You can find anything on Craigslist, and if you can’t, Google will help you find it somewhere else. From car insurance to bogus proof of car insurance, it’s all just a click and a debit away.
The Michigan Secretary of State’s Office wondered just how big of a problem fake insurance cards were so it conducted a 1-day study 2 years ago and found that 16.1% of all people asked to provide proof of insurance on July 31, 2013 presented false proof.While you might scoff at a 1-day sample, a total of 15,000 people were involved. Most had digital proof, but of the 3400 presenting paper documents as proof, about 600 presented false proof.
Three additional 1-day surveys were conducted, with an overall result of just over 9% of people presenting invalid proofs of insurance. At least 1 person has been arrested for making false claims that he was an insurance agent and for collecting premiums on policies that did not exist.
Investigators found 30 cases where people presented similar cards, all of which had a QR code which, when scanned led to a website that proclaimed the virtues of Llamas, but had no information on how to file a claim.
A department spokesperson cautions that not all of the false proofs were fraudulent, some were simply invalid or not current. Still, Fred Woodhams noted that many were fraudulent. He says the state has formed a task force to investigate the problem and has hired additional staff to verify proofs of insurance. He noted that while some drivers knowingly purchase or produce fake proofs of insurance, others have thought they were buying insurance when in fact they were buying nothing but a piece of paper.
“It’s a real problem when they get in an accident and discover they have no insurance,” he said.
Secretary of State Ruth Johnson has declared that Michigan is not looking the other way on this issue. “We are going to put the brakes on the criminals who are selling this stuff and are preying on unsuspecting Michigan drivers,” she said.
