stealing Premiums
Sep 19 2012 // A Dyersburg, Tenn., former insurance agent is scheduled for sentencing next month after she entered guilty pleas to felony theft charges. Tina Butler was indicted on charges that she took insurance premium money from 16...
Mass. Woman Charged With 46 Counts of Motor Vehicle Insurance Fraud
Sep 17 2012 // A Rockland, Mass., woman has been indicted in connection with a scheme to fraudulently collect insurance payments of more than $28,000. The Massachusetts attorney general’s office announced last Friday that Olga...
