I've been following a story recently about an incident on the 401 highway in Toronto about a scam where one driver rolled back into the guy behind him and tried to scam him out of some money. Unbeknownst to the scammer, the victim had a dashcam and recorded the entire incident. After police investigation the scammer was charged with fraud over $5000, public mischief, and attempted fraud. The scammer had 26 previous traffic violations in the past 4 years and his family owns rehab clinics which are used to fraud insurance companies.

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/ar...d-and-mischief

The police just recently busted a huge fraud ring arresting 37 people.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/daily...193308872.html

This incident on the highway could have happened to anyone and without video evidence to protect yourself you could be royally screwed. 100% of the time, insurance companies lay fault with the driver from behind in cases where its one persons word against another. Your rates will increase and for the next 6 years you will have an at fault claim against you because of actions of these scammers.

I just want people to be aware and be careful. You never know when you will encounter one of these crooks. Best thing to do is be proactive and protect yourself by getting a dashcam.
If you have a smartphone you can even use that. I use an Iphone app called Witness Driving and it does the job until I get myself a dedicated dashcam.
Do your homework. Theres lots of cameras out there on ebay mostly made in China which may be cheap but are of poor quality.

Watch the video of the incident here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a0PtRevECE

If you put a camera in your car, people will break in and steal it. Then you'll have to pay for new windows and a new camera. That all seems rather a bother.

Hmmm and i would have less work to do prooving that the scammers are scamming.

Just take it with you or hide it so its not visible. Most of these dashcams are mounted with a windshield suction cup. Anyone who leaves any electronics visible to thieves are inviting their car to be broken into. I always take my GPS with me and plan to do the same with a dashcam.

I think I would feel very silly indeed if I parked my car, took out a camera, a GPS and a radio and walked off looking like a meth user headed to the pawnbrokers. What, you walk into pub and dump a armful of electrical gadgets on the bar? How sauve.

put them in a rucksack?

or in the trunk?

If hiding your dashcam is that much an effort for you then don't use one. Simple. If you leave your GPS in plain site then don't be surprised if your car gets broken into. For most people I would think having a dashcam to protect yourself from scammers is worth the minor inconvenience of unmounting your camera and putting it in your glovebox. Is it really that hard?

Of all the drivers in Canada, what % have succumbed to these scams?

While not belittling the experiences of those involved, by this logic we should live our lives with a Go-Pro camera attached to a brace on your shoulder.

Half measure. You need another on the other shoulder pointing backwards.

Damn, you're right!

You be suprised how many. Dont know what % but it is many fold. ;-) Most disconect the reverse light switch and go out lookin for cash not insurance payouts.

Less than 1% i would easily guess. 0.01% maybe?

I have one of those. I attached it to my dog when out on the beach the other day. Great stuff!!!

In the big picture, yeh you prob right. But its a big/small enough problem that the cops are cracking down on it.

Very anoying if it happened to you or i.