Why Brits got the bug for holiday sickness scams
British holidaymakers lead the world when it comes to false compensation claims – and now travel companies are fighting back. What has caused these nasty ‘gastroenteritis wars’ being fought across the Mediterranean?
In October 2013, Sean and Caroline Bondarenko spent a week at the five-star Caldera Palace hotel in Crete. Then they returned home. Three years passed. According to reports, in September 2016, the pair then put in a personal injury claim against the hotel for food poisoning. They had allegedly been so desperately ill that they were asking for £10,000 in damages.
The couple were reported as saying they would never have made their claim if a claims management company hadn’t encouraged them to do so. After all, they had only been ill for one day. And only a bit. If the case had been anything like the vast bulk of gastric illness claims, the hotel wouldn’t have contested it at all: the couple would have got a cheque to cover their next couple of holidays.
But it appears that things didn’t turn out that way. In May, the Caldera Palace opened a countersuit against the Bondarenkos for defamation. It had evidence from hotel cameras, it said, of the pair actively enjoying their holiday. And more of the same from the couple’s Facebook feed. The Caldera Palace is asking for £170,000 in reputational damages. If the suit succeeds, the Bondarenkos stand to forfeit their Darlington house. They are, understandably, worried.