When their employee of less than six months claimed that her back was severely injured during a fall at work, Mary and Ted were alarmed. After all, their entire company was built on safety. In more than two decades of being in business, an employee had never been hurt on the job.
But soon after the woman claimed to be too injured to return to work, Mary and Ted began to smell a rat. They spoke to other employees about the incident. Unfortunately no one had seen the woman actually fall. There was no video to review since Mary and Ted had never seen cameras as a necessity in their place of business.
Shortly thereafter, the employee filed for workman’s compensation. Following that, Mary and Ted were contacted by her attorney. She was filing a lawsuit. At the same time, they began to hear around town that their very injured employee was actually moonlighting at a family member’s hair salon, for cash.
Although Mary and Ted could prove nothing, they turned all the information over to the workers compensation insurance company. That’s when was asked to conduct a worker’s compensation investigation.
- Using a technique called social media engineering the staff secured evidence through social media sites, that the injured employee was not so debilitated that she couldn’t enjoy dancing up a storm at a surprise birthday party.
- Using a hidden camera equipped with audio recording, a female investigator entered the hair salon and had a manicure by the injured employee, and of course, it was all on video. Because the investigator knows the importance of securing evidence, the video was handled so that it could be an admissible piece of evidence for future court proceedings.
- Using additional research options, the workers compensation fraud investigation uncovered that this injured back incident was not the first rodeo for this particular person. In two other states, she had claimed on-the-job injuries and settled out of court for damages.
Because of the top-level professional skills brought to this case to find justice, the insurance company was able to deny the claim and save premium costs for Mary and Ted. And, the worry over a lawsuit is gone, too.
As always, the focus of every case, including workers compensation fraud, handled by is to get to the truth of the matter. If the employee is disabled in an accident then that is the truth that will be uncovered. If not, then the result is worker compensation fraud. But the truth makes that determination.
-Brenda McGinley, CEO, All in Investigations, All in Investigations
