As more and more people feel the strain from our country’s recession, an increasing number of people are turning to desperate measures to escape debt. Law enforcement officers and insurance adjusters are seeing an increased number of insurance fraud cases in the last year. Methods vary, but may include dumping cars in lakes, intentionally having cars stolen, torching cars and more. Many owners are doing these crimes just to escape the bills that keep piling up.
The current Texas unemployment rate is at 8.2%, the highest it has been since 1992. With statistics like this, it is easy to predict that these illegal activities will only become more frequent in upcoming months, even years.
Most people who commit these crimes have never been in trouble with the law before. The majority are middle to upper class people with massive car payments. They are known as “owner giveups” -too desperate to consider the possible consequences. Houston has become the number one location in the nation for these types of crimes.
“Most of them have never been in trouble before, but they lost their job, had a decrease in income or some problem and they can’t afford their vehicle,” said Dallas County sheriff’s investigator Tom Reilly, who has handled 115 cases this year and is the only officer in the state devoted strictly to investigating owner give-ups. “They don’t want to ruin their credit.”
It seems unlikely that these desperate car owners believe they will be caught. When they are, the consequences are much worse than an expensive car payment. Criminal charges for these types of crimes may include 20 years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines. Even with a top Houston criminal attorney, the charges are difficult to fight, due to the amount of evidence against the suspect.
To read more about owner giveups, please read the article in the Star Telegram. Image via Chazz Lane [Flickr].
Tags: arson, car insurance fraud, desperation, felonies, insurance fraud, vehicle arson