Sweet Daddy’s Mercedes - How One is Tempted to Commit Fraud

True Crime Stories of Insurance Fraud Number 18

Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE presents videos so you can learn how insurance fraud is perpetrated and what is necessary to deter or defeat insurance fraud. This Video Blog of True Crime Stories of Insurance Fraud with the names and places changed to protect the guilty are all based upon investigations conducted by me and fictionalized to create a learning environment for claims personnel, SIU investigators, insurers, police, and lawyers better understand insurance fraud and weapons that can be used to deter or defeat a fraudulent insurance claim.

Sweet Daddy’s Mercedes

She was eighteen and beautiful. Young men chased her. Old men drooled. Middle-aged men bought her presents. She graduated from high school with a solid C minus average. She read on a sixth-grade level. She had a limited vocabulary and no employable skills. She could type ten words a minute using one finger on each hand. A computer-controlled telephone system threw her into a panic and a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) system made no sense. Dictating machines confused her. Photocopy machines hated her. E-mail was an enigma.

She had one skill. She pleased middle-aged men. They felt young in her presence. She knew, instinctively, what to say to make them happy. They in turn wanted only to make her happy.

Her one skill got her the job as Big Daddy’s administrative assistant. She would get Big Daddy coffee in the morning. She would go to the corner and buy the morning papers. She rubbed his neck when he was tired and sharpened his pencils. She carried his dictation tapes to his secretary.

Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon she and Big Daddy would visit a local hotel and she would give him pleasure. Big Daddy paid her twice the salary he paid his professional secretary. He also gave her a Mercedes Benz 500SL automobile. Big Daddy was so impressed with her services that he put title to the Mercedes in her name. At age eighteen she owned a $150,000 automobile and earned $110,000 a year. She lived comfortably in a two-bedroom apartment in Cambridge. She was happy. When she was happy, Big Daddy was happy.

Big Daddy had a wife and four children he had no intention of leaving. So, every night Big Daddy went to his house and she went to hers. She became lonely.

Cambridge is a college town. She would go out to eat in the local restaurants and sit around the bar watching television and getting to know the local college boys. She did not understand their discussions of literature or philosophy but she knew how to make them happy. When Big Daddy would go away for two weeks on a business trip, she became very lonely. On those lonely weekends she would sometimes take a college boy home with her.

© 2022 – Barry Zalma

Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE, now limits his practice to service as an insurance consultant specializing in insurance coverage, insurance claims handling, insurance bad faith and insurance fraud almost equally for insurers and policyholders.

He practiced law in California for more than 44 years as an insurance coverage and claims handling lawyer and more than 54 years in the insurance business.

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You can contact Mr. Zalma at https://www.zalma.com, https://www.claimschool.com, [email protected] and [email protected] . Mr. Zalma is the first recipient of the first annual Claims Magazine/ACE Legend Award.

You may find interesting the podcast “Zalma On Insurance” at https://anchor.fm/barry-zalma;  you can follow Mr. Zalma on Twitter at; you should  see Barry Zalma’s videos on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCysiZklEtxZsSF9DfC0Expg/featured; or videos on https://rumble.com/zalma. Go to the Insurance Claims Library – https://zalma.com/blog/insurance-claims–library/ The last two issues of ZIFL are available at https://zalma.com/zalmas-insurance-fraud-letter-2/