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[kathryn77]

These two girls (who, if they are guilty, should have known better as they are law graduates) have found themselves in a Brazilian jail (without bail) after reporting a theft on a bus (items later claimed to have been found in the girls hostel)

Read the article here

Do not mess with Brazilian police.

When I was living there, gringos were always reporting thefts in hostels. Personally, I think most of these claims were similar insurance scams, but what they didn't think of (if they were scams) was the consequences - cleaners losing their jobs for example because the hostel owner acted as the police in those situations - firing them (without proof) for theft, as they'd been the unlucky one cleaning the room that day.

[sianeth]

It'll be interesting to see if more information comes out about what really happened, and whether it was a scam or not, I don't want to make any judgements of them on this info alone.

I just can't understand the mindset of anyone who would want to actually pull an insurance scam like this... if no-one else had ever thought of it, it would literally never cross my mind that anything like that was even a possibility - as you said it just ends up screwing other people over out of greed. Even if things got nicked from me I'd probably blame myself for being careless and not want to kick up a fuss about it and try and just learn my lesson for next time.

[mmbcross]

Sianeth, you are so honest. Oh that everyone were like you.

When I lived in Brazil we often received American Express travelers cheques in payment for tours or services. We always made sure the signatures agreed. Then we started getting denied payment as the owners of the cheques claimed they had been stolen. We later found out that it wasn't exactly a scam, as the cheques were indeed stolen, but the owners had not kept a record of the cheques used, so just declared all of them stolen. This was beginning to happen so often that most merchants in Rio stopped accepting American Express travellers cheques.

Fortunately Travellers cheques are now pretty much a thing of the past.

[kilgiraffe]

I don't think I've ever touched a travellers cheque..

But that sounds kinda stupid. If you're going to do something like that, don't keep the items on you *rolls eyes* Sigh, people and their greed.. But if that amount of stuff had actually gotten stolen from me and I had insurance, I would've probably make some form of claim. That's a lot of things to just "brush off".. otherwise, I agree with sianeth