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The wildest insurance fraud scheme in Texas

texasmonthly.com

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Re: The wildest insurance fraud scheme in Texas

#41

Post by dragonwriter »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #39
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #3

I don't want to read a novel before being able to understand what this is about. At least the article could provide a quick glimpse at what the fraud scheme is. I kept reading for 5-6 minutes and then lost interest.

No joke. 4 out of 5 times I open a news article on HN it is some kind of novella I have no interest in. In our age of short time spans and competition for attention you would think news magazines would be concise and to the point, I would even say, lapidary. But for some reason they became an outlet for graphomania?

> In our age of short time spans and competition for attention you would think news magazines would be concise and to the point,

There are terse news outlets, but news magazines whole reason for existence, from the beginning, is providing deeper, more complete coverage of fewer stories than “short-deadline, break-it-first” media like TV and newspapers.

Re: The wildest insurance fraud scheme in Texas

#42

Post by michaelcampbell »

tantalor wrote: post #32
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #3

I don't want to read a novel before being able to understand what this is about. At least the article could provide a quick glimpse at what the fraud scheme is. I kept reading for 5-6 minutes and then lost interest.

A 6 hundred word article is blown up to 6 thousand words to fill more pages and sell more ads. It's not for the benefit of the reader.

There were exactly 0 ads in that piece (unless you consider the 1 pitch to subscribe to that same magazine an ad).

Re: The wildest insurance fraud scheme in Texas

#44

Post by ideals »

theli0nheart wrote: post #33

Given how long it took to catch him, after years of outrageous purchases and shady business dealings, it makes me wonder if frauds are much more common than conventional wisdom would lead one to believe.

Well MLM scams are alive and well today and have been coming out of Utah for the last 20 years so I'd say fraud is pretty common. Check Craigslist for some fun frauds and scams, they're right out in the open. Social media are open markets for fraud too

Re: The wildest insurance fraud scheme in Texas

#46

Post by wyldfire »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #3

I don't want to read a novel before being able to understand what this is about. At least the article could provide a quick glimpse at what the fraud scheme is. I kept reading for 5-6 minutes and then lost interest.

> I don't want to read a novel

I don't think you're the audience this article is intended for. The article is written intentionally to be like a novella -- it's for a magazine. News/journalism sites are much more "just the facts ma'am"-focused.

Re: The wildest insurance fraud scheme in Texas

#48

Post by simonebrunozzi »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #26
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #3

I don't want to read a novel before being able to understand what this is about. At least the article could provide a quick glimpse at what the fraud scheme is. I kept reading for 5-6 minutes and then lost interest.

I don't understand this comment at all. First of all, the first paragraph is about a suspicious plane fire - the plane literally burned in half sitting in a hangar. That should provide you some hint about what the fraud scheme is going to be. There's even an animated image of a plane on fire! Did you need the author to print "this is a story about insurance fraud" in big bold print at the top of the story? Secondly,…

For you, my comment is worthless. Perhaps it is not for other people.

The fact that I did not read the entire LONG article is precisely what made me comment on how lengthy the article is, without providing enough context to know how the fraud scheme was perpetrated.

Re: The wildest insurance fraud scheme in Texas

#49

Post by NelsonMinar »

I gotta say, ditching a small airplane 30 miles off shore in the Gulf of Mexico is a hell of a risky way to collect $50,000 in an insurance payout. You've got a lot of faith in your ability to make a "water landing", much less that someone comes out and gets you before something goes wrong.

Re: The wildest insurance fraud scheme in Texas

#50

Post by simonebrunozzi »

jasode wrote: post #37
bluedevil2k wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this comment at all. First of all, the first paragraph is about a suspicious plane fire - the plane literally burned in half sitting in a hangar. That should provide you some hint about what the fraud scheme is going to be. There's even an animated image of a plane on fire! Did you need the author to print "this is a story about insurance fraud" in big bold print at the top of the story? Secondly,…

>I don't understand this comment at all. [...] Why even both writing a waste of a comment? I understand where the op's reading frustration is coming from. For some urls that point to pdf files or racy content, we might put informal warning tags such as "[pdf]" or "[NSFW]". But there really isn't a meta tag such as "[human_interest_story]" to warn readers of this type of article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-in…

> One type of reader just wants the mechanics of the insurance fraud explained.

Exactly me. And I was not familiar with TexasMonthly, despite having lived in the US (California) for the last 8 years. (I am originally from Europe)

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