Asked to justify why bike removal from policy requested.

[GSite]

Phoned Hastings the other day to advise that I had sold a bike and requested it be removed from the multi-bike policy.
Before they could action this the person has to speak to a "senior" whatever that means who in turn asked why I had made so many changes to the policy and that the explanation would determine the outcome, what ? They did not or could not explain why this was required.

The explantion is that I renewed the Multi-bike policy for the GS and Harley in March having been insured on those bikes with Hastings for two previous years. Added the Norton Commando owned for over a year to the policy when it's insuance expired in April, then sold the GS this week. They can see this so what else could they wish to know, just that the Norton was insured elsewhere the previous year and the GS sold as I was not using it much.

Stating that an unsatisfactory explanation may change the outcome seems odd, they only thing I can think of is that they suspect I may be dealer trying to get private insurance on bikes I am buying and selling to earn money.

Anyway, this seemed to satisfy them with a return of the princely sum of £13 after waiving the admin fee, other wise it would have cost more than the original premium to cancel, same old really. Interestingly, if I added bar risers to the Norton worth say £25, the increase in premium was £40, yet when I bought the policy it made no difference, don't think so Hastings, will make do without them.

 

[Nice 'n' Fat]

Stating that an unsatisfactory explanation may change the outcome seems odd, they only thing I can think of is that they suspect I may be dealer trying to get private insurance on bikes I am buying and selling to earn money.

It's this

 

[Wapping]

It’s also possible that the chimp thought that you might be money laundering. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s a ploy used. Insure something (that you might not even own) paying the premium with ‘dirty’ money and then cancel the insurance. Yes, you’d very probably get back less than prorata but the money that came back would be ‘clean’.

Anyway, it all seems to have been resolved and nobody died.

 

[JoeBiff]

Wow.
£13 money laundering exercise?
Name and address supplied.
Brokers knew where the original money trail lay, when the policy was purchased…..

I wouldn’t be asking @GSite to be a drugs mule for me.

 

[Wapping]

It’s only a possible guess.

The amount is irrelevant. A lot of public facing brokers have call centres with software that flags up supposed ‘odd patterns’, not dissimilar to ‘odd behaviour’ or ‘please enter your pin code’ for bank cards. Insurance premiums are a very easy way to launder money, as the threshold checks were very low.

As with many mass scams, the laundering is often done in bulk, via hubs well outside of the UK. With potentially millions of real and automated transactions a month, it is very easy shove umpteen fake entries through.

The junior chimp probably has no choice but to refer it up the chain.

Anyway, the OP has got his £13 and the world still rotates on its axis.

 

[Wapping]

Money laundering is easy.

I buy a car with cash, using grubby money. I then sell it. The money that comes back is ‘clean’ as it relates to a vehicle I’ve sold.

Set up a barber’s shop, accepting only cash. Grubby money in, suddenly becomes ‘clean’ as it’s logged against nonexistent haircuts. Pop-up shops and food stalls, too. 50 transactions of £10 a day, £500 for 7 days, is £3,500 a week in ‘cleaned’ money. I am being modest with the numbers. 10 shops £35,000 a week. That’s £1.8 million a year.

 

[wessie]

Money laundering is easy.

I buy a car with cash, using grubby money. I then sell it. The money that comes back is ‘clean’ as it relates to a vehicle I’ve sold.

Set up a barber’s shop, accepting only cash. Grubby money in, suddenly becomes ‘clean’ as it’s logged against nonexistent haircuts. Pop-up shops and food stalls, too. 50 transactions of £10 a day, £500 for 7 days, is £3,500 a week in ‘cleaned’ money. I am being modest with the numbers. 10 shops £35,000 a week.

I've always wondered if they rotate the ownership of the businesses every few months to remain under the VAT threshold or whether they are paying a proportion if the laundered money to HMRC in VAT. If the latter, it would be something of a dis-incentive for the Westminster government to clamp down on these outfits as the sums taken could be substantial.

 

[Wapping]

I've always wondered if they rotate the ownership of the businesses every few months to remain under the VAT threshold or whether they are paying a proportion if the laundered money to HMRC in VAT. If the latter, it would be something of a dis-incentive for the Westminster government to clamp down on these outfits as the sums taken could be substantial.

Lord only knows.

It’s easier for HMG and / or the local council to ping bods for £60 a pop for entering a bus lane, than to spend time and money investigating dodgy vape shops (bods here will use them, no doubt) or freeloading and thieving pikeys, drawing on their rights to be a pain in the arse and worse.

More often than not, it takes dedicated journalists to investigate and then expose wrong doings, of all sorts. But journalists are all scum… I read it here.

 

[JoeBiff]

I’m still amused at money laundering for a diddly-squat £13.
It’ll take me all weekend to get over that. Maybe the whole of next week, too.

 

[Wapping]

I’m still amused at money laundering for a diddly-squat £13.

Whilst you amuse yourself with that. Others are running tens of hundreds through it. It explains why swindlers and worse moved into into insurance as a way of laundering money. You don’t expect it.

Straight fraud (fake claims) yes, but pushing through potentially significant premiums and then reversing them out, with nobody batting an eyelid. That’s actually quite easy, until an algorithm spots a potential number of accumulative reversals.

On fraud: About 15 years ago, we were approached by some Russians. They had a genius plan. They had set up a Russian reinsurance company…. Alarm bell one.

The dimwits told me, siting across a table in EC3, that they wanted us to send them business with big loss frequency and high loss reserves. For example, liability and motor, for which the reserve might stay high for a number of years and finally be settled for less. The Russians would send us large sums of money, equal to the reserve. When the claim was finally settled for less, we’d send the balance back but to a different entity. A child of five could smell money laundering for potentially millions.

They never quite explained what was in it for us…. And believe me I asked; explaining that as I’d probably be going to prison, I would want more than a bottle of fake vodka and a past sell by date tin of dodgy caviar.

Imbeciles!

 

[JoeBiff]

Dealt with Russians most of my working life.
Rule number one; don’t trust them or take them at face value.
Don’t get into bed with them and there’s no such thing as a ‘genuis plan’