September 2013 - All in Investigations

Computer Forensic Examination is Becoming Routine Part of Investigations

Computer forensics investigations are not just about catching individual employees or spouses or scammers doing wrong, a computer forensic examination can also be used to support the claims of whistleblowers. Just recently an article in which whistle-blowing employees of a big bank exposed a culture where they claim, “We were told to lie” and that the culture was rampant from the top down. Because has been on the forefront of computer forensics, we know the amount of evidence that is thought to be available in their computers is massive. If an investigation is begun, computer forensics electronic discovery is expected to be employed to capture files including emails, reports and evaluations. With the amount of data to be collected, even with the authorities involved, they [...]

What is Insurance Fraud?

What do you think of when you hear the words, insurance fraud? At , we don’t have one description in particular because not only is every case we work on different, but insurance fraud encompasses many different situations. I thought we might take this opportunity to share some of them with you. Workers compensation fraud (WC) – This is over and above a claim for medical expenses. Claimants file claims alleging a disability that prevents them from working as they did previously. It can be a short-term or long-term claim, or even off and on. Workers compensation fraud investigations saves consumers millions of dollars every year. Long term disability fraud (LTD) – This has to do with an insurance policy. Someone buys a policy and [...]

Insurance Fraud Investigators Supply Evidence for Trials

Sometimes when is conducting an investigation on the subject in a potentially fraudulent insurance claim, the result of the evidence can be more than a simple claim denial. Sometimes there is the potential for criminal charges. This is true in many insurance fraud investigations including: Workers compensation fraud investigations Long term disability fraud investigations Auto bodily injury fraud investigations Personal injury fraud investigations or slip and fall fraud investigations Product liability fraud investigations Our investigators know that every case has to be handled as if the data we collect would be used in a court of law. That includes not only videotaped data, computer or cell phone data extracted during a forensics analysis but any other type of information or evidence collected as well. Therefore, [...]

Investigator’s Collection of Data Leads to Confession of Insurance Fraud

When the economy takes a dive or unemployment is high, the incidence of insurance fraud tends to increase as well. It’s not just greed that compels policy holders to commit insurance fraud, it is also desperation. And that is not limited to disability insurance fraud or slip and fall accidents. For example, insurance fraud investigators had a case where a car had caught fire and burned. It was a total loss. Because of a recent change to the policy coverage, a red flag went up to the adjuster and that’s why our investigator was called in. After investigating the claimant, it was uncovered that he had recently lost his job and had taken a lower-paying position with another company. Not too long after that happened, [...]

Insurance Fraud Investigators Throw a Black Flag on Racer’s Claims

Insurance fraud costs insurance companies and, subsequently, their customers, a huge amount of money every year. We believe that insurance companies do want to pay the legitimate claims as much as they want to ferret out the cases where claims are fraudulent. But it is often difficult to tell the difference. Soft tissue injuries are difficult to prove or disprove. Sometimes these are part of slip and fall injury claims, sometimes the underpinning of a personal injury investigation or an auto bodily injury investigation. In this case, it was a both a workers compensation fraud investigation and a long term disability fraud investigation. This memorable case was that of a young man who said he was hurt at work. No one witnessed the accident, but [...]

Forensic Cell Tower Evidence is Accurate Only with Complete and Complex Analysis

received a call from a defense attorney on the east coast regarding a cellular forensics report he had received from the prosecution that concluded that the forensic cellular evidence proved his client was in the area of the scene of a crime at the time the crime was committed. The prosecutor had no physical evidence placing his client at the scene, and his client had an alibi corroborated by the client’s mother. He requested our cellphone expert review the report. Cell phone tracking using cellular tower triangulation is not as simple as it initially looks. And because it looks like a simple identification process, the conclusions can be inaccurate and erroneous. In order to accurately go about locating cellular locations, not only does the cell [...]

Insurance Fraud Stacks Deception on Top of Desperation

There are so many different aspects to insurance fraud. Besides fraudulent claims and falsely-acquired settlements, money may be a motivator for other types of insurance fraud. Take, for example the case of a man who lost his job. He had a wife and three children and suddenly found it impossible to find employment. He was desperate so he faked a slip and fall accident at the local mall. He claimed his slip and fall injuries were significant enough to prevent him from working and because it is difficult to prove or disprove soft tissue injuries, the insurance company was reluctant to settle quickly. His situation grew direr because now he was unable to even look for a job because it would show he was faking [...]

It’s More Challenging When a Missing Person Search is Looking for a She

Gender makes a difference in how to find missing persons successfully. Men are more easily tracked down. Why is that so? When conducting a missing person search on a woman, you have different paths to follow, such as: Name changes – Since women traditionally take the surname of their male spouse, they can have several different names during their lifetime – depending on how many times they marry. That makes it a challenge to find missing persons. A marriage could be ended through divorce, death or even just running away and hiding. There are a lot of clues and documentation that would uncover the facts, but it requires a great deal of hands-on, persistent determination to move from county to county and state to state [...]

Monthly Archives: September 2013