Eideard

In a new variation on the “brick in a box” scam, a South Carolina woman who thought she purchased an iPad from two men in a McDonald’s parking lot discovered yesterday that the purported tablet was actually “a piece of wood painted black with an Apple logo.”

According to a Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office report, Ashley McDowell, 22, told deputies that she was approached by two black males who claimed to have purchased iPads in bulk and were selling them for $300 apiece. After McDowell explained that she only had $180, the duo agreed to sell her the device at a cut rate.

But when McDowell drove home and opened the FedEx box containing the iPad, she instead discovered the wood with the Apple logo. The “screen”–which was framed with black tape–included replicas of iPad icons for Safari, mail, photos, and an iPod. It also had what cops described as a “Best Buy sales ticket…”

Deputies have dusted the phony iPad for fingerprints. McDowell told probers that the swindlers were driving “a white Impala with no rims and no tint.” One of the men, she noted, “had a gold tooth.”

Har.

Here’s a link to the original police report. How did they keep a straight face?

Fishing grounds closed – 2200 extra licenses sold – uh, huh

BP has paid out more than $308m in compensation to individuals and businesses since the oil spill, but fishermen and Gulf of Mexico officials fear some of that money might have gone to fraudsters.

Oysterman Pete Vujnovich has been out of work for the past several months. He spends most of his days tidying his boat – the Captain Pete – waiting for the waters around his home in Barataria Bay to reopen to fishing.

A couple months ago, he says, two men he had never seen before approached him near his boat and asked him to sign a paper saying they had worked for him – so they could claim BP compensation.

“Of course,” he says. “I didn’t sign.” Mr Vujnovich says he has heard of other fraud attempts. “Some of the other boat captains have been offered a thousand dollars to sign a piece of paper vouching for other people,” he says.

In order to claim compensation from BP, fishermen must prove they hold a commercial fishing license. The only place to get one in Louisiana is the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) in Baton Rouge.

Since the oil spill, roughly 2,200 more commercial licences have been sold than in the same period last year, despite many fishing grounds being closed.

No – I’m not surprised.

Lt Col Jeff Mayne of the LDWF Law Enforcement Division says some of those licences may have been used to commit fraud.

“Originally BP was paying cheques to just anybody who had a licence and that may have spurred some of the fraud,” he says. “There were no real checks and balances on whether they were they really commercial fishermen.”

In the past week, LDWF made its first three arrests in relation to fraudulent oil spill compensation claims…

BP has a special unit currently investigating several hundred cases of possible fraud. Adjusters in claims centres around Louisiana have also been warned to be on the lookout…

Oysterman Pete Vujnovich says, “At the heart of this industry is a core of really good people, and we don’t want that reputation tarnished.”

I wish I could say the same about Louisiana politicians – right down to the level of parish pundits who get on TV every chance they can to blather about how no one is trying hard enough to solve whatever it is they’re whining about this week – to get re-elected this Fall.

A little-noticed measure would put Christian Science healing sessions on the same footing as clinical medicine. Critics say it violates the separation of church and state.

I wouldn’t use the word “critics”. How about people with a brain? How about Constitutionalist?

Reporting from Washington – Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.

The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist.

The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments — which substitute for or supplement medical treatments — on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against “religious and spiritual healthcare.”

It would have a minor effect on the overall cost of the bill — Christian Science is a small church, and the prayer treatments can cost as little as $20 a day. But it has nevertheless stirred an intense controversy over the constitutional separation of church and state, and the possibility that other churches might seek reimbursements for so-called spiritual healing…

Dr. Norman Fost, a pediatrician and medical ethicist at the University of Wisconsin, said the measure went against the goal of reducing healthcare costs by improving evidence-based medical practices.

“They want a special exception for people who use unproved treatments, and they also want to get paid for it,” he said. “They want people who use prayer to have it just automatically accepted as a legitimate therapy.”

Let’s face it. The religious nutballs who dedicate their lives to bankrolls and political power will jump on this bandwagon like stink on a cesspool.

A couple who claimed benefits while sailing around the world in a £100,000 yacht have been told that they face jail.

Shashi Bacheta, 52, and Jeffrey Coles, 58, had spent almost two years sailing around the world on the 70ft vessel, living off the proceeds from their post office and property businesses. They were found out when photographs emerged of them sailing the yacht in the Canaries.

Bacheta claimed she was so ill she could not get out of bed in Swansea, when in fact she was scuba diving off Kenya. By the end of the sailing trip she had claimed almost £50,000 in housing benefits, disability living allowances, council tax relief and income support. Coles helped her to obtain an extra £12,000 and backed up her claims that they were not living together.

The fraud came undone after they came across two former police officers in Gran Canaria who were also sailing the world. Months later, Jeffrey Fish, who investigated the couple on behalf of Swansea county council, found mention of their yacht, Kismet, on a blog kept by the retired police officers and a photograph showing Bacheta and Coles looking tanned in the Canaries. Fish said the pictures contradicted Bacheta’s claims that she was so ill she needed 24-hour care. “The photograph said it all.”

Some crooks are so smug about their crookedness they think no one will ever catch them. Did they never hear of the Internet?